Japan's population is likely to start decreasing from next year, a year earlier than formerly projected, if the fertility rate continues to dwindle at the current pace, which marked a record low 1.29 in 2004, the government said in a report released Friday.

In a white paper on society with a falling birthrate, the government said Japan has become a country which has an extremely small ratio of children in the society.

Given the current trend that 51 percent of babies are born from mothers in their 30s as people marry and have children in older age, the ''entire society must support young child-rearing families to change the trend toward childlessness,'' the report said.

The report outlines the needs for a wide range of measures, including child-support allowance and other forms of support to local communities.

The report cites data showing that, among the households whose heads are in their 30s and have children under 6, the ratio of households with annual income of under 4 million yen was 32 percent. But raising children of 1-3 years of age costs about 500,000 yen a year, while raising of 4-6 year olds cost 650,000 yen.

''For low-income young families, the financial burden of having children is significant,'' the report said.

The report also cited an example of Tokyo's Edogawa Ward, whose total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman can have during her lifetime, of 1.30 exceeds the Tokyo-wide average of 1.00.

The report praised the community power of Edogawa, and emphasized the importance of creating an environment friendly to families raising children. It cited such examples as the provision of Edogawa's own child-support allowance and a system that uses certified nursery staff and people experienced in child-rearing.

As future agenda, the report mentioned the need to review social security payments to the elderly while increasing payments for families raising children.

According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the total fertility rate has been steadily decreasing since the mid-1970s, even though it topped 4 shortly after the war before moving around 2 during the 1960s and early 1970s.

The report also said 0.56 percent of Japanese men and 70.6 percent of Japanese women working for the private sector take child-care leave, compared with 79.2 percent of Swedish men and 84.0 percent of Swedish women.

Source: Agencies