Handing more cash to families with children is a top priority in tackling Japan’s aging and shrinking population, according to a top member from the junior party in the ruling coalition.
(Bloomberg) — Handing more cash to families with children is a top priority in tackling Japan’s aging and shrinking population, according to a top member from the junior party in the ruling coalition.
That would mean abolishing income ceilings for receiving such benefits, extending them until children are 18 and upping the amount paid to families with three or more children, according to the Komeito party’s policy chief, Yosuke Takagi.
“It would give a lot of people hope,” Takagi said in an interview in Tokyo last week. Financial resources for the measures should come first from spending reforms, before the government considers whether to use social insurance funds, he added.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has warned the aging country had only a few years to put the brakes on a demographic slide that threatens the economy. He has announced plans including having more fathers take paternity leave and is set to unveil a plan to double spending on children and families by June, with the funding for the measures as yet unclear.
A poll carried out by the Nikkei newspaper from April 28-30 found 35% of respondents said the new policies on children and families should be funded by issuing more bonds. About 23% said taxes should be raised to cover the plans, while 22% said social security levies should be hiked.
Japan’s population is set to slide to 70% of its 2020 size by 2070, at which point those aged 65 or above will make up almost 40% of the population, as life expectancies continue to rise, according to the latest estimate by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research.
The lack of births means Japan will have a smaller workforce and fewer taxpayers to sustain the world’s third-largest economy. The rising cost of caring for its elderly citizens, who make up a higher proportion of the population than in any other country, is draining the nation’s coffers, helping make it the world’s most indebted country.
–With assistance from Yuki Hagiwara.
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