Official statistics in Japan revealed this morning that the number of births in the country decreased this year by about 6% to less than 900 thousand births, for the first time since the government began collecting the relevant data in 1899.
Reuters quoted analysts that the shrinking number of births - according to the Ministry of Social Affairs in Tokyo - may lead to the transfer of more funds allocated for social care to support the increasing costs of caring for the growing number of elderly people, and will undermine economic growth eventually.
The deaths exceeded the number of births this year by a difference of 512,000, and this is the first time that the difference is greater than 500,000, where only 864,000 births were registered, while the number of births last year reached 918,000.
One of the reasons for this contraction in the birth rate is the decrease in the numbers of women aged between 25 and 39, according to the official in charge of collecting data at the Japanese ministry.
The government of Japan announced hopes for a birth rate of 1.8 per cent, which might be difficult to achieve considering the rate was 1.42 per cent in 2018.
According to the World Bank, the population of Japan as of 2018 is at 126.5 million, including foreign residents. The population of only Japanese nationals was 124.8 million in January 2019. Japan was the world's tenth-most populous country as of 2018.
Since 2010, Japan has experienced net population loss due to falling birth rates and minimal immigration, despite having one of the highest life expectancies in the world, at 85.00 years as of 2016.
Based on 2012 data from the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, Japan's population will keep declining by about one million people every year in the coming decades, which would leave it with a population of around 70 million by 2060 and 42 million by early 22nd century if the current projections do not change.
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