No. of births in Japan in 2016 likely to be below 1 mil for first time

Less than a million future tax payers in a population of 120,000,000?

Yikes!

In the UK women are given a generous amount of paid time off to have children and flexitime support when they return to work. In Japan most women are on agency or temporary contracts and dont get paid for time off to have children. In the UK my paternity leave was 2 weeks paid, and could be taken on a flexible timetable. In Japan I have to take a 60% pay cut if I want to take paternity leave. Are we so surprised that the birth rate is dropping like a stone?

It is not the cost of childcare in Japan as most of the cost of having child birth is repaid by national health insurance. The real reasons are as descibed above and the severe lack of nursery school places in Tokyo.

It will sort itself out in a few decades... when Japans has a population of less than 100 million....

Interestingly the fertility rate is the highest it's been in the last 20 years.

If the government really gave 2 hoots they wouldn't be forcing youngsters born here to foreign parents to leave. Oh wait they are only interested in the Japanese blood line.

Well when you think about some of the crazy stuff that gets reported in the news and realize that many men a deviants who would rather steal unmentionables or take pics of a woman's nether regions you can see why the rate is so low!

You can down-vote me if you want, but the realities of the demographics and current trends are facts. Japan is headed on a population decline and no government program is going to change it.

You may not like it, it may be an inconvenient truth, but it is the reality.

Japan's population balance will sort itself out and stabilize, as society begins to figure out what is important in in the new paradigm.

That is the reality.

Births hit a record high of 2.696 million in 1949 and now are less than 1 million.

That's an amazing statistic. In 1949 Japan had a dire economy and most people had nothing but hope. Today...hmm...well, maybe it's the same, but people sure have a lot more consumer stuff/junk than the did in 1949.

Which generation is happier now?

A slight increase in the fertility rate has to be a positive but more needs to be done. Given that Japan's dire demographics are a security risk in the face of a resurgent and aggressive China, more needs to be done.

How do we get the many social awkward Japanese in their 20s and 30s to get out there, meet the opposite sex, marry and have children?

Well, the future of the aging society is the dying society. ...Simple as that.

Japan's population is more than one third of US population, living in an island smaller than the size of California. Japan is simply overpopulated. It's a good thing for Japan to shrink its population to more "normal" size, thereby increasing land per capita. I wholeheartedly welcome the trend.

Artificial wombs, free creche care, deregulation of casual labor, all will be well, can get back to job of overpopulating the planet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Japan_Population_by_Age_1920-2010_with_Projection_to_2060.png

@zones2surf... interesting point of view! You've got my attention!

Start by making maternity-care free like other advanced nations.

If the future for over 80% of Japanese is crowded urban living then is it any wonder why they don't want more kids!

Education costs have a lot to do with it. People know what they need to spend on these ripoff jukus and entrance exam fees. Not to mention the stress kids have to go through. A lot of adults in Japan remember their experiences and decide they'd rather not put other humans through it.