New Delhi: Amid concerns over Japan’s birth rate, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s aide has said that the nation will cease to exist if its birth rate is not stabalised. The remark comes as there are worries about the country’s social safety net and its economy as the number of babies born hit a record low last year
“If we go on like this, the country will disappear,” Masako Mori, advisor to Japanese PM Kishida, said in an interview in Tokyo, as quoted by Bloomberg.
Masako Mori is an upper-house lawmaker and a former minister who advises Kishida on Japan’s birthrate problem and LGBTQ issues.
Japan announced on February 28 that the number of babies born last year slumped to a record low.
“It’s the people who have to live through the process of disappearance who will face enormous harm. It’s a terrible disease that will afflict those children,” she added, as per a Bloomberg report.
The sense of alarm comes because twice as many people died last year in the country as were born. Fewer than 800,000 births and about 1.58 million deaths in Japan, as per the report.
Japanese PM Kishida has committed to double spending on children and families as he aims to control the slide, going faster than forecast.
“It’s not falling gradually, it’s heading straight down,” Masako Mor said, as per the report.
“A nosedive means children being born now will be thrown into a society that becomes distorted, shrinks, and loses its ability to function,” she stressed.
According to Bloomberg, Kishida’s aide said that if nothing is done to tackle the rapidly declining population, Japan’s social security system would collapse, industrial and economic strength would decline and in fact, there wouldn’t be enough recruits for the Self-Defense Forces to protect the country.
While reversing the slide now would be extremely difficult due to the fall in the number of women of childbearing age, the government must do everything it can to slow the plunge and help mitigate the damage, Mori mentioned.
It was reported that Japan’s population has fallen to 124.6 million from a peak of just over 128 million reached in 2008. This comes as the proportion of people aged 65 and above rose to more than 29% last year.
While Japan is yet to announce its new spending package, Kishida had mentioned that increasing child allowances, improving childcare provision, and changing working styles would be on agenda.