Japan Suffering Population Decline

The latest among the growing number of Nations to suffer from declining piopulation growth, Japan braces for the negative implications of a population implosion.

TOKYO (CNA) - The dwindling population of Japan will threaten the "foundation of communities," -- police, fire, and other basic services -- an impending white paper by the Japanese government will report.

Japan's population peaked in 2005 at 127 million people. Current projections forecast a decline of thirty percent by 2050 to 89 million people. On average Japanese women have only one child. The birth rate must average 2.1 children per woman to maintain the population.

At the same time, Japan's population is among the oldest in the world, averaging 43 years of age. By the year 2050, the average Japanese person is predicted to be 61 years old.

During Japan's 2007 Children's Day, the government noted that the number of children in Japan had declined for the 26th consecutive year. 2,000 junior and senior high schools have closed due to lack of children, and some of these buildings are being converted into senior care centers. Pediatricians are changing their specialty to geriatric care, while some lonely seniors pretend child-like robot dolls are substitute grandchildren.

Brian Clowes, writing for Human Life International, declares "if a government promotes "family planning" for decades, if it drills into the people's heads the idea that children are messy, noisy, expensive, and bad for the environment, once it has promoted and funded millions and millions of abortions, there is really no way back."

He cites as most problematic young Japanese women's aversion to marriage. Seventy percent of young single women say they have no intention of getting married.
"The only solution to the plague of depopulation is to rekindle the love of God and children in the people's hearts. The Japanese must undo three decades of anti-natalist propaganda with an intensive program of teaching the people the value of family, the beauty and joy that children provide, and the satisfaction of fidelity to a husband or a wife until death," Clowes writes.

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