Japan's population decline a record

TOKYO -- Japan's population fell by a record last year, underlining the struggle to boost growth and rein in soaring welfare costs in the world's most rapidly aging society.

The population declined by 0.2 percent to 127.8 million as of Oct. 1, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications reported yesterday. Fukushima prefecture, devastated by last year's tsunami and nuclear disaster, registered the biggest decline, 1.93 percent.

Japan faces a shrinking workforce as 2012 is the first year the nation's baby boomers are set to retire. The world's third-largest economy has contracted three of the past four years, and policy makers, including Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa, have said low growth is mainly the result of demographic changes.

Japan has the world's oldest society, with a median age of 44 years, according to a 2009 United Nations report.

Social-security costs more than doubled in two decades, accounting for 52 percent of spending in the fiscal year that began April 1. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has proposed doubling the consumption tax, currently at 5 percent, by 2015. -- Bloomberg News