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Japan’s population dropped this year for the first time on record, the government said Thursday, signaling a demographic turnaround for one of the world’s fastest-aging societies.
The Health Ministry’s annual survey showed deaths outnumbered births this year by 10,000–the first time that had happened since such data were first compiled in 1899, ministry official Yukiko Yamaguchi said.
The announcement marked an acceleration of earlier projections that forecast Japan’s population of 127.7 million would start declining as early as 2006 and likely would fall by 27 million people to 100.7 million by 2050.
