A market in Lagos, Nigeria, a country whose high birthrates presage a demographic crisis.
By Elisabeth Rosenthal, April 14, 2012
Japan’s population fell by a record last year, underlining the struggle to boost growth and rein in soaring welfare costs in the world’s most rapidly aging society.
The population declined by 0.2 percent to 127.8 million as of Oct. 1, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said in a report today. Fukushima prefecture, which was devastated by last year’s record earthquake and nuclear disaster, registered the biggest decline, of 1.93 percent.
Japan faces a shrinking workforce as 2012 marks the first year the nation’s baby boomers are set to retire. The world’s third-largest economy has contracted three of the past four years and policy makers including Bank of Japan (8301) Governor Masaaki Shirakawa have said low growth is mainly the result of demographic changes.
Lifelong residents like Peju Taofika and her three granddaughters inhabit a room in a typical apartment block known as a “Face Me, Face You” because whole families squeeze into 7-by-11-foot rooms along a narrow corridor. Up to 50 people share a kitchen, toilet and sink — though the pipes in the neighborhood often no longer carry water.
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