- Japan is experiencing a vicious cycle of low fertility and low spending.
- This year, there were fewer births than ever recorded in the 118 years Japan has collected data.
- The trend has social scientists worried for the financial and social future of the country.
Since 1899, when Japan began collecting data on how many babies are born each year, the total number of newborns has never fallen below 950,000.
Until 2017.
New data from Japan's health ministry suggests that by the end of this year, only 941,000 babies will have been born — a dip of 40,000 since 2016. The death count, meanwhile, is around 1.34 million, up 3% from 2016.
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Japan's fertility crisis has been many decades in the making. Older generations are starting to die off, but people in younger generations aren't starting families behind them. Japan's fertility rate is among the lowest in the world, at just 1.4 births per woman.
Sociologists have found that populations stay steady when a country has at least 2.1 births per woman. Beneath that threshold, countries can expect to see their populations decline, which Japan has.
Mary Brinton, a Harvard sociologist, has called the fertility crisis "death to the family."
Experts say that situation is causing consumer spending, and the economy as a whole, to suffer. Among some economists, the vicious cycle is known as a "demographic time bomb."
Other countries face similar problems, including the US, Denmark, China, and Singapore — with fertility rates