The Japanese Government of Fumio Kishida will meet this Thursday to discuss the measures they will take after the drop in the birth rate in the country.
The middle Japan News reported that those who participated in the meeting included officials from the Ministry of Welfare, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance, as well as an office involved in the establishment of the Children and Families Agency in April.
The members of this board are expected to present the specific measures by the end of March.
“Measures related to the decrease in the birth rate are a top priority for the Kishida administrationsaid Masanobu Ogura, the minister in charge of the measures and who chaired the meeting on Thursday. “We want to break down ministerial barriers and present bold and unprecedented draft proposals.”
The newspaper said Kishida is expected to announce his determination to implement meaningful childcare measures next week in a speech at the start of a new parliamentary session.
Among them, the implementation of greater aid to help raise the birth rate and, in this sense, the Government has already advanced aid to help finance deliveries and is studying other measures.
In addition to the reinforced allowances for families with Small childrenthe expansion of public services in childcaresuch as after-school day care and post-natal care, as well as work-style reform that offers more work-life balance for families.
There are also regional initiatives. In tokyoGovernor Yuriko Koike is considering implementing a monthly allowance of 5,000 yen (about 35 euros) for minors to cover basic needs, a controversial initiative due to the amount of the allowance.
Japan has the highest rate among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries of women aged 50 who have never had biological children, at 27%, according to an analysis published today by the Nikkei newspaper.
This figure is the highest among the 17 member countries of which there is comparable data, followed by 20.7% in Finland, Austria and Spain, and has once again put the focus on the declining birth rate in the country, one of the main social challenges of the Prime Minister’s Administration .
Japan is also the country with the highest rate of women born in 1965 without children.22.1%, higher than the other 24 powers for which comparable data is available, including the United States or the United Kingdom, according to the analysis, whose publication coincides with the study in the country of strategies to encourage birth.
If the current trend continues or the fertility rate decreases, the National Institute for Population and Social Security Research calculates that between 31.6% and 39.2% of women born in the year 2000 will never have biological childrena rate that could be even higher among men.
Among the factors to which this trend is attributed are the high rates of bachelorhood among japanese men 34.5% among individuals between 35 and 39 years of age (compared to 23.6% of women) and 47.4% if men between 30 and 34 years of age are considered (compared to 35.2% among women). women of the same age).
Other reasons cited by the mentioned institute are the economic difficultiesthe trouble finding a partnerthe postponement of paternity or infertility.
Japan’s total fertility rate, the average number of children a woman will have in her lifetime, has been on the decline for years. While it rebounded from the lowest rate of 1.26 in 2005, the rate stood at 1.30 in 2021, the latest year for which statistics are available. The number of newborns was the lowest in 2021, with 811,622.
(with information from EFE and The Japan News)
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