Are Japan's methods to fight shrinking birthrates failing? | DW News
Earlier this month, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida pledged to make it possible for some 85 percent of fathers to take parental leave from their jobs by 2030. The incentive is aimed at tackling the falling birthrate. Kishida's party the LDP has also proposed forgiving student loans for people who get married or have a baby. Kishida said: "In the 2030s, the young population in Japan will decline at twice the current rate. The next six to seven years will be the last chance to turn around the declining birthrate."
The initiative comes on the heels of the latest worrying Japanese population statistics. There were 125.7 million Japanese in 2021, down from a peak of 128 million in 2017, while a study in the medical journal The Lancet before the coronavirus pandemic predicted that Japan's total population would contract to 53 million by the end of the century. In recent decades, the Japanese have been opting to get married later in life and have fewer children, a conscious decision due largely to financial concerns. That figure now looks rather optimistic given the problems that have been brought on the nation by the pandemic and, more recently, the impact of the conflict in Ukraine on the global economy. According to figures released by the Health Ministry in mid-September, just 384,942 babies were born in the first six months of this year, down fully 5% from the same period of last year. The ministry now anticipates that the total number of newborns for the full year will be less than the 811,604 new arrivals last year and almost certainly below 800,000, which would be a first since the central government started collating figures in 1899.
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