JAPAN Tokyo, the decline in births accelerates in the first 6 months of 2022

The pandemic has led to a new record low for pregnancies with another 20,000 fewer births. If the trend continues until the end of the year, the phenomenon should reach the levels forecast for 2030. In 2021, the Japanese population was reduced by about 726 thousand people. Government policies to help combine parenthood and working life have had little effect.

Tokyo () – This week the Tokyo Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare announced the preliminary data on births of the first six months of the current year and the figures are alarming. In the last two decades, there have never been as few births in Japan as in the first half of 2022, from January to June. The published statistics speak of some 385,000 births, which represents a decrease of 20,000 units compared to last year’s figure.

The demographic drop below 400,000 births is verified after almost three years of pandemic, which reduced births in Japan even more rapidly. Socioeconomic uncertainties due to the spread of Covid-19 are considered to be one of the main causes of the decrease in pregnancies. However, it should be remembered that the decline in the birth rate in Japan is a trend long before the outbreak of the pandemic.

The number of new births has been declining for several decades and since 2016, when for the first time there were less than a million new births in the span of 12 months, each new year has seen a reduction compared to the previous year. If the trend of the first semester of 2022 is maintained in the second semester, this year would mark the historical minimum of births, falling for the first time below the threshold of the 811,000 births registered last year. It is the lowest figure since 1899, when this statistic began in Japan.

The pandemic, however, has had a devastating effect on declining birth rate. Studies conducted in 2017 by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research reported that the Japanese population would certainly decline, but at a much slower rate than actually occurred. It is estimated that the annual number of new births should not have reached 810,000 before 2030. However, according to preliminary data from this year, it is possible that this figure will be exceeded 8 years in advance.

The birth figures are then combined with rising deaths, the intersection of which paints a very worrying picture for Japanese demographics. In 2021, in the face of negative birth registration, there was also an equally negative registration of approximately 1.44 million deaths. In short, in the last year the Japanese population has been reduced by more than 726,000.

The demographic crisis, however, is not an unmanageable phenomenon and in the last decade Tokyo has begun to take concrete measures to counteract it. Former Prime Minister Abe and current Prime Minister Kishida have promoted various initiatives to help the Japanese combine parenting with work life. But you still don’t see great results and with each passing year Japan gets a little smaller and a little older.