Population Growth and Trends

Japan's population was 127.3 million as of October 1, 2001. The annual growth rate fell below 1% in 1977 and further dropped to a record low of 0.16% in 1999.

Japan has one of the highest average life expectancies in the world, and the aging of the population is proceeding at a rapid rate. The ratio of people aged 65 and over to the whole population more than doubled from 7.07% in 1970 to 18.0% in 2001.

The number of people aged under 15 dropped to a new postwar record low of 18,280,000 as of October 1, 2001, a decrease of 190,000 from 2000. The proportion of those under 15 in the total population dropped to 14.4%.

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Causes of Death

For a few years immediately after World War II, tuberculosis was the largest cause of death in Japan, followed by cerebral hemorrhage. Through the government anti-tuberculosis campaign, the number of tuberculosis cases sharply decreased in the 1950s, while the cancer mortality rate has increased by leaps and bounds in the past few decades. In 1955 cancer accounted for only 11.2% of all causes of deaths. In 1981, however, it became the first cause, replacing cerebral hemorrhage, and has been on a steady rise since that time. In 2000 cancer caused 295,399 deaths, accounting for 30.7% of the total: 961,637. Heart disease and cerebral hemorrhage occupied second and third places, accounting for 15.3% and 13.8%, respectively. The major factor in the large increase in cancer is the aging of the Japanese population; as people age, they are prone to contract cancer, and the proportion of the aged is expanding.

According to the National Police Agency, the number of suicides reached 31,957 and occupied sixth place for all causes of deaths in 2000. The figure was down 3.3% from the previous year. Of the total 9,682 suicides with a suicide note, 3,977 cases, or 41.1% of the total, were caused by hardship from sickness. Financial difficulties accounted for 30.2%, or 2,927 cases, an increase of 5.3% over the previous year.

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Marriage and Divorce

After peaking in 1971, Japan's marriage rate fell to 6.4 marriages per 1,000 persons in 2000. The average age of first marriage rose steadily during the same period, from 26.8 for men and 24.2 for women in 1971 to 28.8 for men and 27.0 for women in 2000. Reflecting the fact that more women are pursuing higher education and entering the work force, the percentage of women in their twenties and early thirties who are unmarried is rising, a trend that is fueling the decline in the marriage rate. Meanwhile, Japan's divorce rate reached 1.51 per 1,000 persons in 1983, then declined to 1.26 in 1988 before rising again to 2.10 in 2000.

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Household Structure

As of June 2000, there were 45.5 million households in Japan, an increase of 11.7% over 1995. With the number of households growing faster than the population, the average number of persons per household is estimated to fall from 2.69 in 2000 to 2.49 by 2020.

From the 1960s to the early 1980s Japan experienced a nuclearization of families, although since 1985 there has been a more prominent increase in the number of single-member households. The share of nuclear families in the total number of households was 59.1% in 2000, while single-member households accounted for 24.1% of the total. The number of households consisting of only elderly people has also been on the rise, reaching 13.7% of the total in 2000.

Courtesy of Foreign Press Center Japan
http://www.fpcj.jp/