Japan to report fewer births in 2007

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan is expected to report fewer babies born in 2007, a government report said on Tuesday, kicking off the new year with a bleak reminder of the long-term risks the economy faces as its population ages at an unprecedented pace.

Japan's rock-bottom birth rate has raised concerns about a shrinking workforce, slower economic growth and troubles ahead for government efforts to fund its ballooning pension needs.

The Health Ministry report, based on preliminary figures of births and deaths registered at Japanese municipal offices, estimated the number of babies born in 2007 was likely to have fallen by 3,000 from a year earlier to 1,090,000.

The decline would follow an increase in babies in 2006, the first rise in six years, which was attributed to a rise in marriages helped by an improving economy.

A ministry official said both births and Japan's population of 128 million were likely to decline in coming years, given the outlook for a decline in the number of women able to bear children.

"The number of babies will probably fall or steady going forward while the number of deaths will rise," she said. "So the long-term trend is for the population to decline."

The same report estimated the number of deaths in 2007 rose by 22,000 to 1,106,000.

Japan's fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime, stood at 1.32 in 2006, far from an estimated 2.07 needed to keep a population from falling.

Experts say Japan has lagged countries such as Sweden and the United States in helping parents balance work and family. Long working hours, late-night business meetings and the high cost of child care have all put couples off having babies.

The phenomenon threatens to squeeze the economy by shrinking the labor force and leaving fewer workers to support a growing number of pensioners.

Separate government data last year showed a tenth of Japan's population was aged 75 or older, a historical high, while another report showed the proportion of those 65 or older would double to 40 percent by mid-century.

(Reporting by China Fujioka; editing by Roger Crabb)