TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan, struggling to deal with a falling birth rate and an aging population, said on Friday its ratio of elderly people to total population was now the world’s highest, surpassing that of Italy.
The ratio of people aged 65 or older reached 21.0 percent of the total population in 2005, beating Italy’s 20.0 percent, the government said in a report released on Friday.
The ratio of people aged 15 or younger in the total population was the world’s lowest at 13.6 percent, surpassing Bulgaria’s 13.8 percent, the report said.
“This shows a strong trend toward fewer children,” Kuniko Inoguchi, the minister in charge of dealing with the falling birth rate, told reporters after a cabinet meeting.
“We are determined to do our best to deal with the problem.”
Japan’s low birth rate and graying population have aroused concerns about future growth in the world’s second-largest economy and the sustainability of its pension system.
Japan’s population — now about 127 million — declined last year for the first time since 1945. Experts had long forecast the shift, but it came two years earlier than expected.
Japan’s fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime, fell to a record low 1.25 in 2005.
Japan’s slumping birth rate has been attributed to long working hours for both men and women, the high cost of putting children through a highly competitive school system, and barriers to women advancing in the workplace while raising children.
The government said in December that Japan’s population would shrink by half in less than a century unless something was done to reverse the falling birthrate.
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