Dudes hope the only child left is Aoi Kururugi…

2720 — the year when Japan is left with just one child

The latest edition of the “Children’s Population Clock” released by the country’s scholar Hiroshi Yoshida limits the year to 2720, meaning that after 696 years, there will be only one child left in Japan. The design of this oral clock is inspired by the American “doomsday clock”, which is intended to alert the Japanese people to the seriousness and urgency of the problem of declining birthrate.

According to a report by Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun on the 4th, Hiroshi Yoshida, a professor of aging economics at Tohoku University in Japan, recently pointed out that as of April 1 this year, the number of children under the age of 15 in Japan was 14.01 million, a decrease of 336,000 from last year, with an annual reduction rate of 2.3%. At this rate, on January 5, 2720, 696 years later, there will only be one child under the age of 15 left in Japan.

According to the report, the 2023 version of the “Children’s Population Clock” will be dated to October 27, 2821, 798 years later, and this year’s latest population clock is about 100 years earlier.

The latest version of Japan’s “Children’s Population Clock” data shows that on January 5, 2720, there will be only one child left in Japan (screenshot on the 6th)

The latest forecast is influenced by the fact that the number of newborns in Japan will decline for the eighth consecutive year in 2023, and the total fertility rate in Japan is currently 1.26, well below the 2.07 needed to maintain population stability.

Hiroshi Yoshida pointed out that the long-term economic downturn has made it difficult for young people in Japan to marry and have children due to low incomes. He stressed the need to improve the childcare environment and reduce the burden of childcare, such as making children’s medical and lunch expenses free and promoting parental leave for men. He also proposed reforming the system to allow parents to take three to five years of parental leave.

He warned that if the declining trend in fertility is not reversed, the hands of the child population clock will not turn, and “Japan may become the first country to become extinct due to a declining birthrate.” ”

According to the population projection data released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications on the 4th, as of April 1, the population of children under the age of 15 in Japan, including resident foreigners, was 14.01 million, a year-on-year decrease of 330,000; Japan’s child population accounted for 11.3% of the total population, down 0.2 percentage points year-on-year and the lowest since statistics began in 1950.

According to the data, Japan’s child population has declined for 43 consecutive years since 1982. In terms of gender, there are about 7.18 million boys and 6.83 million girls in Japan. As of October 1 last year, the number of children in all 47 prefectures in Japan was declining year-on-year. Tokyo and Kanagawa prefectures alone have more than 1 million children.

According to the United Nations Demographic Yearbook, Japan has the second-lowest percentage of children in the total population of the 37 countries with a population of more than 40 million, only higher than South Korea, although the cut-off time for population estimates varies from country to country.