Demographics
The age pyramid of the Japanese population is that of an elderly country, although the average age in Tōkyō is slightly lower than that encountered in the rest of the country. The country has one of the highest life expectancies in the world (89 years for women and 82 years for men). In addition, the decline in the birth rate is leading to a decrease in the population. The shift was made in 2005. For the first time since 1899, the Japanese population was down from the previous year. Today, more than 35% of the population is over 65 years old. Japan has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, with 7.5 births per year per 1,000 inhabitants. The Land of the Rising Sun is now one of the oldest countries in the world, along with Italy and Germany. The city centers are inhabited by a younger population, often single, while families and elderly people are found in the urban periphery. Generally speaking, the Japanese countryside is experiencing a significant aging process with a rural exodus of young people to the cities (for work). Many counties are now trying to revive the birth rate by providing financial aid to families wishing to have a third child.
Birth
Japanese women have an average of 1.42 children, compared to 1.87 in France. This rate does not allow for the renewal of generations. Without significant immigration in the coming years, the Japanese population will continue to decline. For several years, the government has been encouraging couples to have children by offering parents a bonus.
Composition
The Japanese population is one of the most homogeneous in the world. According to official sources, there are less than 2.8 million foreigners in Japan, or about 3% of the population. In comparison, industrialized countries have about 10% of their population as immigrants. Japan has experienced two waves of immigration in its history: the first came from China and Korea during the colonial period, and the second came from Latin America, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand in the 1980s. Today, Koreans constitute the largest foreign community in Japan. And it is not so easy to become Japanese. The law of the soil does not necessarily prevail. Today, and since the 1990s, a policy of "selected" immigration has been put in place. The authorities give preference to South Americans of Japanese origin. They have never hidden their intention to maintain an ethnically and culturally homogeneous nation. Therefore, it is not surprising that the third largest foreign community in Japan is of Brazilian origin. And in order to maintain the current share of its working population in the overall population, the authorities have no choice but to attract foreigners.
Language
In Japan, more than 123 million Japanese speak... Japanese. The other millions, from immigrant families, are trying to learn Japanese, with more or less success. Besides Japanese, Korean, Mandarin and English are the common languages heard, even if they remain marginal. A few dialects are spoken by people, mainly from other parts of the archipelago. Japanese developed, among other things, on and around the dialects of the Kansai region (Kyōto, the former capital). From the seventeenth century on, it was built around the main dialect of the Kantō region, and thus the one practiced in Tōkyō. The increasing political weight of Edo allowed the influence of this dialect in Japanese as it is practiced today. To find all the signs needed to write Japanese, you need to know three systems: kanji (characters borrowed from Chinese), katakana and hiragana. The last two are simply syllabic alphabets. Japanese is traditionally written from top to bottom and from right to left, without any space between words. This type of formatting is called tategaki. Japanese writing dates back to 400 B.C. Influenced by Chinese characters, it was only completed in the 8th century, then in the 19th century, with the creation of the katakana by Kibi-no-mabi, and the hiragana invented by the Buddhist saint Kōbô-daishi.
