Japan records lowest historical birth rate in 125 years
The country is facing a growing labor shortage due to an aging population.
A mother holding hands with her young daughter in Hanoi.
The number of births in Japan fell below 700,000 for the first time in 2024, the government said Wednesday.
The country, which is struggling with an aging population, recorded 686,061 births last year, 41,227 fewer than in 2023, the report said. This is the lowest figure since records began in 1899.
Japan, a country of 123 million people, has the second-oldest population in the world after Monaco, according to the World Bank.
Data released Wednesday by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare showed that Japan’s total fertility rate—the average number of children a woman is expected to have—also fell to a record low of 1.15.
The ministry reported that 1.6 million deaths were also recorded last year in 2024, up 1.9% from 2023.
The Japanese nation is facing a growing labor shortage due to an aging population, coupled with a relatively strict migration policy.
The demographic challenge is not unique to Japan, but the plummeting birth rate contrasts with the case of neighboring South Korea, which days ago announced an increase in the fertility rate for the first time in nine years.
Vietnam suspends its policy of having two children per family
According to the new regulation, approved by the Standing Committee of the National Assembly of the communist regime, couples have the right to decide when to have children, the number and spacing between births.
According to official statistics, the fertility rate—which measures the number of births per woman of childbearing age—has dropped from 2.11 children per woman in 2021 to 1.91 children in 2024, the lowest level in its history, the statement released by the legislative body said.
The country banned couples from having more than two children in 1988.
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