Japan’s Quiet Demographic Crisis: How a Shrinking Population Is Reshaping the World’s Fourth-Largest Economy
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 02/24/2026 - 18:55Japan recorded fewer than 700,000 births in 2024 for the first time in its modern history, a grim milestone that arrived years earlier than government projections had anticipated. The figure, which fell below the psychologically significant threshold that policymakers had hoped to avoid until at least 2035, has intensified debate over whether the country’s ambitious countermeasures can reverse — or even slow — a population decline that threatens to fundamentally alter Japan’s economic and social fabric.