Figure 4. Age-Sex Distribution, 1988
Source: Based on information from Hideo Tsuda (ed.), Japan 1990: An International Comparison, Tokyo, 1990, 8.
With a population estimated at 124.7 million in July 1993, Japan is three times more densely populated than Europe as a whole and twelve times more densely populated than the United States. The population has more than tripled since 1872, when it stood at 34.8 million. Beginning in the 1950s, the birth rate declined, however, and by 1993 the rate of natural increase was 0.32 percent, the lowest in the world outside Europe. Both the density and the age structure of Japan's population are likely to influence the country's future.
Data as of January 1994