Is Japan Having Sex?

An update on Japan's population and the issues it faces.

Over the past five years (Japan conducts full census surveys once a decade, with a partial count after five years), Japan's population shrank by nearly 950,000 people (by 0.7 percent) to 127.1 million people. Nearly a third of all Japanese were over 65 years old in 2015. By 2050, almost 40 percent will be older than 65.

To make matters worse for the future of Japan's population, the country's fertility rate has been about 1.41 births per woman, putting it well below the “population replacement rate” of about 2.1 (the average number of children born per woman to replace the population for nearly forty years since the 1970s).

Japan is not the only country in the world experiencing this phenomenon. In Germany, fertility has remained below 1.5 children per woman since 1975, while the World Bank notes that the East Asia and Pacific region is aging faster than any other region. In other words, the nation's “graying” is a global challenge that's not unique to Japan.

The Abe government aims to “stabilize” Japan's population at 100 million by encouraging women (somehow) to have more children and improve Japan's population rate.