Japan’s Population: Miracle, Model, or Case Study?

Abstract

The spectacular story of the decline in Japan’s population growth continues with that regularity in the extraordinary which has characterized the country over the past hundred years. Death rates are low, but so are the birth rates. Growth continues slowly, but only because the age structure is inherited from a period when birth rates were higher. Official views remain pessimistic — no longer because of excessive growth, however, but because growth itself may cease late in the century and might then be replaced by a decline that eventually could reach 10% a generation. Quiet inquiries are already being made concerning the pursuit and the timing of policies to increase birth rates.

Reprinted by permission from Foreign Affairs of July, 1962. This article is copyrighted by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc., New York.