According to data released by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan, the population born in 2022 will be 799,728, falling below the 800,000 mark for the first time, about 11 years earlier than predicted. The picture shows a child making a snowman in a park in downtown Tokyo on February 10, 2023. (STR/JIJI Press/AFP)
[The Epoch Times, March 5, 2023](Comprehensive report by Epoch Times reporter Zhao Bin) According to the data released by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan on February 28, the number of births in 2022 will decrease by 5.1% compared with the previous year, which is 799,728 people. This is the first time the population has fallen below the 800,000 mark since the census began, and the rate of population decline is about 11 years earlier than predicted. Japanese experts pointed out that the next 10 years is the last chance to solve the problem of population decline.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called it a “crisis” in response to the accelerating population decline. “In order to reverse the decline in the birth rate, concrete measures to support fertility and childcare in the real world are urgently needed, and it is crucial that (these measures) be actively implemented,” he said.
Japan is the country with the most aging population in the world
According to statistics from Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan’s birth rate has declined for 15 consecutive years, and the rate of decline continues to expand. In 2021, the population will drop by 5.1% compared with the previous year, a decrease of about 640,000. The population is expected to fall below 100 million by 2025. At the same time, a survey by the Cabinet Office shows that the problem of population aging is prominent. As of 2019, of the total population of 12,617,000, people over the age of 65 accounted for 28.4%.
Population decline and aging directly impact a country’s economic scale and social security and other livelihood issues, and it is also becoming a severe problem that countries in the world such as Europe, America, China, and South Korea have to face. However, Japan is the most serious in the world on this issue. The difficulties Japan has encountered in related issues and its countermeasures have attracted the attention of countries all over the world.
The low birth rate first aroused the attention of Japanese society in 1989. The birth rate of this year hit a record low of 1.57, known as the “1.57 crisis”. Afterwards, Japan successively introduced a series of policies to improve the “declining birth rate” of the birth rate.
According to Japan’s “Yomiuri Shimbun” report on March 1, for more than 30 years, the Japanese government has introduced various policies that focus on balancing work and childcare, but they are considered to be inconsistent with the actual needs of childcare families. How to make families who want to get married and have children feel the future prospects, it is urgent to improve relevant policies.
Yamada Masahiro, a professor at Chuo University who has studied the problem of declining birthrate for 30 years, wrote in his book “Why Japan’s Countermeasures against Birth Reduction Failed?” ” pointed out that one of the problems is that “the government’s support measures are biased towards women who have graduated from colleges and regular workers in urban areas, while ignoring the needs of informal workers and women living in other places.”
Declining, aging population weighs on Japan’s economy
The aging of the Japanese population has brought a heavy burden on Japan’s social security and other welfare, and social security expenditures have increased year by year. In 2023, Japan’s total budget expenditure will be more than 114 trillion yen (approximately 844 billion U.S. dollars), setting a record high for 11 consecutive years. Among them, social security expenses accounted for one-third of the total expenditure, as high as 37 trillion yen (about 27.4 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of 1.7%, which also hit a record high.
In addition, after Japan’s bubble economy burst from 1986 to 1991, its economic growth has been stagnant for a long time, which is called the lost 20 or 30 years. In 2013, the Bank of Japan implemented a super monetary easing policy, and even launched a zero gold interest policy, trying to stimulate investment and consumption, so that the inflation rate reached more than 2%, which is considered to be a sign of growth, but the implementation has not been effective for ten years, one of the main reasons It is pointed out that the population decline, especially the severe aging of the population, has caused the consumption to shrink.
A report by the Cabinet Office of Japan shows that if the total population turns to shrink, the size of the country’s economy will also shrink, and the economic benefits generated through such economies of scale may be lost. In the medium to long term, aging and population decline will be factors limiting economic growth.
Accepting foreign talent to fill labor shortages
Countries such as Europe and the United States usually adopt immigration policies to deal with the problem of population decline, but the Japanese people and the government have always been cautious about immigration.
