Elon Musk tweet saying Japan will eventually cease to exist due to declining birthrate has sparked a debate on Social media. Many Japanese are criticizing the government for not taking effective measure to counter the low birthrate.
Musk, the head of electric vehicle, Tesla, who have also bought Twitter recently, tweeted: “At risk of stating the obvious, unless something changes to cause the birth rate to exceed the death rate, Japan will eventually cease to exist. This would be a great loss for the world.”
Japan’s population peaked in 2008, and continues to decline since then due to low fertility rate. Reacting to a report which said Japan’s population fell by a record 644,000 to 125.5 million in 2021, Musk warned that Japan will eventually cease to exist.
Despite the Japanese government’s warnings and attempts to boost the birthrate, the fertility rate remains well below the replacement level of about 2.1 children per woman.
Elon Musk comment hit a nerve among Japan watchers and in Japan, many commentators said that this is all government’s fault for not doing enough to fight low birthrate.
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“They keep saying the birthrate’s falling, but given that the government isn’t taking thorough steps to deal with it, what can we say? Everything they say and do is contradictory” said a Twitter user.
“In this environment, who’s going to say ‘Okay, let’s have a child’? I despair for Japan.” said another Twitter commentator.
Source: Reuters, Elon’s Twitter
