https://www.japantimes.co.jp/editorials/2026/06/05/japans-demographic-future/
Japan’s population continues to plummet with no end in sight.
The most recent government statistics show fertility rates hitting record lows — again. While it can be argued that Japan should be a smaller nation and managing that decline would in some ways augment the nation’s status and standing in the world, the current trajectory does not make that case.
Japan must address its shrinking population. Perhaps the immediacy of the problem will make its solution more urgent. The record to date does not offer grounds for hope.
According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Japan’s total fertility rate — the average number of births per woman during her productive years — dropped to 1.14 in 2025, down 0.01 points from last year. That is the 10th consecutive year of decline and a record low. Forty years ago, Japan’s fertility rate was 1.76, a considerably larger number than that today, but still well below that needed to keep the population steady.
Overall, the number of babies born by native Japanese within Japan — foreign nationals are excluded from the tally — fell to 671,236, a decline of 2.2% from 2024, another record low since record keeping began in 1899.
As a result of this decline, Japan’s natural population fell by 918,253, the second year in a row that there have been 900,000 more deaths than births. The natural population has now declined for 19 consecutive years.
Overall, Japan’s population is 123.05 million, according to preliminary data from the 2025 national census released last week. This is a decline of 3.09 million from the previous survey conducted five years ago and marks the third consecutive decrease. More striking, the 2.5% fall is the worst on record, more than tripling the 0.7% drop recorded in the last census in 2020.
Expect this slide to continue. According to figures released by the Internal Affairs Ministry last month, the estimated population of children under the age of 15 in Japan was 13.29 million as of April 1, the 45th consecutive year of decline and the lowest level since 1950. The share of children in Japan’s total population fell 0.3 percentage points to 10.8%, the 52nd consecutive year of decline and another record low.
Troubling though these statistics are, there are glimmers of hope. While the fertility rate continues to fall, it is less steep than it was. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it fell more than 5% a year for three years; the current rate is less than half that. In addition, the number of marriages is increasing. Just over 489,000 couples were married last year, up 0.8% from the previous year and the second straight annual increase.
While the average age of women having their first child remained at 31 for the third straight year, the number of births among women aged 30 to 34 rose by 2,221. This could reflect a growing number of women marrying later and becoming mothers. Tokyo, which has the lowest total fertility rate in Japan, recorded an increase in the number of births for the first time in a decade.
And the number of deaths in 2025 fell for the first time in five years. While that, in combination with a falling birth rate, exacerbates the country’s demographic squeeze, longer lives should be celebrated.
A managed population decline would be celebrated as well. Successfully shrinking the size of the nation could reduce resource demands and put the nation at the forefront of a social and economic evolution that could help determine global leadership as other countries address the same problem. Japan is merely the first to navigate a phenomenon that South Korea and China will face, along with other developed nations in Europe.
The problem is that Japan isn’t handling it especially well. Demographers anticipated this trajectory over 50 years ago yet the country did nothing about it. It is critical to recognize that this is not just a problem for politicians. The causes of the shrinking fertility rate and the declining population are rooted in a host of practices and policies found throughout society.
Reduced economic opportunities affect expectations about the ability to support a family; if the future looks grim, young people won’t marry and won’t have children. But providing those opportunities will not offset the reluctance of women to have children when doing so limits their future choices. Motherhood is an exceptional calling and should be encouraged, but women must have options if they choose to have children.
Last month, Forum for the Future We Choose, a public-private sector advisory panel with representatives that span social, political and economic interests, highlighted in a report how social norms in general, and unconscious gender bias in particular, impact Japan’s low birth rate.
The evidence — the country’s demographic trajectory — makes plain that they do not wish to circumscribe their lives and exist solely as mothers, wives or household managers. Some do, but many, seemingly most, do not. Over a decade ago, our predecessors on the Japan Times editorial board noted this simple fact. The problem lingers. Plainly, more work must be done.
Child care and education expenditures can and must increase. Identifying the source of those funds has been challenging and is becoming even more difficult in these turbulent times as other priorities compete for increasingly scarce yen. This is not just a question of government policy, however.
More important are expectations about appropriate roles around the house. The Forum for the Future We Choose report spotlighted the different thinking among men and women when it comes to the norms guiding family behavior. Simply put, they want burden-sharing among all adults in the household. Far more women than men believe that such thinking is significant, an indication of the unseen burdens that women bear.
Governments may help facilitate changes in thinking but private actors can do more, more quickly and more effectively. At the most basic level, a woman’s career prospects should not be penalized if she has children. She should not be forced to choose between having a career or a family — and certainly, she should not, as is still the case in some situations, be forced to give up her career after marriage.
Businesses do not have to wait for governments to set quotas or goals for women’s representation in senior positions. Nor should they have to be told to create environments that are welcoming of married women — or all women for that matter. They must not be relegated to supporting roles.
Demographers have warned about this problem for decades. Japan’s leaders have acknowledged their concern and the numbers show that the work is well founded. Yet the nation’s trajectory continues unabated. Even the immediacy of Japan’s population decline has not imparted urgency to its solution. It is a failing of the entire society and one that looks certain to continue.
