Japan, where three out of 10 people are elderly, recorded its largest natural population decline on record last year as fewer babies were born and deaths soared스포츠토토.
According to the Yomiuri Shimbun and Nihongeizai Shimbun (Nikkei) on Wednesday, the Japanese government announced the previous day that the number of Japanese births last year was provisionally estimated at 777,747 and the number of deaths at 1,568,961.
The number of births was the lowest on record, down by more than 40,000 from 2021, while the number of deaths was the highest on record, up by about 130,000.
This resulted in a natural loss of 788,214 people. This is the largest since the statistics have been kept. The figure is half that of Fukuoka, Kyushu’s largest city, and similar to Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture’s most populous city, and Bucheon, South Korea.
The total fertility rate, which is the number of live births a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, was also 1.26, down from the record low of 2005. Of the 47 metropolitan areas, only Tottori and Toyama prefectures saw a significant increase in fertility rates.
“We recognize the declining birthrate as a silent parallel to the crisis,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, a spokesman for the Japanese government, said at a press conference the day before.
He went on to emphasize that the government wants to put the brakes on the declining birthrate by realizing a society where young people can marry and raise children with peace of mind.
Last year, the number of marriages in Japan rose slightly to 504,878, the highest in three years, but still below the 597,000 in 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The Japanese government expects the fertility rate to rise gradually after next year, but the trend of people not having children because they are worried about the burden of childcare is spreading rapidly,” Yomiuri said. “Support measures to stabilize employment and increase income for young people are needed.”