Overall, this not only leads to fewer people today, but fewer people tomorrow as well, since present actions will result in a smaller number of childbearing women in two or three decades. Japan's population is estimated to peak at around 127 million by 2007, and then near the end of the century, drop by half. This plunging birthrate does not provide an easy explanation, but statistics show that it mostly stems from a decline in marriages.
To counteract Japan's declining birthrate, the number of married persons needs to increase. However, statistics show that a large amount of Japan's middle class continues to delay marriage and childbearing. Since 1970, the number of unmarried women in their late twenties has tripled to just under fifty percent. These millions of individual decisions combine and create enormous consequences for Japan as a whole. Masahiro Yamada, a sociologist at Tokyo Gakugei University, thinks that the main reason for declining marriages in Japan deals with economics. Nearly seventy percent of unmarried women in their early thirties still reside with their parents, allowing them to engage in a more comfortable lifestyle. When this single lifestyle is compared to that of a typical married Japanese, marriage does not possess as much economic advantage. Other factors influencing marriage are the rigidity of Japan's lifetime-employment system, which shifts one's attention from family onto career, and the lack of agreement between Japanese men and women on terms of engagement.
Japan is known for its longevity and with such a high life expectancy rate, its aging population will remain large and in the picture for many years. Since 1960, the mortality decline among the elderly and middle aged has contributed to the increase in Japan's life expectancy, which continues to increase at an accelerating rate. In 1995, the life expectancy in Japan was 76.6 for men and 83 for women.
