The birth rate is 0.99…more than 80% of all births in Kanto! What is the future of Tokyo, where “black hole municipalities” gather?

People meet in Tokyo and move to the suburbs…this is the true nature of the “black hole”.

According to the analysis of the “Population Strategy Council,” a group of private-sector experts established in 2011 to make recommendations on measures to combat population decline, Japan’s population will be 63 million by 2100. Tokyo has 25 “black hole” municipalities with extremely low birth rates despite population inflows from other regions, and Shinjuku, Shibuya, and Shinagawa wards have been designated as cities with the potential to disappear. If this trend continues, will Tokyo disappear?

Tokyo’s total fertility rate, which is the sum of the age-specific fertility rates for women aged 15 to 49, is reported to be 0.99, but this is a magic number. Even if married people had the same number of children as those in rural areas, the birth rate would be lower because of the large number of unmarried women.

says Professor Masayuki Nakagawa of Nihon University’s College of Economics.

So, if you live in Tokyo, you will not get married? One might think that this is why it is called a “black hole,” but this is not the case.

According to the “Number of Marriages and Marriage Rate by Prefecture by Year (Percentage of Population in Thousand)” published by e-Stat, a government statistics website, Tokyo ranked first, followed by Osaka Prefecture, Aichi Prefecture, and Kanagawa Prefecture, all of which have large cities.

Cities attract a diverse range of people and allow for face to face communication. This is a condition that allows people to find partners efficiently, and large cities are said to be efficient marriage markets” (Professor Masayuki Nakagawa, hereafter referred to as “Professor Nakagawa”).

Then why is the birth rate so low? Cities attract many companies, and young people come here in search of work. Are many couples not having children because they do not want their careers to be cut short?

According to a census conducted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the marriage rate in the three prefectures surrounding Tokyo is higher than the national average after the age of 30. In other words, couples who meet in Tokyo are moving to neighboring prefectures when they get married.”

Young men and women are attracted, matched, and sent off to other prefectures. This seems to be the true nature of Tokyo’s “black hole.

Cities are attractive places that attract young people, which increases productivity. I think it is inevitable that the unmarried rate will rise as a result.

Population decline is global. We can no longer stop it.

Is it inevitable? It is said that if the population continues to decline at the current rate, it will reach 63 million by 2100. I hear that the birth rate has risen in France and Sweden. ……

In France, the birth rate remained above 2 from ’06 to ’14. However, it declined after 2003, reaching 1.68 in 2011. Sweden’s fertility rate also temporarily increased, but has begun to decline again.

It is said that only in sub-Saharan Africa will the fertility rate increase by 2100.

In the past, it was considered normal for people to get married and have children at a certain age, but now that various ways of life are accepted, I don’t think we can stop the decline in population.

However, this does not mean that we should do nothing. Professor Nakagawa says that we need to establish a system that does not require people to give up their careers because of childcare, and that we need to establish a support system that allows people to raise their children with peace of mind.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has so far taken supportive measures, such as issuing the “Child Rearing Support Tokyo Passport,” which provides a variety of services to households raising children or with a pregnant mother,

But “I think it is meaningless unless support measures are considered not only in Tokyo, but also in the three prefectures of Tokyo where the sphere of daily life overlaps with each other.

What Prof. Nakagawa would like to see more emphasis on than anything else is the supply of affordable housing using vacant houses and other properties.

If housing prices continue to skyrocket, young people will not be able to come to Tokyo,” he said. As a result, productivity in Tokyo will decline, and of course the marriage and birth rates will also drop.

If this situation continues, Tokyo will no longer be a “black hole” that attracts people.

Rather than increasing the population, it is more realistic to think about what will happen when the population shrinks by half.

We cannot stop the decline of the population. It is important to consider various countermeasures, but at the same time, if the population will be 63 million by 2100, I think it is more realistic to think about what the city should look like when that happens.

If the population is reduced to half of what it is now, won’t that cause economic hardship?

If the population were cut in half, the GDP might also be cut in half. What is important is to maintain ‘GDP per capita’ rather than the size of GDP. Each person can lead a reasonably affluent life. At the very least, I think we must aim for that.”

Japan’s GDP per capita, which until 2000 was among the top three in the world, has now been overtaken by South Korea and is now ranked 22nd. Maintaining GDP per capita is an important issue.

Professor Nakagawa says that from now on, cities should become more compact.

He says, “If population density becomes low, administrative costs will increase and the city will go into financial ruin. Population cannot be increased, but it can be gathered. I think it will become necessary for rural areas to cluster their populations.”

▼ Masayuki Nakagawa, Professor of Economics, Nihon University. What role will the government and local governments play in our lives?　How should we deal with the policies of the government and local governments in order to realize a better society?　Research on such topics as the following. He conducts research on the characteristics of model cities, conducts theoretical analysis on what the problems are, develops ideas for regional revitalization, and investigates the feasibility of such revitalization.