Japan's population will start shrinking next year and not in 2007 as was earlier projected and could be half of what it is now in a century, if the birthrate continues to decline at the current pace, according to a government report released Friday.
If the current fall continues and things remain constant, the size of the population is projected to drop to 64.0 million in 2100 from a high of 127.7 million in 2006, the 2005 annual paper on the declining birthrate says.
The total fertility rate plunged to a record low of 1.29 in 2004, according to the report. The rate, an indicator used for international comparisons in birth trends in a particular year, is calculated by taking the average number of children a woman bears at each age between 15 and 49 and adding the averages together.