Aware that to become an economic superpower, Japan had to curb the looming demographic crisis, the family planning agencies of Japan began over three decades ago to launch all kinds of policies and advertising campaigns to encourage childbirth: cash incentives for children, extended maternity and paternity leave, free daycare, pressure on companies to reduce working hours... None of this worked. Neither did more recent measures such as funding for fertility treatments, housing subsidies, or even government-managed dating apps.
Japanese workers have seen their incomes decline over the past decade as they bear more taxes to support the growing mass of retirees. And also to fill the funds allocated to support - and convince - potential families to have many children.
In recent months, there has been considerable debate in Japan about the so-called "singles tax". It is a plan to increase health insurance premiums for all citizens and use those funds to expand financial assistance to families with children.
Neither single individuals nor Japanese adults with children will be able to access these benefits. Many residents have protested against this measure, which will be implemented in 2026, arguing that they already start at a disadvantage in the tax system because married couples with children are entitled to more deductions.
Japan continues to shrink and age. Last year, the number of births dropped to the lowest level since statistics began to be collected in the late 19th century. The latest projections suggest that the current fourth-largest economy in the world could lose almost two-thirds of its population of 124 million by the end of this century.
The most alarmist analyses insist that if this worrying trend is not reversed, the country is on the path to extinction. This is what a study that went viral this year, conducted by Professor Hiroshi Yoshida, a researcher at Tohoku University, pointed out. "We are facing extinction. After conducting multiple demographic simulations since 2012, the projection is that the country will cease to exist in 695 years," he stated.
In 2024, in Japan, more than two people died for every baby born. The birth rate plummeted for the ninth consecutive year, marking 720,988 births, a 5% decrease from the previous year, while 1.62 million deaths were recorded in the same period.
"There are fewer and fewer young people, and all the burden of this demographic crisis falls on them, so it cannot be sustained in the long term. The economy will reach a point where it will stagnate, and society will disintegrate," says Taro Kono, a veteran Japanese politician who served as Minister of Defense and Foreign Affairs. "There is a labor shortage in all sectors, including the government or the military, where last year only half of the personnel needed for military service could be recruited," he explains.
While many countries are facing a major demographic crisis, starting with neighbors like South Korea and China, Japan, the first nation among the major economies considered "super-aged", is in a much more critical situation. The fertility rate, the average number of children expected to be born to a woman in her lifetime, stands at only 1.20, well below the 2.1 estimated to maintain population stability.
"Japanese leaders are not ensuring the country's long-term viability. Instead of promoting real structural change, their strategies have been based on outdated programs regarding work and family. Policymakers have long believed that financial incentives would be enough to encourage couples to have children. But the constant decline in birth rates has shown that money is not the solution. There are other forces at play, such as a rigid work environment that makes raising children an unattractive prospect for many young people," states an analysis from the specialized publication Asia Times.
All this pressure is felt in increasingly depopulated rural areas and congested urban centers like Tokyo, which has the most populous metropolitan area on the planet. Starting in April, a four-day workweek was introduced for public employees in the capital. A measure that, with the aim of helping parents with family reconciliation and increasing fertility rates, authorities also want private companies to follow, as they have been legally required for the past couple of months to offer their employees with young children more flexible schedules, reduced hours, and remote work.