The Big 3
At the start of last year, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said it was “now or never” to undo the country’s declining birth rate — but national data out yesterday revealed that births dropped again to a record low 758,631 in 2023, suggesting the nation is getting further away from reversing the worrying trend.
The 5.1% year-over-year decline marks the 8th consecutive birth rate drop, with fears of depopulation and a shrinking workforce rising as deaths in the nation ticked up to 1.59 million in yet another concerning record for the country. And the bad news from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare sadly doesn’t end there either: marriages also plummeted to 490k, the first time that figure has slipped below 500k since 1933.
Marriage problems
While Japan’s ever-declining birth rate and its implications for the recently-3rd-now-4th largest economy in the world have caught the attention of media outlets and major tech moguls for years now, falling marriages have perhaps slipped more under the radar when the annual ministry data is released. However, the dropping number of couples tying the knot is intrinsically linked to birth rate concerns and will likely be a problem for many years to come, as record numbers of Japanese 18-34 year-olds say they have no intentions of marrying.
