Japan’s child population is contracting at a faster pace than predicted. The already low fertility rate dipped further last year while the number of babies born in this nation plunged.

Child-bearing is a matter of personal choice. But the reality is that many Japanese have to give up their desire to have children because of concerns about the future and the constraints of their work.

The nation’s alarming demographic decline due to low birthrates should be blamed on the government’s failure to take effective measures to reverse the trend. After years of coining many slogans that started with a roar and ended with a whimper, the government needs to start making real progress on this vital policy challenge.

The total fertility rate, or the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime, sank to 1.30 in 2021, down 0.03 point from the previous year, according to population figures released June 3 by the health ministry.

The number of births declined to a record low of 811,604, falling below 815,000 six years earlier than a projection made in 2017 by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (IPSS).

The COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly contributed to the downtrend. But the fertility rate fell for the sixth year in a row.

The government and the ruling coalition should undertake a rigorous review of their failed policy responses to the shrinking number of children in this nation, which they called a “national crisis” five years ago and cited as a reason for dissolving the Lower House for a snap election.

Since 2015, the government has been pursuing a key policy goal of the “desired fertility rate of 1.8,” the estimated fertility rate if all people wishing to get married and have children see their wishes come true.

But the reality has only been moving further away from this goal. In addition to a growing trend toward marrying and having children late, the number of marriages has also been on a decline. Last year, some 500,000 couples tied the knot, the lowest postwar number.

There should be no policy attempt to impose specific values on the people. But the government has a vital role to play in removing obstacles to the realization of people’s wishes.

Policymakers need to re-examine the policy measures that have been taken so far to estimate their effectiveness and identify elements that should have been included in the demographic policy agenda. The specifics and scope of the policy efforts as well as the priority given to each of the goals have to be thoroughly reassessed.

The government should start by taking actions to ensure stable employment for young people and ease the economic burden on families with young children. A lot more needs to be done to create a working environment more supportive of working parents who are raising children.

One key challenge is how to raise the low ratio of male employees taking child care leave. The benefit is not available to contract workers and non-regular workers who are not eligible for the employment insurance program.

Introducing special benefits to workers taking child care leave and increasing child-support allowances have been proposed as policy options. But there has been no progress on these proposals due to a lack of revenue sources to finance them.

The government advisory council for building a social security system oriented to all generations set up by the administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida recently cited enhancing policy support to young people and families raising children as an urgent policy challenge.

But the panel did not make any proposal about how to finance such support, offering no specific plan to achieve the goal. When will such nonsense be stopped?

It was nearly three decades ago that the Japanese government unveiled its first comprehensive plan to support families raising children, dubbed “Angel Plan.” But the government’s spending on related measures has been among the smallest in the developed world.

There is no doubt that the current dire situation results from years of avoiding tackling funding issues.

The Diet will consider a bill to establish a new agency for children and families in the current session. Kishida has pledged to seek to double the budget for tackling the problem of the nation’s demographic decline.

This time around, the government needs to take specific and effective policy actions to demonstrate its commitment.

The Asahi Shimbun, June 10