In Japan, a representative low-birthrate country, the number of babies born last year came to an all-time low of 670,000. Japan had initially expected to reach this level around 2040, but births are declining 15 years faster than projected.
According to the 2025 vital statistics that the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in Japan released on the 3rd, the number of babies with Japanese nationality born in Japan last year was 671,236, down 14,937 (2.2%) from the year before. That is the lowest since related statistics began in 1899. However, the decline, which had exceeded 5% for three straight years through the year before last after COVID-19, narrowed to the 2% range.
Japan's total fertility rate, the number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime, was 1.14, down 0.01 from 1.15 a year earlier. It marked a decline for the 10th consecutive year and a record low.
In the past, the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research in Japan projected that annual births would not fall to 670,000 until 2040. But with last year's births at 670,000, that projection arrived 15 years earlier.
Natural population change, the difference between births and deaths, recorded a decrease of 918,253 last year. As a result, Japan's population shrank naturally for the 19th straight year. The scale of natural decrease exceeded 900,000 for the second consecutive year, and compared with the 444,070 decline in 2018, the drop roughly doubled.