Japan's population is expected to continue declining in 2009, the health ministry estimated Thursday.
The number of Japanese babies born in the year is projected to have decreased 22,000 from 2008 to 1,069,000, while the number of Japanese people who died in the country in the year is estimated to have increased for the ninth consecutive year to 1,144,000, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said in a survey.
The natural population decrease, calculated by deducting the number of deaths from that of births, is estimated to have reached 75,000 in 2009, about 1.46 times higher than the decrease in 2008.
"The trend of increasing population decline is expected to continue in the future as the number of deaths increases due to the aging of the population while the number of women who are of childbearing age is decreasing," Kyodo News quoted a ministry official as saying.
The estimates are based on preliminary figures for the number of births and deaths registered at municipal offices in Japan between January and October.
According to the government, the number of births is expected to be the second lowest since 1947 after 2005, when 1,062,530 Japanese babies were born in the country.
The Japanese population has shown a growing reluctance to marriage and giving births, while the society is quickly turning silver. - by PNA
Linkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=77130.0
