Source: Photo.com
On May 4, according to CCTV News, the population projection data released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan showed that as of April 1, including resident foreigners, the population of children under the age of 15 in Japan was 14.01 million, a year-on-year decrease of 330,000, and the proportion of children in Japan's total population was 11.3%, a year-on-year decrease of 0.2 percentage points, both of which hit the lowest record since statistics began in 1950, reflecting the further intensification of Japan's declining birthrate.
In addition, according to a report released at the Population Strategy Forum by the Japanese non-governmental organization "Population Strategy Council", due to the serious problem of population decline, between 2020 and 2050, the number of women of childbearing age between the ages of 20 and 39 will be halved in 744 municipalities across Japan, which means that these areas are at risk of disappearing, including Hakone Town, Kanagawa Prefecture, and Hakodate City, Hokkaido, which are famous tourist destinations.
In response, the Japanese government has announced that it will implement a new policy called the Child Care Support Fund from 2026. According to the policy, the payment of this fee will be determined according to the annual income of the employee, and the higher the annual income, the higher the amount of payment. In fiscal 2026, for example, a person with an annual income of 2 million yen will have to pay about 200 yen per month, while a person with an annual income of up to 10 million yen will have to pay about 1,000 yen. By fiscal 2028, this fee will increase and may reach up to 1,650 yen per month.
The policy states that in addition to office workers, self-employed people who are enrolled in the National Health Insurance will also pay a corresponding tax amount based on their income. This means that all individuals who are required to contribute to health insurance, regardless of whether they have children or not, will contribute to childcare benefits.
This move has attracted heated discussions among Japanese netizens, and many netizens believe that this is essentially a "single tax", because after the money is paid, only the family with children will benefit, and the single person can only pay the money in vain.
The problem of population decline is a common problem facing the whole world. At present, the mainland is also facing the demographic challenge of declining birth rates.
The number and proportion of the population aged 0-4 in China
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, from 2016 to 2022, the birth rate of the Chinese population has declined. Since 2017, China's birth population and birth rate have been declining year by year, and the birth rate has fallen below 10‰ after 2020. As of 2022, the birth rate of the Chinese population is only 6.77 per thousand.
Specifically, since 2017, the number and proportion of China's population aged 0-4 have declined. In 2022, the proportion of China's population aged 0-4 fell from 5.96% in 2017 to 4.31%, and the number of people aged 0-4 in mainland China also showed a downward trend.
Note: The number of people aged 0-4 in 2015 is the sample data of 1% of the population sample survey, and the sample data of the population change survey of 1‰ in other years, so there is a big gap between the data and the rest of the years.
Chinese population growth is slowing down, and the fertility rate is at a low level
According to the results of the Seventh National Population Census, the basic situation of the population of the mainland at 0:00 on November 1, 2020 is as follows: the total population of the country is 1443497378 (1,443.50 million people); Compared with the 133972 (1,339.72 million) in the sixth census, an increase of 72.06 million, or 5.38 percent, and an average annual growth rate of 0.53 percent, a decrease of 0.04 percentage points from the average annual growth rate of 0.57 percent from 2000 to 2010. The data show that the population of the mainland has continued to maintain a low growth trend in the past 10 years.
Projections of the total number of women of childbearing age in China
According to the 2010 census, women between the ages of 5 and 39 will be of childbearing age by 2020. After calculation, it is found that there are 333.87 million women aged 15-49 in 2020, compared with 379.78 million women of childbearing age aged 15-49 in 2010.
With the upgrading of consumption and the rapid development of the country's economy, the cost of having children is increasing, and the economic pressure that a family needs to bear is gradually increasing. Not only that, but after having a child, there is an even bigger problem in choosing someone to take care of the child. In the face of the normalized social phenomenon that both husband and wife have jobs, most of the tasks of taking care of children fall on the elderly at home, but the physical experience of the elderly is also limited, and the risk of hiring a nanny is greater; Coupled with the unwillingness of contemporary young people to sacrifice their time and experience, such as the "selfless dedication" spirit of the previous generation of parents is no longer advocated by the post-80s and 90s, these status quo are "persuading" contemporary young people to have the next generation.
In this regard, population economist Liang Jianzhang suggested that in order to cope with the decline in the number of births and the aging of the population in the mainland, the government can take the following measures: provide a monthly cash subsidy of 1,000 yuan for each child in two-child families, and 2,000 yuan per month for each child in multi-child families until the child is 20 years old. At the same time, income tax and social security premiums will be halved for two-child families, and income tax and social security premiums will be exempted for three-child families. Liang Jianzhang estimates that these measures can increase the fertility rate by about 20 percent.
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