Japan’s struggle to encourage couples to have more children is becoming more urgent, following data that showed the annual number of births dropped to below 700,000 for the first time since records began over a century ago. The government’s data, released this week, showed that the number of births in 2024 was 686,061, a decline of 5.7% from the previous year and the lowest since records started in 1899. The data excluded babies born to foreign residents.
Japan’s fertility rate, which refers to the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime, also dropped to a record-low of 1.15, down from 1.20 in 2023. That is way below the rate of 2.1 needed to keep the population stable. The data comes as the government said 1.6 million deaths were recorded in 2024, up 1.9% from a year earlier.
The number of births and fertility rate have fallen for nine years straight. Although the number of marriages slightly increased last year, following a dip below half a million in 2021 and 2022, this slight increase did not change the downward trend seen since the 1970s.
Japan’s population is projected to fall from 124 million to 87 million by 2070, when 40% of the population will be aged 65 or over. A shrinking and aging population could have severe implications for the economy and national security.
The country’s current prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, recently introduced measures to boost the birth rate, including child allowances, free high school education, and improvements to parental leave policies. His predecessor, Fumio Kishida, warned that Japan’s declining birth rate and rising mortality constituted a crisis for the nation. But previous efforts to ease the financial burden on couples have been unsuccessful with people delaying marriage and having smaller families.
The government has faced criticism for focusing on married couples rather than younger, single people who have shown less interest in marriage. A survey by the Nippon Foundation found that only 16.5% of people aged 17 to 19 believed they would get married.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/05/japan-records-lowest-number-of-births-in-more-than-a-century-as-population-fears-grow
