Japan Hits Demographic Tipping Point With First Official Population Decline In History
According to data released yesterday by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, in the latest 5 year census, Japan’s population declined last year for the first time in nearly a century.
The Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said the latest census shows that Japan’s population as of Oct. 1, 2015, was 127,110,047 – a decline of 947,305, or 0.7 percent, since the last census conducted in 2010.
The number of Japanese dropped to 127.1 million in a national census for 2015, down 0.7 percent compared with five years earlier, and was the first recorded decline since the 5-year census started in 1920. As the Shimbun adds, in the 2015 census, men accounted for 61,829,237 of the population, and women 65,280,810.
The population of Fukushima Prefecture, where many residents are still being forced to live away from home due to damage caused to their hometowns by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, saw the biggest decrease, or 115,458, a 5.7 percent decline from the last census. The two other prefectures hit hardest by the disaster — Iwate and Miyagi — also saw population declines.
To be sure, this is not exactly a surprise: Japan’s ministry had estimated that the nation’s population had been declining for four straight years since 2011, but the latest results are the first official confirmation via a census that the national population has gone down since the government began conducting them.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
