世論 What Japan Thinks

The BBC just recently published a set of interesting statistics on British abroad and foreigners in Britian. Relevant to this blog are the number of British in Japan – about 23,000 – and the number of Japanese in Britain, 37,293 according to the 2001 census. This figure includes naturalised Japanese, however.

The Japanese Government’s Statistical Bureau recently released statistics on what I think is the biggest problem that will face Japan in the coming year, namely the decline in the number of births, which coupled with the aging population, is going to put an enormous strain on Japan’s finances in the years to come.

This year too (measured on the first of April) the number of children aged under 15 hit another record low, a 25 year unbroken decline in the birth rate. The headline figures are 17,470,000 children under 15 years old, representing 13.7% of the population, down 0.1 percentage points from last year. There also seems to be an imbalance in the sex distribution, with 105.3 boys for every 100 girls. The reason for this may be worth investigating.
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It’s the annual be nice to old folks day today, and the big statistical news is that this year over 20% of Japan’s population is over 65, passing Italy on 19.5%. The issue of the aging population and the lack of children in Japan is littered with interesting facts and figures, so I’ll have to dig out a few references to translate sometime in the near future.