TOKYO, June 3 (Xinhua) -- The number of babies born in Japan to Japanese nationals dropped to a record low of 671,236 in 2025, while the country's total fertility rate also fell to a new low, government data showed Wednesday.
The number of newborns fell by 2.2 percent, or 14,937, from the previous year, hitting a record low since statistics became available in 1899, while the fertility rate, the average number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, edged down 0.01 percentage points to 1.14, both declining for the 10th straight year, according to data released by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
The declining birthrate is accelerating about 15 years faster than anticipated. The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research estimated in 2023 that Japanese births would fall to the 670,000 range in the 2040s.
The number of deaths, meanwhile, declined for the first time in five years, falling by 15,889 to 1,589,489, according to the data, likely due to factors such as a decline in COVID-19 deaths.
Still, deaths outnumbered births by 918,253, marking the 19th consecutive year of natural decline in the population.
The number of births in Japan plunged to around 686,000 in 2024, slipping below the 700,000 threshold for the first time since records began in 1899. ■
