By Hiroyuki Kachi
Despite a slight uptick in the fertility rate in 2010, Japan’s population just keeps on falling. The country’s population decline last year was the worst since the government started keeping records in 1899.
The number of deaths minus births came to 125,700, surpassing the 100,000 threshold for the first time, according to Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. There have been more deaths than births in Japan for four years in a row now, making the country a demographic time bomb and a laboratory for the rest of the world when it comes to aging.
Japan’s population of 128 million now accounts for 2% of the world population, but with the global population on the rise the ratio is expected to reach 1% around the year 2050, according to another government survey. This has an array of implications, including forcing Japanese companies—from food makers to insurance companies—to go outside Japan to seek a bigger slice of the market share through mergers and acquisitions.
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