This according to the CIA's little "factbook" they keep online:
Population Growth Rate: -0.088% (2007 est.)
Birth Rate: 8.1 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)
Death Rate: 8.98 deaths/1,000 population (2007 est.)
(
https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...ja.html#People )
So, given that these are accurate, I'm wondering... How is a decline of less than .1% a cause for enough concern for a bunch of Gaijin to have a heated argument over the role of Japanese women in their society?
Now, I don't know what the trend has been for population growth, but if it's been <.1% in the last ten years.... That's tiny.
Japan's population right now is 127,433,494 (July 2007 est.) . To drop to 50 million, as some have claimed, it would take a little longer than 2050 -_-; . Well, I shouldn't say that because I didn't do the math, but that large of a drop would seem to take a lot longer than has been suggested.
Oh, also for the record, according to the CIA, there are actually (slightly) more women than men in Japan
! And here the other day my sister was telling me that they still abort female babies so they can have boys instead--I told her that's only in China, now, and less now than it was even 20 years ago, but I couldn't back it up :P . Ha, now I can back myself up with the friggen'
C.I.A. 
. But this is all an aside, so I must apologize for making you read all the 'irrelevant' data ^_^;;; .