REUTERS/Kimimasa Mayama
Japan's population is shrinking.
- Japan's population is getting older.
- While aging populations are a problem facing much of the developed world, the problem in Japan is dire: The country's birth rate dropped to the lowest level since statistics were kept in 1899 last year.
- There are now more adult diapers sold than baby diapers in Japanese supermarkets.
Japan's population is shrinking fast.
The number of babies born in the country last year dropped to 946,060, and it's the second year where new births remained below 1 million, Japan's government said. It's the lowest level since the country began counting in 1899.
At the same time, the number of deaths in the country - owing to the increasingly aging population - hit a postwar high of 1.3 million. That means Japan's population fell by a whopping 394,373 people in 2017.
In a demographic time bomb, fertility rates fall at the same time that longevity increases.
An aging population like Japan's poses a number of problems. The government will have to spend more on healthcare, and that, coupled with a shrinking workforce and tax base, is a recipe for economic stagnation. It also means, among other things, that there will be too many old people and not enough young people to care for them.
"An aging population will mean higher costs for the government, a shortage of pension and social security-type funds, a shortage of people to care for the very aged, slow economic growth, and a shortage of young workers," Mary Brinton, a Harvard sociologist told Business Insider last year.
Issei Kato/Reuters Japan's aging population poses a serious problem to the country's workforce.
Japan's demographic time bomb has been a long time coming.
The country's population grew rapidly throughout the 20th century, from 44 million in 1900 to 128 million in 2000, Quartz reports. But since then, fertility rates have fallen precipitously.
In the 1970s, the average Japanese woman had 2.1 kids. Now, that number is only 1.4 - far below the replacement rate, or where Japan needs to be to maintain its population.
The US is suffering from similar problems, but not quite to the same extent as Japan. The fertility rate in the US, which is estimated to be 1.76 (an all-time low) is still slightly higher than Japan's.
Japan set a goal to increase the birth rate to 1.8 by 2025, and maintain the population to around 100 million people by 2060. That will be easier said than done.
Out of 127 million people, there are 67,824 people over the age of 100, the highest rate of centenarians of any country in the world. Senior citizens over the age of 65 make up more than a quarter of the population.
In perhaps the biggest sign of the problem, adult diapers now outsell baby diapers in Japanese supermarkets.