ALBAWABA - Japan’s silent crisis just got a lot louder as the country recorded population numbers below 120 million, the last time it was below that figure was in 1984, 42 years ago.
Japan’s population has hit a new milestone on its way down the population curve as it continues to record low birth rates amid an aging society which has been declining for 17 consecutive years since peaking in 2009.
The population of Japanese residents in Japan stood at 119.74 million as of the first of January, down 0.76 percent from the previous year, according to Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
Japan’s median age is 49.9 years making it the second oldest society after the city state of Monaco, the country’s fertility rate fell to a record low in June as a demographic crisis eats up the world’s fourth largest economy.
The result of this is labor shortages, ballooning social security bills and an ever shrinking tax base to support it.
The signs of the decline include baby product makers pivoting to making products for pets as it makes them more money due to the bigger consumer base when compared with parents.
In spite of all this, Japan is stubbornly going after immigrants in its country and deporting them, along with tightening immigration laws to make it harder for people coming to work in Japan, compounding the labor shortage problem, all in an attempt to make Japan for ‘Japanese’ people only.
