Japan’s population crisis isn’t letting up, despite ongoing efforts by its government to boost fertility rates. According to data released in June , birth rates fell for the eighth consecutive year in 2023, reaching a record low. The data came shortly after a report by the Population Strategy Council warning that 744 of the nation’s 1,729 municipalities were at risk of disappearing by 2050.
The figures – startling as they are – are perhaps unsurprising considering Japan’s fertility rate has been on a decades-long downturn. But what does this feel like for the people who live there? My research on the remote Gotō Islands of Western Japan, known for the 2018 UNESCO World Heritage sites of the Hidden Christians, provides a window into life in a quickly depopulating place. A traumatic history On the island of Hisaka , my interviewees explained how a population of around 4,500 in the 1950s has rapidly fallen to fewer than 250 people today.
Arriving here is like travelling to a deep past with no cinemas, no fast food restaurants and few transport alternatives apart from boats. Although they are naturally beautiful and verdant, the Gotō Islands are also marred by the symptoms of depopulation, from abandoned houses to cars and even vending machines. The return to nature is evident: no people means the roads and houses are overgrown by forests.
In some places without human life, wild deer, cattle and boar cause damage to the environment. Depopulation is not a new probl.