Japan's Population Sees Record Drop

Japan's latest headcount brings more bad news for a country already bracing for a demographic crunch. A new census shows the population, including foreign residents, shrank by 3.1 million between 2020 and 2025, landing at about 123 million—a 2.5% drop and the steepest fall among the world's 20 most populous nations over that period, Kyodo News reports. It's the third consecutive five-year decline, driven by a growing gap between births and deaths in an aging society. Japan's population peaked at 128 million in 2008 and it is now back at the level it was in 1989, with the population forecast to fall to 87 million by 2070, reports the New York Times.

• Census figures also show how the population is clustering around the capital and other major cities as the countryside hollows out. Just over 30% of residents now live in the greater Tokyo area, the first time the region has crossed that mark.
• While Japan still ranks as the world's 12th most populous country, representing 1.5% of the global total, the trend is putting fresh pressure on policymakers to figure out how to keep regional communities viable and the economy functioning as the population shrinks. Analysts say immigration could at least partially reverse the decline, though mass immigration is strongly opposed by "Japan First" politicians.
• Japanese officials said last year that births had fallen to a record low. Other countries in the region, including China and South Korea, have fertility rates even lower than Japan's 1.1. "More and more countries in Asia and elsewhere will experience similar levels of demographic decline," James Raymo, a professor of sociology at Princeton University, tells the Times. "Japan is just at the forefront and has been at it much longer."