Visit Indian Travel Sites
Goa,
Kerala,
Tamil Nadu,
Andhra Pradesh,
Delhi,
Rajasthan,
Uttar Pradesh,
Himachal Pradesh,
Assam,
Sikkim,
Madhya Pradesh,
Jammu & Kashmir
Karnataka
|
Fertility rate falls, Japan may face extinction in 1000 years` | Japanese researchers have unveiled a population clock that shows that the nation’s people could theoretically become extinct in 1000 years due to declining birth rates. Academics in the northern city of Sendai said that Japan’s population of
children aged up to 14, which now stands at 16.6 million, is shrinking at the
rate of one every 100 seconds. Their extrapolations pointed to a Japan with no
children left within a millennium. “If the rate of decline continues, we will
be able to celebrate the Children’s Day public holiday on May 5, 3011 as there
will be one child,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Hiroshi Yoshida, an economics professor at Tohoku University, as saying. “But 100 seconds later there will be
no children left. “The overall trend is towards extinction, which started in 1975
when Japan’s fertility rate fell below two,” he said. Yoshida said he created
the population clock to encourage “urgent” discussion of the issue. Another study
released earlier this year showed Japan ’s population is expected to shrink to
a third of its current 127.7 million over the next century. Government projections
show the birth rate will hit just 1.35 children per woman within 50 years, well
below the replacement rate. Meanwhile, life expectancy - already one of the highest
in the world - is expected to rise from 86.39 years in 2010 to 90.93 years in
2060 for women and from 79.64 years to 84.19 years for men. More than 20 percent
of Japan 's people are aged 65 or over, one of the highest proportions of elderly
in the world. Japan has very little immigration and any suggestion of opening
the borders to young workers who could help plug the population gap provokes strong reactions among the public.
|
|
|
|
|
|