Japan now has fewer citizens 14 years or younger than at any time since 1908. In the United States, children account for about 20 percent of the population.
Furthermore, almost a quarter of the Japanese population is 65 or older, the highest proportion in the world. And if present trends do not reverse dramatically, by 2020, the elderly will outnumber children by nearly 3 to 1. According to the latest projections, Japan, now the world's second-largest economy, will lose 70 percent of its workforce by 2050.The total population, now at 127 million, would fall by a third and, within a century, two-thirds of the population would disappear.
In what is now being called a "super-aging" society, department and grocery stores have recorded declining sales for a decade and new car sales have fallen for 18 consecutive years.
Metro Tokyo, the world's largest megalopolis, now has about 35 million people, or 27 percent of the country's population. But children account for just 11.8 percent of the population, the lowest proportion in all of Japan.
