--- title: "Japan’s Population Is Plummeting at an Astonishing Rate" description: "The population of Japanese residents dropped by over 800,000, new government data shows, as deaths reached a record high." date: "2023-07-28" modified: "2023-07-28" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/japan-population-plummeting" categories: - "Future Society" tags: - "Japan" - "population decline" - "the digest" --- # Japan’s Population Is Plummeting at an Astonishing Rate ![The population of Japanese residents dropped by over 800,000, new government data shows, as deaths reached a record high.]() *Tokyo Station district view from Tsukiji \Image: Getty Images\* ## Domestic Drop Japan's population crisis continues to get worse by the year. New [data]() released on Wednesday by Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs reveals that the number of Japanese residents fell by more than 800,000 last year, posting, for the first time, a drop in population felt in all of Japan's prefectures. This makes 2022 the fourteenth consecutive year that the number of Japanese residents has fallen, after the population peaked in 2009. In total, the population stands at 125.4 million, a drop of over 500,000 from the year before. Exacerbating the trend, deaths have risen to a record high of over 1.56 million, contrasted by a historically low number of births at 771,000 — the first time that births have dipped below 800,000 since records began, continuing the decade-long trend of deaths exceeding births. ## Society at the Brink As you can imagine, this has left Japan with a rapidly aging population. Though the nation proudly boasts one of the highest life expectancies in the world, it's also saddled with one of the lowest fertility rates, mirroring a problem shared by many other east Asian nations, [including South Korea]() and [China](). At a fertility rate of 1.3 births per woman, [according to WorldBank data](), Japan is significantly short of the approximately two births per woman mark needed to sustain a stable population. Simply put, the young aren't procreating enough. The economic implications are manifold, but the fact is that as the population gets older by the year, so too does the workforce dwindle. Last year's alarming nadir led to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to stress in January that "Japan is standing on the verge of whether we can continue to function as a society," [per *The Guardian*](). The Japanese government has tried to countervail a domestic decline by slightly loosening its closed door immigration policy. Though the population of foreign residents reached a record high of 3 million thanks to a ten percent increase, that influx was still not enough to budge the needle overall. ## Turning Point The *Guardian* notes some of the worrying ways the population crisis has manifested in Japanese life. As of last year, more than half of all municipalities in Japan have been classified as "[depopulated areas]()" by the internal ministry. Schools, especially in rural areas, have been shutting down at an alarming rate of [around 450 each year](). Over 1.2 million small businesses are stuck with septuagenarian owners without a successor, and even the Yakuza are hurting for young blood. Heeding the writing on the wall, the Japanese government [launched the new Children and Families Agency]() in April to oversee the birth rate and child rearing crisis — but reversing a trend decades in the making won't be easy. **More on population trends:** *[The Population of Europe Now Appears to Be Falling]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()