Faced with the most serious demographic crisis in its modern history is . Preliminary figures from the 2025 census, released today, reveal a population decline of 2.5% over five years, the worst performance since records began in 1920.
According to the official statistics agency, the population of the world’s fourth-largest economy fell to 123 million. This reduction translates into a loss of three million people in relation to 2020, a size three times greater than that found in the immediately previous five years (2015-2020), which certifies the rapid acceleration of the phenomenon.
The data confirm once again that the demographic problem of our country is worsening, said the government spokesman, Minoru Kihara, expressing the intense concern of the political world.
A way out with aging and subfertility
Japan’s demographic pyramid now presents an irreversible picture. According to World Bank data, the country has the second oldest population in the world, behind only Monaco.
The problem is mainly focused on the precipitation of births, as the fertility rate has fallen to 1.2, at a time when the minimum threshold for population stability stands at 2.1. At the same time, in 2025 births were limited to 705,809, marking a decline for the tenth consecutive year and exacerbating the impasse.
Despite the fact that international practice indicates immigration as the most basic tool for replenishing the lost labor force, the Tokyo government chooses the opposite direction. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, driven by a strict policy agenda, continues to take restrictive measures aimed at reducing the influx of foreign nationals into the country.
Instead of demographic reinforcement from abroad, the burden falls on domestic incentives, which, however, prove to be ineffective. Successive governments have deployed a wide range of interventions, from increasing family benefits and parental leave subsidies to funding state-run dating apps to encourage marriage. So far, the reluctance of young people to start a family, combined with the high cost of living, has kept Japan locked in a vicious cycle of demographic and economic contraction.
