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A children's sumo tournament held in Utsunomiya City, Tochigi Prefecture, in honor of the first yokozuna (grand champion sumo wrestler). As of October 1, 2008, the population 14 years and younger in Japan was 17.2 million, or 13.5% of the total population.
Japan's 2008 total population was 127.69 million. This ranked tenth in the world and made up 1.9 percent of the world's total. Japan's population density measured 343 persons per square kilometer in 2005, ranking fifth among countries with a population of 10 million or more.
From the eighteenth century through the first half of the nineteenth century, Japan's population remained steady at about 30 million. However, following the Meiji Restoration in 1868, it began expanding in tandem with the drive to build a modern nation-state. In 1926, it reached 60 million, and in 1967, it surpassed the 100 million mark. However, Japan's population growth has slowed in more recent years, with the annual pace of population growth averaging about one percent from the 1960s through the 1970s. Since the 1980s, it has declined sharply. Japan's total population peaked at 127.84 million in December 2004. The 2005 Population Census showed the figure to be 127.77 million, declining from the previous year for the first time after World War II. The 2008 population estimate was 127.69 million, down by 79,000 from the year before.
The population pyramid of 1950 shows that Japan had a standard-shaped pyramid marked by a broad base. The shape of the pyramid, however, has changed dramatically as both the birth rate and death rate have declined. In 2008, the population of elderly citizens (65 years and over) was 28.22 million, constituting 22.1 percent of the total population and marking record highs both in terms of number and percentage. The speed of aging of Japan's population is much faster than in advanced Western European countries or the U.S.A. Although the population of the elderly in Japan accounted for only 7.1 percent of the total population in 1970, 24 years later in 1994, it had almost doubled in scale to 14.1 percent. In other countries with an aged population, it took 61 years in Italy, 85 years in Sweden, and 115 years in France for the percentage of the elderly to increase from 7 percent to 14 percent of the population. These comparisons clearly highlight the rapid progress of demographic aging in Japan.
On the other hand, the percentage of the younger age population in Japan (0-14 years) has been shrinking since 1982. In 2008, the younger age population amounted to 17.18 million, accounting for 13.5 percent of the total population, the lowest level on record since the Population Estimates began. The working-age population (15-64 years) totaled 82.30 million, continuing its decline since 1996. In share terms, it accounted for 64.5 percent of the entire population. As a result, the ratio of the dependent population (the sum of the elderly and younger age population divided by the working-age population) was 55.2 percent. In terms of their proportion of the total population, the elderly have surpassed the younger age group since 1997.
Population growth in Japan had primarily been driven by natural increase, while social increase played only a minor part. In 2005, however, the natural increase rate (per 1,000 population) turned negative for the first time since 1899; the figure was -0.4 in 2008.
During the second baby boom between 1971 and 1973, the birth rate was at a level of 19 (per 1,000 population). Since the late 1970s, however, it continued to drop and eventually hit a record low of 8.4 in 2005. Having subsequently repeated an up-and-down pattern, the rate marked 8.7 in 2008, an increase from 8.6 marked in the previous year.
The general decline in birth rate may partly be attributable to the rising maternal age at childbirth. The average mothers' age at first childbirth rose from 25.6 in 1970 to 29.5 in 2008. The total fertility rate was on the downward trend after dipping below 2.00 in 1975. However, it rose in 2006 for the first time in six years and continued to go up to 1.37 in 2008, marking a rise for three consecutive years.
The death rate (per 1,000 population) was steady at 6.0 - 6.3 between 1975 and 1987. Since 1988, however, it has shown uptrend, reflecting the increased percentage of the elderly in the overall population. The death rate was 9.1 in 2008.
Average life expectancy in Japan climbed sharply after World War II, and is today at the highest level in the world. In 2008, life expectancy at birth was 86.05 years for women and 79.29 years for men.
The annual number of marriages in Japan exceeded one million in the early 1970s, which, coupled with the marriage rate (per 1,000 population) hovering over 10.0, showed an apparent marriage boom. However, both the number and rate started declining thereafter. They rose again in the late 1980s but have, though fluctuating repeatedly, essentially been unchanged in recent years. In 2008, 726,000 couples married and the marriage rate (per 1,000 population) was 5.8.
The mean age of first marriage was 30.2 for men and 28.5 for women in 2008, a rise by 1.7 years and 2.7 years, respectively, over the past twenty years. The declining marriage rate and rising marrying age in recent years as described above is one explanation for the dropping birth rate.
In contrast, divorces have shown an upward trend since the 1960s, hitting a peak of 290,000 in 2002. Since then, both the number of divorces and the divorce rate have declined for six years straight. In 2008, the number of divorces totaled 251,000, and the divorce rate was 1.99 (per 1,000 population).
The Population Census shows that Japan had 49.06 million households in 2005. Of that total, 57.9 percent were nuclear-family households, and 29.5 percent were one-person households.
From the 1920s to the mid-1950s, the average number of household members remained at about five. However, reflecting the progressive decline in the birth rate through the 1960s, the size of household was down significantly in 1970, to 3.41 members. The size of household members continued to decline to 2.55 in 2005, principally due to the increase of one-person households and the conversion of households into nuclear families. Although the Japanese population has shifted into decline, the number of households is expected to continue to increase for some years to come, as the size of the average household will shrink further. The number of households is projected to peak in 2015 and then decrease thereafter.
In terms of household composition, nuclear families accounted for the largest share of total households. One-person households have been on the rise since 1975.
Elderly households (defined as households consisting of individuals aged 65 years or over, with or without unmarried dependents below the age of 18) numbered 1.09 million in 1975, representing 3.3 percent of the total households for that year. By comparison, there were 9.01 million elderly households in 2007, accounting for a sharply increased share of 18.8 percent. The number of one-person elderly households increased 7.1 times between 1975 and 2007: from 611,000 to 4.33 million. In 2007, three out of four one-person elderly households were women's. The number of households consisting only of wife and husband aged 65 years or over reached 4.39 million in 2007, about a tenfold increase over the figure in 1975.
(See Administrative Map of Japan)
In 2005, Tokyo had the largest population of 12.58 million among Japan's 47 prefectures, followed in decreasing order by the prefectures of Osaka, Kanagawa, Aichi, and Saitama. These five prefectures each had a population of seven million or more, and together accounted for 34.8 percent of the total Japanese population. The order of the five largest prefectures has not changed since 1985.
The population density in Tokyo was the highest among Japan's prefectures, at 5,751 persons per square kilometer. This was almost 17 times the national average (343 per square kilometer).
In 2005, there were 12 cities in Japan with a population of one million or more. Their total population topped 27 million, a figure equivalent to 21.8 percent of the national total. The largest single city was the 23 wards (ku) of central Tokyo, with 8.49 million citizens. It was followed in decreasing order by Yokohama-shi (3.58 million), Osaka-shi (2.63 million), and Nagoya-shi (2.22 million).
The percentage of the urban population grew since the late 1950s. In 2005, 44.9 percent of the entire national population was concentrated within a 50-kilometer radius from the centers of the three largest cities of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya, respectively (together comprising 6.1 percent of Japan's total land area). Population density measured 4,158 persons per square kilometer in the Tokyo area, 2,094 in the Osaka area, and 1,204 in the Nagoya area.
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