World | Japan In Japan, Elders Outnumber Kids Too many senior citizens, not enough children means trouble ahead By Nick McMaster Posted May 6, 2008 1:16 PM CDT Copied Children wearing Boston Red Sox-colored T-shirts clown around with the team's mascot Wally at dugout before a baseball clinic at Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan, Monday, March 24, 2008. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi) Monday was Children’s Day in Japan, but the holiday has a bitter irony in a land where the number of children has been waning for 27 years. Kids account for only 13.5% of Japan’s population, while the elderly make up 22%, the Washington Post reports. The steady population shrinkage will have drastic effects. By 2050, Japan will have lost 70% of its labor force, and at the current rate, in a century the country will have only one-third of its current population. Read These Next Beyonce leaves national anthem unfinished. A space capsule carrying ashes of 160 people crashed in the ocean. A lesson in minding your own business ... at 30,000 feet. The death toll in the Texas floods has risen to 27, including 9 kids. Report an error