The BasicsLive channel
Why Japan is shrinking
Japan's population peaked in 2008. Here is the arithmetic behind the decline — and what it means.
Transcript
- Iris CalderJapan's population is shrinking. It has been for more than fifteen years.
- Iris CalderIt peaked in two thousand and eight, at about one hundred and twenty-eight million people. Since then, the line has only gone one way.
- Iris CalderThe reason is simple arithmetic. In twenty twenty-four, about six hundred and eighty-six thousand babies were born in Japan, the fewest since records began in eighteen ninety-nine.
- Iris CalderOn average, each woman now has about one point one five children. A population holds steady at around two point one.
- Iris CalderSo the official projection keeps falling: to about eighty-seven million people by twenty seventy.
- Nora LindqvistNumbers like these are easy to read, and hard to feel. What they describe is a country growing older.
- Nora LindqvistFewer workers. More retirees. Emptier towns.
- Nora LindqvistThat is the problem every government in Tokyo now has to solve.
- Iris CalderThat's The Basics, from The North China Times.
