Ageing Japan sees slowest population growth yet

Feb 25, 2011, 5:37 GMT

Tokyo- Japan's population grew only 0.2 per cent in five years, the slowest rate since the first census in 1920, the government said Friday.

As of October 1, the country's population was 128,056,026, the latest five-yearly census showed. The slight increase was due to an ageing population, immigration and an improvement in the birthrate.

Over-65s in the world's 10th most populous nation hit a record 29.44 million in 2010, making up 23.1 per cent of the population.

That ratio could reach 31.8 per cent by 2030, the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research said.

Japan has long struggled with concerns over population levels and its birth rate, which is among the world's lowest.

Nationwide fertility - the average number of children that each women has in her lifetime - declined steadily from 2.16 in 1971 to 1.26 in 2005, before picking up slightly to 1.37 in 2008.

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