Hisakazu Kato

Ph.D. Professor, Meiji University

Hisakazu Kato graduated from the Faculty of Economics of Keio University in 1981. He completed the Master’s Program in Business Administration and Public Policy at the Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Tsukuba in 1988. He earned a Ph.D. in economics from Chuo University in 2000. After working as senior researcher at Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, office director of the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (IPSS) and assistant professor at the School of Political Science and Economics of Meiji University, he assumed his current post in 2006. His books include The Shock of Society Whose Population Is 80 Million: From the Disappearance of Local Regions to the Disappearance of Japan (Shodensha Publishing Co., Ltd., 2016), Generational Inequality: Reconsidering Depopulation Society (Chikumashobo Ltd., 2011) and An Introduction to Population Economics (Nippon Hyoronsha Co., Ltd., 2001).

A Japanese boy stretching with a ball during a clinic arranged by J2 football club Matsumoto Yamaga with the Matsumoto City Kiri Kindergarten in Japan, in November 2018. (SPH Media)

Society

Can Japan overcome its declining birth rate?

By Hisakazu Kato 30 Nov 2023

Japanese academic Hisakazu Kato observes that Japan's low birth rate has been an issue for decades seemingly with no solution, and despite efforts by the Japanese government to address the problem, its policies have come under criticism for not being what the people need.