Japan's Under-15 Population Marks 24th Straight Year of Decline

The population of children under 15 years of age in Japan stood at 17.65 million as of April 2005. The number represents a drop by 150,000 from a year earlier, marking the 24th consecutive annual decline, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. The young population accounted for 13.8 percent of the total national population, a declining percentage since 1975.

Of the children, boys numbered 9.04 million and girls 8.60 million. Divided into three-year age groups, the largest was children of junior high school age (12-14 years, 3.62 million) and the smallest was zero to two years (3.38 million). The general trend was the younger the age, the smaller the population.

By prefecture, Okinawa Prefecture had the largest percentage of children at 18.6 percent, followed by Shiga at 15.5 percent and Saga at 15.2 percent. Tokyo had the lowest at 12.0 percent, followed by Akita at 12.3 percent and Kochi at 12.9 percent. All figures were as of October 2004.

At 13.8 percent, the Japanese ratio of young is one of the lowest in the world, just ahead of Italy's l4.2 percent and Spain's 14.5 percent, although the survey periods are not the same. By way of comparison, children account for 21.5 percent of the total population in China, 20.7 percent in the United States and 20.3 percent in South Korea.



Posted: 2005/08/29 09:56:10 AM
Japanese version