Japan Birthrate To Drop To 1.24 in 2017: Nihon University
Monday, October 28, 2002
TOKYO (Nikkei)--Japan's birthrate is projected to stand at 1.24 children per woman in 2017, falling even below the level in the government's worst-case scenario, according to an estimate by the Nihon University Population Research Institute.
Nihon University believes that the tendency among Japanese women to marry later or stay single will continue, and concludes that public pension finances, under which the current generation of workers support the elderly, could deteriorate further than the government forecasts.
The birthrate has been on a declining trend, registering the worst level ever of 1.33 in 2001. But the government estimates that the birthrate will start rising after hitting bottom at 1.31 in 2007, expecting the trend among Japanese women to marry later to eventually stop.
In contrast, Nihon University forecasts that women will continue to marry later, prolonging the streak of falling birthrates.
The institute cites what happened during the 1990s, in which the shrinking gap between men's and women's incomes led to an increase in women working into their late 20s, resulting in a higher percentage of women staying single and a falling birthrate.
With the income gap between the sexes expected to shrink further due to an increase in women going to college, the university forecasts that a higher percentage of women will remain single and the birthrate will keep falling. It also believes that women with high incomes will postpone marriage, fearing a sharp drop in income after leaving their jobs to get married and have children.
If the birthrate falls to the level estimated by Nihon University, the government will become unable to maintain the current levels of pension payouts in 2025, unless it raises employee pension premiums to about 31% of monthly income, more than 3 percentage points above its estimate of 27.8%.
(The Nihon Keizai Shimbun Tuesday morning edition) |
