TOKYO: Japan’s population continues to shrink at a record pace, with the number of Japanese falling to 122.4 million, 801,000 fewer than a year earlier.
This is the sharpest decline since since the survey began in 1968, the Ministry of the Interior in Tokyo announced on Wednesday, reported German news agency (dpa).
On top of the record 1.57 million deaths last year, there were only 772,000 births – fewer than ever before.
For the first time, all 47 prefectures in the country recorded a decline in the number of Japanese citizens.
Including foreign residents, Japan had a population of 125.4 million people, about 511,000 fewer than a year earlier.
This means that the population of the world’s third-largest economy has been declining for the last 14 years. In view of low birth rates and very little immigration, Japan is ageing faster than any other industrial nation.
Entire regions are dying out, millions of houses stand empty and in decay and schools are closing down.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has called for “unprecedented” measures to boost the birth rate in order to halt the population decline by 2030. But doubts remain as to whether such initiatives, which are mostly extensions of existing measures, will be effective. — BERNAMA-dpa
