TOKYO: Japan will invest an additional 3.5 trillion yen (about US$25 billion) annually to address the declining birth rates in the country, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Tuesday.
“The birth rate in Japan has been falling dramatically, the population decreasing. If we are unable to reverse this trend now, our economy and society will shrink, and it will be difficult to maintain local communities as well as to provide social safety nets, such as health care, pensions and child care,” he told reporters, according to Sputnik.
Earlier in the day, the Japanese Cabinet approved a package of measures aimed at increasing the birth rate in the country.
Japan intends, in particular, to disregard the upper household income threshold when allocating child allowances. In addition, monthly child allowances will be increased to 30,000 yen for the third and subsequent children in the family.
The payments will also be made until the end of the fiscal year (March 31 in Japan) in which the child turns 18. These measures should go into effect in October 2024.
Kishida also said that the Japanese Cabinet intended to cover the cost of childbirth through health insurance starting in fiscal year 2026. Currently, families expecting children must pay for childbirth themselves in the medical institution of their choice, and then receive compensation from the state.
Japan also plans to construct about 300,000 state residential complexes over the next ten years, for families with children to move into on a priority basis, the prime minister added.
The package is expected to be finalised by the end of this year and introduced to the Japanese Parliament during a regular session in 2024. The potential source of financing, however, remains unclear.
The birth rate in Japan has been steadily declining since 1973, when it was 2.09 million children per year. In 2016, the number of children born yearly was lower than one million.
In 2022, for the first time since 1899, when the Japanese government started monitoring birth rates, fewer than 800,000 babies were born in the country. – BERNAMA-SPUTNIK
