In response to Japan’s increasing demographic crisis, Tokyo has introduced a four-day workweek for government employees to improve work-life balance and address the country’s declining birth rate, with effect from April 2025.

In a country of 124 million, only 686,061 babies were born in 2024. That number is shockingly low, but even worse, it’s a decline of 5.7% from the year before and makes the 16th straight year of birthrate decline. 2004 had the lowest birth rate since records were started in 1899. Experts are citing Japan’s notoriously work-life unfriendly corporate culture, strongly ingrained family role expectations, and rise of younger generations less interested in marriage and having children.

The marriage and birth rates in Japan has dropped so low that economists are warning of a breakdown of the country’s economy as well as social welfare system – calling in to question whether so few young people could care for so many old ones. Japan’s population of 124 million is projected to fall to 87 million by 2070, and have a shocking 40% of the population over 65.

Other countries are also treating declining birth rate as a crisis and making work-week changes to encourage families, marriage, and having children. Notably in European and Asian countries such as Belgium, Germany, Iceland, Denmark, and South Korea.

South Korea

South Korea is particularly interesting because it went from a birthrate of 1.24 in 2015, to the lowest birth rate in the world at 0.72 in 2023. Shocking government officials and being declared a national crisis. Healthcare, social security systems and economic stagnation are real dangers in low birth rate countries.

And in South Korea, it has gotten so bad it is now a country in which dog strollers outpace the sales of baby strollers.

By passing many reforms to encourage marriage and having children, they have managed to finally turn the tide slightly with 14.9% jump in marriages in 2024. This, government officials hope, will signal more children for an aging and shrinking national population that was shrinking by 120,000 more deaths than births last year. Even with these changes, South Korea’s population, which hit a peak of 51.83 million in 2020, is expected to shrink to 36.22 million by 2072.

Links:

• https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/etimes/trending/japan-begins-4-day-workweek-regime-other-countries-that-follow-it-for-increased-productivity-and-happiness/amp_etphotostory/120332801.cms
• https://www.newsweek.com/japan-low-birth-rate-population-crisis-2081278
• https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korea-birthrate-rises-first-time-9-years-marriages-surge-2025-02-26/
• https://fortune.com/2024/09/09/sales-of-dog-strollers-outpace-baby-strollers-in-the-country-with-the-worlds-lowest-birth-rate/