Fertility rate of Japan: For Japan, last year was a worrying turning point. For the first time since accurate record-keeping started in the late 1890s, less than 800,000 babies were born in 2022.
However, Japan is a great example because it is already dealing with issues that the majority of other developed nations will eventually face in the near future.
The low birth rate in Japan is not at all unique. Fertility rate of Japan has been averaging about 1.4 during the previous ten years, which is significantly lower than the replacement rate of 2.1, the average number of children per woman needed to prevent population reduction in the absence of immigration.
However, compared to many other Asian and European nations, Japan has a higher fertility rate. Although slightly higher at 1.6, fertility rates in the United States and the United Kingdom are still much below replacement levels.
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Even if the average number of children a Japanese woman has in her life stays constant today, more than 50 years later, annual drops in the number of births are unavoidable since each succeeding cohort of mothers is smaller than the previous one.
Contrary to what is commonly believed, Japan has made some progress in hindering the decline in fertility rate and the reasons are here as follows.
The government has significantly increased parental leave benefits over the past ten years. As a result, new mothers can now get 50% to 67% of their usual income while on leave, as opposed to just 25% previously.
The government has also encouraged males to take parental leave, which has caused the percentage of new fathers taking time off to surge from 1.4% in 2010 to 12.7% by 2020.
Women’s labour market participation has significantly increased as a result of even these little reforms, reaching 82% for women aged 22 to 54 in 2022.
Due to the fact that working married women have greater fertility rates than their counterparts who have left the workforce, this has increased birthrates and lessened labour shortages brought on by population decrease.
The birthrate increased from a low of 1.26 in 2005 to 1.4 and above in 2010 as a result of these initiatives to support men’s engagement in childrearing and allow women to return to the workforce after giving birth.
Therefore, the first lesson for other nations with below-replacement birthrates is that if they support child-rearing in the same ways that Japan has, then they too may reduce the rate of population reduction.
The second lesson that Japan can currently give is that government also need to make investments in public health, safeguard their citizens from economic catastrophe, and establish good ties with their neighbours.
Lesson for China
Now, China has a lot to learn from Japan’s experience. China has been grappling with the issue of a rapidly declining young population. The nation abolished its controversial one-child policy on 1st January 2016 and implemented a law which allowed married couples to have a second child.
But the damage has already occurred, death rates soared and longevity rates rose.
For the first time in six decades, China’s population decreased, and this had drastic repercussions on the economy. According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, in 2022 the population dropped to 1.411 billion, declining by 850, 000 people from 2021
In response to this crisis, the Chinese government recently allowed unmarried couples to have children. Yes, that’s correct, in China’s province of Sichuan, unmarried people can now raise a family and take advantage of benefits that are meant for married couples.
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However, instead of coming up with these bizarre notions, China can instead look at Japan’s journey. Therefore, all China needs to do is to invest in social welfare, public healthcare and economic initiatives. Encouraging maternity leave, increasing the participation of women in the workforce etc can facilitate stemming this crisis in Beijing.
