Japan got some bad news when it was revealed that the population of the country dropped at a faster rate than expected in 2012. Japan’s population peaked at 128 million in 2008 then started declining as deaths outpaced births, dropping by a staggering 212,000 last year. The reasons for Japan’s falling population are many — I honestly could probably list 100 if I tried — but the big ones include men and women getting married later and having one or maybe two children rather than 4-5 like their parents did, concern over the rising costs of raising a child to adulthood, social issues like the “herbivorification” of males which causes them to have less ambition and be less interested in sex, and so on. Europe has issues with low birthrates, too, but the slack is picked up by immigration. Unfortunately this is more difficult for Japan, as there’s no convenient pool of people willing to come live here, and there are many language and cultural barriers to overcome, too.
Japan’s population is falling at a faster rate than expected.
