As of 2024, the total population in Japan was estimated to be approximately ********************. The projection for 2100 indicated an almost ** percent decrease in population to around **** million people.

The median age of the population in Japan has steadily been increasing since 1950 and is projected to be around 47.7 years old in 2020. As of 2021, the median age of Japan is the second highest in the world, behind the Principality of Monaco. The elderly in Japan An improved quality of life and regular health checks are just two reasons why Japan has one of the highest life expectancies in the world. The life expectancy from birth in Japan improved significantly after World War II, rising 20 years in the decade between 1945 and 1955. As life expectancy continues to increase, Japan expects difficulties caring for the older generation in the future. Shortages in the service sector are already a major concern, with demand for nurses and care workers increasing. Fertility and birth rates The fertility rate among Japan’s population has been around 1.4 children per woman since 2010. Apart from a small baby boom in the early seventies, the crude birth rate of Japan has been declining since 1950 and is expected to be as low as 7.5 births per thousand people in 2020. With falling birth rates and such a large share of its inhabitants reaching their later years, Japan’s total population is expected to continue declining.

Of the G7 countries, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States were forecast to have a constant population ******** until 2050. In Japan, Germany, and Italy, the population is forecast to constantly ******* due to aging populations and falling fertility rates. In France, the population was first expected to decline by 2048.

In 1800, the population of Japan was just over 30 million, a figure which would grow by just two million in the first half of the 19th century. However, with the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate and the restoration of the emperor in the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Japan would begin transforming from an isolated feudal island, to a modernized empire built on Western models. The Meiji period would see a rapid rise in the population of Japan, as industrialization and advancements in healthcare lead to a significant reduction in child mortality rates, while the creation overseas colonies would lead to a strong economic boom. However, this growth would slow beginning in 1937, as Japan entered a prolonged war with the Republic of China, which later grew into a major theater of the Second World War. The war was eventually brought to Japan's home front, with the escalation of Allied air raids on Japanese urban centers from 1944 onwards (Tokyo was the most-bombed city of the Second World War). By the war's end in 1945 and the subsequent occupation of the island by the Allied military, Japan had suffered over two and a half million military fatalities, and over one million civilian deaths.

The population figures of Japan were quick to recover, as the post-war “economic miracle” would see an unprecedented expansion of the Japanese economy, and would lead to the country becoming one of the first fully industrialized nations in East Asia. As living standards rose, the population of Japan would increase from 77 million in 1945, to over 127 million by the end of the century. However, growth would begin to slow in the late 1980s, as birth rates and migration rates fell, and Japan eventually grew to have one of the oldest populations in the world. The population would peak in 2008 at just over 128 million, but has consistently fallen each year since then, as the fertility rate of the country remains below replacement level (despite government initiatives to counter this) and the country's immigrant population remains relatively stable. The population of Japan is expected to continue its decline in the coming years, and in 2020, it is estimated that approximately 126 million people inhabit the island country.

Since 1970, the median age of China’s population has continued to increase from around ** years to around **** years in 2020. According to estimates from the United Nations, the increasing trend will slow down when the median age will reach ** years in the middle of the 21st century and will remain at around ** years up to 2100. China’s aging population Although the median age of China’s population is still lower than in many developed countries, for example in Japan, the consequences of a rapidly aging population have already become a concern for the country’s future. As the most populated country in the world, the large labor force in China contributed to the country’s astonishing economic growth in the last decades. Nowadays however, the aging population is going to become a burden for China’s social welfare system and could change China’s economic situation. Reasons for the aging population Like in many other countries, increasing life expectancy is regarded as the main reason for the aging of the population. As healthcare and living standards have improved, life expectancy in China has also increased. In addition, the one-child policy led to a decreasing fertility rate in China, which further increased the share of older people in the society. Even though the one-child policy has been abolished in 2016, many young people are refraining from having children, largely due to the high costs of raising a child, career pressure and the pursuit of freedom.