TOKYO, April 13, 2024—Tokyo was the only prefecture of an increased population in 2023 as Japan’s total population decreased 595,000, or 0.48 percent from 2022, to 124.35 million, raising concerns about food supply that’s already is the lowest among developed economies and one of the lowest in the world, according to the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications April 12.
It was the the 13th consecutive year that the population shrank, with the pace accelerating from 2021 as baby boomers and older people enter life’s rainbow time. The total population includes approximately 3.5 million foreign nationals who were born outside Japan.
Tokyo’s total population grew 0.34 percent on year to 14 million, the only prefecture among 47 that registered growth.
As the shrinkage pace isn’t likely to slow, Japan’s total population would plunge 21.46 million in 2050, compared with 2020, according to projections of the National Institute of Social Security and Population published in December 2023.
The projections were of little surprise as the number of baby boomers and older people is decreasing, while the ratio of people over 65 years old climbed 0.1 point to a record 29.1 percent and that of people over 75 years old rose 0.6 point to 16.1 percent. The share of people younger than 15 fell 0.2 point to a record low of 11.5 percent.
The data portends that, contrary to general views that young people are taking up agriculture and fisheries jobs, farmers, fishermen, cattle growers are aging rapidly, probably faster than urbanites, depleting those industries of much-needed workforces, analysts said.
The rapid population urbanization’s impact is showing up in steadily falling food self-sufficiency ratio, which the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries put at 38 percent, though researchers say that the real number is far less than 30 percent on the basis of nutritions. Rice seems to account for a big share of the MAFF’s 38 percent calculation.
The MAFF is targeting the food self-sufficiency level of 45 percent, but the latest population data suggests that it is a pipe dream impossible to attain as Japanese people migrate to the greater Tokyo area, which now accounts for about 3/10 of the Japanese population and attracting migration from rural areas.
As many as 20 percent of the 47 Japanese prefecture would lose their respective populations to half in 2050, compared with 2020, the National Institute of Social Security and Population predicted. Those prefectures are expected to lose workers engaged in food production, meaning that Japan needs to further rely on imports — while the Japanese government is accelerating food exports programs.
Proactive immigration policy is among few remaining options for Japan, and out of desperation, the country is relaxing qualifications for foreign workers in such industries as trucking, taxing and other transportation, railway operations, forestry and lumber production, enlarging areas in which foreign nationals can work to 16 from 12. With it, the Japanese government has raised the number of foreign workers by an additional 820,000 over the next 5 years, starting this summer.
It’s clearly not enough and relaxation is not fast enough.
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