Today, May 5, is Children's Day.
According to the National Holidays Law, it is a day to "respect children's character, promote their happiness, and give thanks to their mothers."
Unfortunately, there are no Japanese holidays to thank fathers. Fathers in Japan have a shadowy presence.
Now, this year's child population (14 years old and younger) is 14.65 million, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
The child population has been consistently decreasing since 1981.
The graph below shows the child population by age group. As can be seen, the younger the age group, the smaller the population, so the child population will continue to decline.
When I was a child, the child population was a little over 25 million, and compared to that, the number of children has decreased by more than 10 million.
Not only the child population, but also the Japanese population has been decreasing every year since 2010.
By comparison, the population of the Philippines continues to grow.
In the five years from 2015 to 2020, it has increased by 8 million people to 109.98 million.
Conversely, Japan's population has decreased by 940,000, so it is certain to be overtaken by the Philippines in the next few years.
When I go to the Philippines, I am overwhelmed by the large number of young people and children.
When I return to Japan, the elderly are conspicuous. This is not surprising since there are three times as many old people as children.
When I look at these children, I think to myself, "I hope that when these children grow up, society will be even better than it is today.
