Japan's birth rate fell to a record low in 2022. The birth rate has been dropping for about a decade now. The number of babies born in Japan in 2022 dropped below 800,000-- to 799,728-- for the first time since records began in 1899. As per the 2017 government forecast the number of births was to fall below 800,000 in 2033. This shift comes despite the government offering different incentives to increase the number of births. Numbers in the data include children of Japanese nationals living abroad.
According to the ministry of Health Labour and Welfare, the drop in birth rate is a result of lifestyle changes due to the Covid-19 pandemic-- marrying late or not marrying late being among the changes.
"Many complex factors are involved, including financial instability among young people and less social encounters," an official of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare told Japan Today.
"The drop in births in 2022 is likely to have been impacted by the decline of marriages in 2020 due to the arrival of the pandemic, given how, in many cases, the first child is born two years after getting married," Takumi Fujinami, a senior researcher at the Japan Research Institute told Japan Today. "Women in particular are less willing to have children," Fujinami said. "Along with the economic and employment environment, the issue of the gender gap, which puts a heavy burden on women in areas like child-rearing, should be improved."
For the first time in three years, however, the number of marriages increased in 2022. In 2021, the number of marriages had declined to its lowest level since the end of World War II.
