According to a Kyodo News report government data showed that the number of newborns born in Japan in 2023 plummeted to a record low from the previous year as the country’s population declined by its largest ever margin.
According to preliminary figures issued by the health ministry on Tuesday, the number of infants decreased by 5.1% to 758,631.
A country’s birth rate is the ratio of live births to the total population in a given year. It is typically represented as the number of live births per thousand people.
The figure has remained below 800,000 since the year 2022.
Japan’s population, including foreign residents, decreased by 831,872, as deaths outnumbered births.
The Japanese government’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research has estimated that births in the country to fall below 760,000 in the year 2035.
The rapid decline in newborns has been attributed to late marriages and people staying single, Kyodo News said that the administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has termed the period leading up to 2030 as “the last chance” to reverse the trend.
The number of births peaked in 1973 at over 2.09 million babies and decreased below 1 million in the year 2016.
Meanwhile, according to government data, the number of deaths in Japan reached a record 1,590,503, while weddings plummeted to their lowest level since the end of World War II, with 489,281 unions.