TOKYO: The Japanese health ministry described the nation’s birth rate as ‘critical’, on Wednesday. The ministry released data which depicts that Japan’s birth rate (the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her life) stood at ‘1.2’, last year. This is well below the ‘2.1’ children needed, in order to maintain the population.

The figure fell from ‘1.26’ in 2022 and hit a ‘record low’. This was the eighth consecutive yearly decline in the country which is home to 124 million people. The government is now moving to improve support for parents.

“The continuing decline in the birth rate is a critical situation,” a health ministry official (in charge of the data), told the press. “Various factors, such as economic instability and difficulties in juggling work and child-rearing” can be blamed for the falling figures, she stated.

Declining birth rates are a common trend in developed countries and Japan’s rate is still above that of its neighbour South Korea (which has the world’s lowest at ‘0.72’).

However, with the world’s oldest population after Monaco, Japan is scrambling for ways to encourage a ‘baby boom’, to avert a looming demographic crisis.

On Wednesday, parliament approved revisions to laws, in order to provide increased financial support to parents, improved access to childcare services and expanded parental leave benefits.

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2024