Japan enacts law to halt falling birth rate as fertility rate drops to lowest

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) - The Japanese parliament Wednesday endorsed a new law to halt the falling birth rate as the country posted a record lowest total fertility rate last year.

Under the new law, the government will expand child allowances and parental leave.

The enactment of the new law comes as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government “views the period leading up to 2030 as the last chance to reverse the trend, with late marriages and financial worries often cited as reasons for the declining birth rate,” the Tokyo-based Kyodo News reported.

It also comes as the latest government statistics revealed that Japan’s total fertility rate had dropped last year to the lowest since 1947, when the records began.

The fertility rate, which shows the expected number of children a woman is expected to have, fell to 1.20.

It also marked the eighth consecutive year that Japan, home to around 125 million people, has witnessed a continuous fall in fertility.