Can We Think in Proportion to What We Have?

 As February—precisely four weeks long—comes to an end, new demographic data quietly marks another turning point. Japan’s annual birth count has fallen to a historic low. Rather than asking how to reverse the trend, perhaps it is time to ask a different question: how should we design a society that is no longer expanding?

 

February, neat and exact at four weeks, ends today.

Last year’s number of births reportedly fell to just over 700,000—the lowest on record.

The decline in birthrate may no longer be something we can simply halt.
Its opposite—an era of many children—is not something that can be summoned at will.

It is undeniably lonely to imagine a society with fewer children.
Yet if the population is shrinking, might there not be ways of thinking and living that correspond to that reality?

Japan cannot be compared with countries whose populations exceed a billion.
But even as our numbers decline, we remain comparable to nations such as Germany, the United Kingdom, and France—countries that continue to sustain stable and mature societies.

Advances in AI make further labor-saving increasingly possible.
Both intellectual and physical work may not be entirely replaced, but supported and streamlined through greater efficiency.

There still appear to be many unnecessary tasks in the world—duties that continue more out of habit than necessity.
Reducing such work is not an act of coldness. It may instead mean redirecting limited time and human effort toward what truly matters.

With more margin in daily life, people may become gentler.
Marriage and child-rearing might be considered not as burdens but as choices.

When I see young physicians struggling to rearrange schedules in order to raise children, I cannot help feeling that our institutions are still designed on the assumption of constant growth.

To stop expanding does not mean to decline.
To shrink can also mean to increase density—to refine and concentrate what is essential.

If we are fewer, then perhaps we can imagine a quieter, sustainable society—one without excess, yet without deprivation.

Rather than lamenting demographic decline,
perhaps we should accept it and consider what to discard and what to preserve.

That may be closer to our responsibility as those living in the present moment.