"Population freefall."
The number of births registered in Japan plummeted to another record low last year – the latest worrying statistic in a decades-long decline that the country's authorities have failed to reverse despite their extensive efforts.
The country saw 799,728 births in 2022, the lowest number on record and the first ever dip below 800,000, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Health on Tuesday. That number has nearly halved in the past 40 years; by contrast, Japan recorded more than 1.5 million births in 1982.
Japan also reported a record high for post-war deaths last year, at more than 1.58 million.
That is, to put it mildly, concerning. But it's not just Japan.
Recent findings have shed light on the fact that population growth on a global scale is slowing down significantly. A projection from the United Nations indicates that the world population will hit its peak, estimated at roughly 10 billion, around 2086, and slowly decrease after that. Other models say the peak will be reached around 2060 at around 9 billion people, and then decline more quickly.
Some say there will be fewer humans on Planet Earth at the end of this century than there are now.
The UN predicts that the population of the US will reach its peak close to the end of the century, at around 380 million, which is consistent with the Congressional Budget Office's projections.
These projections completely contradict the hair-on-fire "Population Bomb" predictions made last century, which predicted massive global over-population leading to worldwide apocalypse.
As Bill King writes at RealClearPolitics:
The critical metric for population growth is the average number of children women are having at any particular time, known as the fertility rate. Other factors, such as childhood survival and longevity, also affect population growth, but the fertility rate is the big driver. It takes a fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman to maintain a stable population, known as the "replacement rate." Anything above that and the population will grow and below that it falls.
[In 1968] the fertility rate was stunningly high at 5. That astronomical rate would go on to cause the world population to double just 40 years later. But what was not apparent to the author at the time was that the fertility rate had peaked about five years earlier at 5.3. That began a steady slide downward to 2.3 today, just barely above the replacement rate.
Obviously, a decline of the world population will provoke major problems as the planet's infrastructure will become unsustainable.
Economic collapse, permanent recession, an abundance of elderly people relying on increasingly fewer younger people for care and sustenance, implosion of entitlement/welfare programs, ghost cities, diminished militaries, regional conflicts ... the list goes on.
Population decline is an issue our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will have to deal with. It's high time our world leaders address this looming catastrophe, and find solutions, before its too late.
Why do they seem to be doing the opposite?
