Tokyo [Japan], March 6: Japan will cease to exist if it is powerless to delay the fall in birth rates that threaten to destroy the social safety net and the economy, according to an adviser to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
"If we continue like this, the country will disappear," Bloomberg reported on March 6, citing senator Masako Mori after Japan announced on February 28 that the number of children born in the country last year had dropped to a low level. record.
In 2022, the number of deaths is more than double the number of births in Japan , with fewer than 800,000 children born and about 1.58 million deaths.
Ms. Kishida announced a doubling of spending on children and families in an attempt to control the decline, which is moving faster than expected.
The population has dropped to 124.6 million since peaking in 2008 at more than 128 million. The rate of decline is increasing. Meanwhile, the proportion of people aged 65 and over accounted for more than 29% of the population last year.
"It's no longer a decline, it's a decline," said Mori, Prime Minister Kishida's adviser on issues related to fertility and LGBTQ issues.
"Plunge means that children are born to be thrown into a society that becomes distorted, reduced and unable to function," she warned.
If action is not taken soon, the social security system will collapse, industrial and economic power will decline, and there will not be enough recruits to join the Self- Defense Forces to defend the territory.
Ms. Mori acknowledged that while efforts to reverse the decline would be extremely difficult given the dwindling number of women of childbearing age, the government must do everything it can to slow the downward trend and mitigate the level of poverty. damage level.
Prime Minister Kishida has not yet announced the contents of the new budget spending package, but said that it will be completely different from previous policies. To date, he mentioned increasing child benefits, improving childcare and changing working styles.
Source: ThanhNien Newspaper
