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Number of births in Japan at an all-time low

By on March 1, 2023

The number of babies born in Japan in 2022 dropped below the 800,000 mark for the first time since the country’s health ministry started collecting data in 1899, according to a preliminary report Tuesday.

The number fell by 5.1% or 43,169 from the previous year to 799,728.

The ministry’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research estimated in 2017 that the number of newborns, with babies of foreign residents included, would fall below 800,000 for the first time in 2033. The rate at which the decline is happening is faster than what the government had anticipated.

The dwindling number of births may have been the result of postwar lows in the number of people getting married in the years 2020 and 2021. The coronavirus pandemic and inflation apparently contributed to the ongoing trend.

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