'Population decline? Regional collapse? Still someone else's problem' — report calls for broader public awareness

Despite government efforts to counter population decline and regional depopulation, the public has yet to see these issues as personally relevant. Experts argue that policy alone cannot solve the problem and that broader public awareness — driven by private-sector engagement — is needed.

A report released Thursday by the Korea Institute for Future Population on the Korean Peninsula, titled "Japan's Regional Revitalization Policies and the Role of the Private Sector," said South Korea should draw lessons from Japan, which has already grappled with population decline and regional depopulation.

In Japan, a sense of crisis over the link between population decline and regional collapse took hold after the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research projected that the country's total population, which peaked at about 128.08 million in 2008, would continue to fall.

In 2014, the Abe cabinet drew on proposals from the private-sector think tank Japan Policy Council and the government's Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy to launch the first Comprehensive Strategy for Creating Hometowns, People and Jobs (2015–2019). It followed that up in 2019 with a second strategy (2020–2024), built around the vision of "realizing sustainable communities despite population decline."

In 2024, the Ishiba cabinet's 10-year review of regional revitalization found that, despite population gains in some areas, the concentration of people in the greater Tokyo area had continued to intensify — reaching 30.1 percent of the national population by 2025.

The Japanese government then signaled a shift in its regional revitalization approach. Building on the 10-year review, the Ishiba cabinet in June 2025 unveiled its "Regional Revitalization 2.0 Basic Concept," which reframed the response to population decline from "mitigation" to "adaptation" and emphasized building communities that young people and women would choose to live in.

Throughout this process, private-sector bodies also sustained efforts to address population decline and regional depopulation — among them the Japan Policy Council in 2014, the Population Strategy Council in 2023, and the Council for Choosing the Future in 2025.

The Japan Policy Council's publication of a list of "cities at risk of extinction" sent shockwaves through local governments and regional stakeholders across the country, raising public awareness of the population decline problem.

In 2024, the Population Strategy Council put forward its "Population Vision 2100," which outlined a population stabilization scenario aimed at building a country of about 80 million people with stable demographics and sustained growth potential.

Earlier this year, the Council for Choosing the Future issued an urgent recommendation during the Takaichi cabinet's drafting of its Regional Revitalization Comprehensive Strategy (2025–2029), calling for "a cross-ministerial implementation framework that breaks down bureaucratic silos." In March, it became the first private-sector body to publish a white paper on population issues, laying out new approaches to lifestyle and work in an era of population decline.

Cha Mi-suk, vice president of the Korea Institute for Future Population on the Korean Peninsula, said the sustained cooperation between Japan's central government and the private sector in tackling population decline and regional depopulation "offers useful lessons for South Korea as it pursues its own regional revitalization policies."