Japan's high cost of living, limited space and lack of child care support in cities make it difficult to raise children, meaning fewer couples are having kids.
Dropping birth rates are a result of a number of reasons, such as growing living expenses, an increase in the number of women in the workforce, as well as easier access to contraception, which encourages women to have fewer children. The declining social and cultural values are a major factor in Japan's low birth rate.
Japan is facing one of the world's major demographic crises, with the number of annual births dipping below 800,000 for the first time in 2022. The current birth rate of 1.34 is well below the 2.07 necessary to keep the population stable, meaning Japan's population could drop from 125 million to 88 million by 2065.
South Korea has the world's lowest fertility rate, a struggle with lessons for us all. A woman holding her daughter looks at a view of Seoul in 2019. The fertility rate in South Korea, which has the world's lowest rate, hit 0.78 in February.
The aging of the Japanese population is a result of one of the world's lowest fertility rates combined with a high life expectancy.
The amendments will also criminalize sex with children under the age of 16 by raising the legal age of consent from 13. Japan's current age of consent has remained unchanged since its enactment in 1907 and is one of the lowest among developed nations.
Japanese life expectancy
This low mortality is mainly attributable to a low rate of obesity, low consumption of red meat, and high consumption of fish and plant foods such as soybeans and tea. In Japan, the obesity rate is low (4.8% for men and 3.7% for women).
The total fertility rate, a measure that gives the average number of children an Australian woman would have during her lifetime should she experience the age-specific fertility rates present at the time was 1.7 births per woman in 2021. This was up from the 1.59 for 2020, the lowest total fertility rate ever reported.
In 2020-21, the fertility rate was 1.66 babies per woman, similar to the rate recorded in 2018-19. In 2019-20, the rate had fallen to 1.61 babies per woman. According to the report, the data suggests people “adapted to the uncertainty of the pandemic and quickly caught-up on delayed childbearing plans”.
Japan's population has fallen for the 12th consecutive year, as deaths rise and the birth rate continues to sink, according to government data released Wednesday. The population stood at 124.49 million in 2022 – representing a decline of 556,000 from the previous year, figures show.
Advanced Hospital Care
No one factor can be singled out as the reason to explain the brilliant child survival rate in Japan but it is the approach toward a traditional but robust maternity culture combined with the efficiency of an advanced industrial society that makes it the safest place for a child to be born.
Contrary to the popular narrative, Japan has had some success in its efforts to reverse declining birthrates. Over the past decade, the government has rapidly expanded and enhanced parental leave benefits, such that new mothers can receive 50% to 67% of their regular pay while on leave compared to just 25% in 2000.
Marriage and children are more closely linked in South Korea than nearly anywhere else, with just 2.5 percent of children born outside of marriage in 2020, compared with an OECD average of more than 40 percent. For nearly 20 years, the Korean government has tried to encourage more marriages and more babies.
According to our estimations, daily change rates of Japan population in 2023 will be the following: 2,867 live births average per day (119.45 in an hour)
It's no secret that Australians are having fewer children. The latest ABS statistics reveal our fertility rate was 1.7 – well below the so-called replacement rate needed to keep the population growing. The last time our fertility rate was this low we started literally paying people to have babies.
China is facing a population crisis in part due to more women choosing to focus on their careers and personal goals, instead of starting a family. The Chinese government abolished its one-child policy in 2016, and scrapped childbirth limits in 2021 — but married couples are still having fewer children.
Birth rate - Country rankings
The average for 2021 based on 194 countries was 18.88 births per 1000 people. The highest value was in Niger: 45.29 births per 1000 people and the lowest value was in Hong Kong: 5 births per 1000 people. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2021.
Women can reproduce for about half of their lifetime and can only give birth about once every year or so. So it makes sense that women can only have a fraction as many children as men. One study estimated a woman can have around 15 pregnancies in a lifetime.
Having Babies After 35 Is Safe
And while it's true that conceiving after 35 comes with an increased risk of complications—like preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, chromosomal abnormalities, and even miscarriage or stillbirth—many people go on to deliver healthy babies.
The most common birthday in Australia is September 17th! The least common birthday (you may have guessed it is) is Christmas Day, the 25th of December. If you are inclined to count leap years in the mix then the 29th February is the least common birthday, but only because they occur once every 4 years.
The campaign started in the 70s to tempt tourists and expats with chicken on Christmas Day when they couldn't find turkey to eat, and was the the brainchild of Takeshi Okawara, the manager of the first KFC in the country, according to the BBC.
Response: Nearly 90% (or 6.9 years) of this gap is attributable to the fact that Asians tend to outlive whites regardless of the cause of death (age effect). The causes that contribute the most to the gap are heart disease (24%) and cancers (18%).
Japan's success in avoiding the obesity problem faced by most of the western world is down to three main factors: an appreciation of good food from cradle to grave, a lifestyle that encourages incidental exercise, and a large dollop of paternalism.