Population Decline: Measures against Falling Birth Rate Must Be Reconsidered

Editorial

13:59 JST, November 3, 2025

The government has been implementing various initiatives to stop the decline in the population, including measures against the low birth rate and regional revitalization. However, it cannot be said that these efforts have yielded significant results.

It is necessary to review past steps to identify problems, and compile and implement comprehensive measures that have greater potential effectiveness.

The government has said it plans to establish a central task force within this year to serve as a control tower to coordinate measures in the battle against the declining population. In her first policy speech at the Diet, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi emphasized, “Japan’s greatest problem is its shrinking population.”

Japan’s population has been declining since it peaked at 128.08 million in 2008. The number of Japanese births in the country in 2024 reached a record low of 686,173. It is believed that a decline in marriages is directly linked to the drop in births.

If the issue is not addressed properly, the shortage of people to support society will become even more severe. Many local governments will be unable to maintain administrative services, including education, health care and nursing care. The economy will likely continue to shrink, too.

Countermeasures against population decline are multifaceted.

It is important to promote work-style reforms to create environments in which it is easy to have and raise children. Developing compact urban areas and reorganizing infrastructure based on the premise of population decline must also be considered. Correcting the excessive concentration of the population in the greater Tokyo area is another issue that needs to be addressed.

Among the various issues, one of the most difficult challenges is finding a way to achieve coexistence with foreign workers. While foreign nationals are valuable workers who help make up for labor shortages, the continuous increase in their numbers accepted into Japan is causing trouble in various communities across the nation.

The entity serving as the control tower should formulate medium- to long-term policies to accept foreigners into Japan without succumbing to xenophobia.

In 2023, the government adopted the “Children’s Future Strategy,” calling it a plan of fundamental countermeasures against the declining birth rate. However, its proposals heavily lean toward financial support for child-rearing, such as expanding child allowances and increasing benefits during childcare leave, and many question the strategy’s effectiveness.

Ensuring that workers have stable income prospects is essential, yet regular employment accounts for only slightly over 60% of the workforce. With non-regular employment often offering unstable income, some may hesitate to marry or have children.

Companies must also make efforts, such as by converting the status of workers who unwillingly took non-regular jobs to regular positions.

An expert council on the declining population chaired by Nippon Steel Corp. Honorary Chairman Akio Mimura has been established. It aims to compile proposals that take into account the views of young people and women. Society as a whole, too, must consider ways to curb population decline.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Nov. 3, 2025)