According to the prime minister of Japan, the nation’s declining birth rate puts it in danger of losing its ability to function as a society.
As Fumio Kishida put it, it is now or never.
Less than 800,000 births are thought to have occurred in Japan, which had a population of 125 million last year.
Many nations, including Japan’s neighbors, are seeing a slowdown in birth rates.
But because of the recent increase in life expectancy in Japan, there are now more older people than professionals to care for them, making the problem more urgent.
After the tiny state of Bhutan, Japan now has the second-highest percentage of individuals 65 and older in the world (28%).
“Japan is standing on the verge of whether we can continue to function as a society,” Prime Minister Kishida told lawmakers.
And he asserted that focusing attention on policies regarding children and child-rearing is an issue that cannot wait.
