An Advisor to the Prime Minister of Japan said in a statement that, “the country will cease to exist if it can’t slow a fall in its birth rate that threatens to wreck the social safety net and economy.”
“If we go on like this, the country will disappear,” Masako Mori, an upper house lawmaker, and the former minister said in an interview in Tokyo after Japan announced on Feb. 28 that the number of babies born last year slumped to a record low.
“It’s the people who have to live through the process of disappearance who will face enormous harm. It’s a terrible disease that will afflict those children,” she added.
Last year, roughly twice as many people died as were born, with fewer than 800,000 births and nearly 1.58 million deaths. PM Kishida later vowed to double the spending on children and families in an effort to control the declining birth rate in the country.
Meanwhile the proportion of people 65 or over rose to more than 29% last year. While South Korea has a lower fertility rate, Japan’s population is shrinking faster.
“It’s not falling gradually, it’s heading straight down,” said Mori. “A nosedive means children being born now will be thrown into a society that becomes distorted, shrinks, and loses its ability to function.” she further added.
