‘Quiet crisis’: Government expert panel convenes to tackle population decline

Japan convened its first panel of experts Friday to help draft a plan to reverse the country’s declining birthrate and restructure its socioeconomic systems to cope with a shrinking population.

“Population decline is a national crisis that is unfolding quietly,” Minoru Kiuchi, minister for economic and fiscal policy, said at the meeting.

The panel traded ideas on how to reverse the declining birthrate trend, how to build sustainable local communities, and how Japan should aim to become a society where those who wish to marry or have children “don’t have to make excessive sacrifices,” Kiuchi said.

AI’s potential to address labor shortages was also discussed among panel members, he said.

Japan’s population is aging rapidly. Despite a slight increase of births in the first half of this year, the number was far outpaced by the number of deaths, at 320,458 and 766,746, respectively. Last year, the country’s fertility rate was 1.14, the lowest on record.

According to projections released by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (IPSS) in 2023, the country’s population could fall below 100 million by 2056 and decline to 87 million by 2070 under its medium-fertility scenario. A lower-fertility scenario puts the population at about 80 million by 2070.

When asked about foreign workers at a briefing following the meeting, Akira Kurosawa, secretary of the cabinet’s headquarters for population strategy, said that panel discussions ranged from concerns about over-reliance, efforts to improve working conditions, and worries about labor shortages if foreign worker numbers are reduced.

The panel consists of 14 members, primarily academics specializing in sociology and economics, as well as business executives and a department head from the IPSS. Former internal affairs and communications minister, Hiroya Masuda, will serve as the chairman.

The government will draw on the expert panel’s views on three fertility-rate scenarios and assumptions about the number of foreign nationals to conduct simulations of Japan’s future population. The results, expected to be incorporated into the comprehensive population strategy by December, will also inform the government’s basic policy on accepting foreign nationals, which is due to be finalized by March.

The government held its first meeting of senior vice ministers responsible for developing the strategy on Oct. 28, establishing a framework for coordinating policies across ministries.

Kiuchi said the government would continue working with the experts and across ministries and agencies to develop the strategy.