Japan 2025 Births Hit Record Low of 671,000

Tokyo, June 3 (Jiji Press)–The annual number of babies born to Japanese citizens in Japan fell by 14,937 from the previous year to 671,236 in 2025, hitting a record low since statistics became available in 1899, the health ministry said Wednesday. The annual number hit a record low for the 10th consecutive year. The total fertility rate, which indicates the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, also fell to a record low, at 1.14. While intensively implementing countermeasures under its child future strategy, the government launched the Population Strategy Headquarters in November last year to serve as a control tower to deal with population decline. Even so, the declining birthrate is progressing about 15 years faster than projections from the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. “The population decline is related to a drop in the number of young women, late marriage and late childbirth,” a ministry official said, adding that the ministry is taking the situation seriously. The number of births has been on a downward trend since 1975, falling below one million in 2016. The number slipped below 700,000 for the first time in 2024. The rate of decline has been above 5 pct since 2022 but slowed to 2.2 pct in the latest reporting year. Births increased in Tokyo as well as Toyama, Ishikawa, and Kagawa prefectures. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]