In order to make up for the shortage of talents caused by population decline, in 2012 the Japanese government created a new “high-end professional talents” residence status for foreigners, so as to expand the recruitment of foreign talents. The policy is accused of being an immigration policy in disguise. According to this policy, after obtaining the qualification of high-end professional talents, it only takes 3 years to apply for permanent residence (green card). At the same time, the spouse can also look for a job in Japan, and can even bring relatives and servants. Normally, foreigners need to live in Japan for more than 10 years before they can apply for permanent residence.
According to a report by Nihon Keizai Shimbun on February 20, as of the end of June last year, only 17,199 high-end foreigners were absorbed, accounting for 0.6% of the total number of foreigners in residence. Among them, the Chinese occupy the top spot, as high as 66%, far ahead of the 6% of the second-ranked India and the 4% of the third-ranked South Korea.
However, Japan’s policy of attracting high-end foreign talents has been implemented for ten years, and the number of recruits is very small, and Chinese people account for an absolute majority, which has also attracted many doubts. In the following years, Japan has successively introduced various policies to admit foreigners to work in Japan.
In April 2015, the Japanese government relaxed the visa requirements for foreigners to qualify for “business management” in Japan. Among them, the capital required to establish the company was only 5 million yen (approximately 40,000 U.S. dollars).
In April 2019, the plan to accept foreign labor was launched again, involving five major fields: construction, agriculture, accommodation, nursing care, and shipbuilding. The Japanese government plans to accept more than 500,000 people in the above five fields by 2025.
A poll shows that although Japanese society does not accept immigrants, it does not object to more foreigners coming to work in Japan.
According to a poll conducted by Japan’s NHK on June 7, 2020, 70% of Japanese people support the increase in the number of foreigners working in Japan year by year; at the same time, 57% of Japanese people are happy to see an increase in the number of foreigners in the community.
In recent years, there has been a wave of “motivation” among Chinese people, and Japan’s “business management” visa has quickly become an option for Chinese people who are limited by academic qualifications but have capital and business capabilities. Although Japan is not a country of immigrants, it has become the second place for Chinese people to settle down after the United States.
A Japanese immigration intermediary company that did not want to disclose the name of the company said in an interview with The Epoch Times on March 2, “Last year, the closure of Shanghai caused a wave of immigration, and after the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, there was another wave of immigration. After opening up in January and February this year (anti-epidemic), there has been some decline, maybe the epidemic has slowed down, and many people are observing the situation.”
The intermediary analysis believes that with the deterioration of the economic environment in the mainland, people will continue to come up with it. This is already a trend. At the same time, the Japanese government will not change much in terms of business management visas, and will continue to open them up because foreigners join in business operations. It can bring another kind of business vitality, and it can also make up for the negative impact of population reduction on the economy.
According to the data of the book “China International Migration Report 2020” compiled by the Globalization Think Tank and the Development Research Institute of Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in mainland China, as of 2019, the number of Chinese immigrants has reached 10.73 million, making it the third largest immigrant in the world. Exporting countries, the top five countries with the most Chinese immigrants are: the United States (2.8892 million people) occupies the top spot, followed by Japan (784,800 people), Canada (691,500 people), Australia (641,600 people); South Korea (620,200 people) million people).
Last chance to stop population decline
The Japanese government has always been cautious about opening up immigration, trying to improve the birth rate and prevent population decline. As early as 2015, it set the goal of “1.8 birth rate” to reverse the situation. Whether this goal can be realized, the next ten years is said to be the last chance.
The Yomiuri Shimbun quoted Shibata Haruka, an associate professor of sociology at Kyoto University (Kyoto University), as saying that the next 10 years are the last chance to deal with the declining birth rate, because about 1.2 million women were born in the 1990s when the birth rate was relatively high. the reproductive period. Shibata also emphasized, “It will take time to see the effect, so immediate measures need to be taken, including in combination with measures such as long-term guarantees of (women’s) employment.”
The Kishida government recently launched the “Child Care Budget Doubling Plan”, which will increase the child care budget expenditure from 4.8 trillion yen to 5 trillion yen (about 35.6 billion U.S. dollars to 37 billion U.S. dollars) next year, plus other related allowances and services , about 10 trillion yen (about 74 billion U.S. dollars).
Editor in charge: Lian Shuhua
