Japan’s birth rates reached a record low from January to June.
The number of babies born in Japan from January to June was 350,074, a record low for the first half of the year, down 5.7% from the same period the previous year, according to a preliminary report from the health ministry.
According to the report, which was made public on Friday, the first-half figure fell short of 400,000 for the third straight year, and the rate of decline quickened from the 3.6% decline in the previous year.
In the second half of 2024, if births decline at the same rate, the annual total may drop below 700,000 for the first time.
In the meantime, there were 248,513 marriages during the same time period, an increase of 0.9% for the first time in the previous two years. The country’s natural population decline, or the number of deaths less the number of births, was 461,745 after the number of deaths rose 1.8% to 811,819 in this year.
For the first time, fewer than 800,000 births were registered annually in 2022. In 2023, the number of births reached a record low of 727,277, signifying the eighth year of decline.
The average number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, or Japan’s total fertility rate, also fell to a record low of 1.20 in 2023.
A future revised report will only cover Japanese nationals living in Japan, whereas the preliminary report covered babies born to foreign nationals living in Japan as well as to Japanese nationals living overseas.
