Demographic Shock Ground Zero: Japan Births Drop Below Million For The First Time On Record

While both global monetary and fiscal policies struggle to keep aggregate demand if not rising, then at least constant, demographics continues to wreak havoc on the best laid plans of central planners around the rapidly aging world. Just last week we reported that in 2016, the US population grew at the slowest pace since the Great Depression, largely driven by the collapse in household formation as the number of Millennials living at home with their parents has hit a 75 year high.
However, while the US is finally starting to feel the social, political and economic hit from an aging population, nowhere is the demographic impact more visible than in what is the epicenter of the developed world’s demographic problems: Japan. It is here that according to the latest government data, the number of births in Japan is likely to fall below a million this year for the first time since data became available in 1899, reflecting a fast-ageing society and the high cost of child care.
The number of births is estimated at 981,000 this year, down from slightly more than a million last year, data from the ministry showed. Births hit a record high of 2.696 million in 1949.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Dec 25, 2016.