Japan facts of the day

Japan must stop being overly optimistic about how quickly its population is going to shrink, economists have warned, as births plunge at a pace far ahead of core estimates.

Japan this month said there were a total of 686,000 Japanese births in 2024, falling below 700,000 for the first time since records began in the 19th century and defying years of policy efforts to halt population decline.

The total represented the ninth straight year of decline and pushed the country’s total fertility rate — the average number of children born per woman over her lifetime — to a record low of 1.15…

The median forecast produced by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (IPSS) in 2023 did not foresee the number of annual births — which does not include children born to non-Japanese people — dropping into the 680,000 range until 2039.

Here is more from Leo Lewis at the FT.