At least there are some things you can rely on these days.

With the year 2024 behind us, it’s once again time for the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare to hit Japan with its annual doom-and-gloom population statistics. Yes, once again more people have died and fewer people have been born in Japan than ever before.

More specifically, as a huge bulk of the population gets on in years, 2024 saw a record 1,618,684 deaths after four consecutive years of an increasing death rate. Meanwhile, births continue to tumble for the ninth year in a row to 720,988. In both cases, these figures include Japanese nationals living overseas and foreign nationals living in Japan, so the final figures for current residents of Japan will be lowered.

To put this in an even darker perspective, it was only in 2023 that the ministry sounded the alarm that Japan’s birthrate would dwindle to about 720,000 by the year 2039, and boy, were they ever way off because it only took a year for us to hit that milestone.

▼ On the bright side, that means more candy and pizza for the kids who do exist!

As luck would have it, 2024 did see an increase in the number of marriages by 10,718. Granted, that’s only a modest increase from the some 480,000 marriages seen in 2023, the lowest since World War II, but it is something!

Just like every other time news like this comes out, readers of it once again are stating the obvious, that the lack of births has almost everything to do with the fact that people by and large are overworked and underpaid here.

“How are people going to want to have children when they’re worried about the cost of living, retirement, and education?”
“This country makes it difficult for its citizens to live. Please make the country a better place to live.”
“It’s too late now. Japan is on its way to the end. There are no hopes, dreams, or future.”
“I don’t want to have children in Japan, where it’s so difficult to live. I don’t even know if I can survive during retirement.”
“How am I supposed to have a kid in a country where only the money I have to pay increases?”
“It’s hard enough living on my own.”
“I can only tip my hat to those 720,000 people brave enough to have kids.”

While governments have been expanding childcare benefits to a wider range of people year after year, it’s clearly still having no effect. Without addressing the underlying issues that everyone says need to be urgently addressed, it looks like the population will continue to shrink at an even faster-than-expected pace.

For SoraNews24, I’m Mr. Sato, reporting from Osaka.

Source: Jiji.com, Hachima Kiko
Featured image: © SoraNews24
Insert image: Pakutaso
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