If we go on like this, the country will
disappear," Masako Mori, an upper house lawmaker and former minister who
advises Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on the birth rate problem and
LGBTQ issues, said in an interview in Tokyo.
Japan announced last February the number of babies born in
2022 slumped to a record low, with lesser than 800,000 births and about 1.58
million deaths. The alarming situation has prompted the prime minister to make
promises on doubling the spending on children and families in order to control
the slide, that's progressing faster than expected.
While Japan's population has dropped from a peak of just
over 128 million in 2008 to the current 124.6 million, the proportion of people
aged 65 or over increased to more than 29% last year.
"It's not falling gradually, it's heading straight
down," said Mori, adding the children who have to live through the process
of disappearance will experience enormous harm.
If the required measures aren't taken on time, the social
security system would collapse, there wouldn't be enough recruits for the
Japanese Armed Forces to protect the country, and industrial and economic
strength would decline, she further mentioned.
While the significant drop in the number of women of
childbearing age would make it extremely difficult to reverse the slide now,
"the government must do everything it can to slow the plunge and help
mitigate the damage," the advisor to Kishida said.
While the prime minister has yet to announce the content, he
has said the new spending package will be "on a different dimension"
from earlier policies. So far, he has delivered hints regarding improving
childcare provision, increasing child allowances, and changing working styles.
But critics argue that spending money on families who
already have children isn't sufficient to effectively address the real issue. A
number of comprehensive changes are needed, including reducing the burden on
women of raising kids and easing the process of participating in the workforce
after giving birth, a paper from a government panel on gender equality
mentioned.
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