Birth crisis in Japan reaches its peak – observer

Japan registered, in 2024, the lower birth rate ever, according to government estimates and, at the time the “Baby Boom” generation has been 75 years, the country is confronted with the “problem 2025”, experts.

According to preliminary estimates from the Ministry of Health, work and welfare of Japan, only 721,000 children were born in 2024 the lowest number that there has been registered since statistical studies in the country began 75 years ago, when a “baby boom” was registered with a record number of 2.69 million births.

Today these “babies” are 75 years old and Japan, which is experiencing an endemic birth crisis, warns experts, will reach a critical mass from this year, which describe as the “problem of 2025”.

“Problem 2025” is the name given by experts such as Takao Komine of the Japan International Policy Studies (IEPI), the multifaceted – economic, social and even international crisis – that Japan will begin to face this year when the ‘Baby Boomers’ enter “old age”.

It will be the beginning of a domino effect that will begin in the elderly homes and progressively affect Social Security, assistance programs and, ultimately, the national economy, and which comes as the country’s prime minister Shigeru Ishiba warned earlier this week that the financial situation of Japan “is worse than Greece.”

According to an inquiry carried out in 2021 by the National Institute of Studies of the Population, eight out of ten couples consider that the cost of children’s education is the main obstacle to having more than one child.

The second most prominent reason is the lack of space.

Six out of ten respondents also consider it extremely difficult to reconcile professional and family life and long working hours discourage couples.

There are now 200 euros subsidies per month per child up to 18 and parents will be able to apply for children under three years old even if they are not working, but the battle horse is teleworking.

From April this year, a series of measures designed to transform the work regime will gradually enter into force: companies will be required to allow workers with preschool children three years or more to choose from at least two work-style options, such as teleworking, working hours reduction or working hours, and allowing workers with children under three years to work from home.

Nursing care services to the elderly will be the first to feel the effects of the “problem 2025”. From this year, according to the IEPI report, “it is almost certain that there will be a sudden increase” of the number of people who need these care.

Social Security is already the main underlying factor to Japan’s budget deficit.

A third problem is geographic. “Problem 2025 is a crisis in large urban areas,” such as Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya, “where the increase of the elderly population will feel more strongly,” says the report.

Japan is running out of time to solve the problem of falling birth rate, according to researchers who estimate that the country will have lost 30% of its population by 2070.

Professor Yamaguchi Shintaro of the University of Tokyo applauded the measures adopted by the government, but considers that they are insufficient.

“Women spend five times more time on housework and children’s care than men,” the professor told Japanese state station NHK.

“If men got more involved in the care of children, as in Western countries, we would be closer to the solution,” he added.