Japan’s birth rate crisis has reached a 125-year low as fewer and fewer Japanese are starting families. Japan experienced a decrease in birth rates for the ninth consecutive year, according to a Health Ministry report issued on February 27.
This figure represents the lowest birth rate since records began. In the past year, fewer than 720,000 newborns were recorded in the East Asian nation, which has a population of 124 million. It marks a five percent drop in births since 2023. Meanwhile, mortality rates have outpaced births at a ratio of 2:1, highlighting Japan’s demographic challenges.
Officials highlight a two percent increase in marriages, which offers a slight respite from a preceding decline of nearly 6 percent from 2022 to 2023. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba remarked on the potential positive outcome of the increase in marriages, suggesting a possible link to eventual birth rate improvements.
Japan’s declining population trend has extended over 15 years, presenting significant challenges to the economy as the nation’s elderly population, constituting about 30 percent, continues to grow. Health officials have urged that efforts to counteract these trends may have until the end of the decade to be effective.
The birth rate decline trend has also occurred across the West, with the United States seeing birth rate declines in 2023 that were even lower than at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
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