Japan Is Running Out of People

Joshua Keating, Slate
Japan’s population decreased by nearly 1 million people over the past five years according to the country’s latest census, the first recorded population decline for the country since the 1920s. Officials expect deaths to continue to outnumber births for the foreseeable future. The largest drop, unsurprisingly, was in Fukushima, site of the 2011 nuclear disaster. At current rates, by 2060, Japan’s population will be one-third smaller than it is now and 40 percent of its citizens will be older than 65, a grim prospect for an already struggling economy.