New Record Low of Birth Rate

Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare released Vital Statistics of 2023 on June 5th. According to the survey, live birth in Japan was 727,277 in 2023, reduced by 43,482 from the previous year. Total fertility rate was 1.20, slightly declined from 1.26 of 2022. What was serious for Fumio Kishida administration, which upholds ambitious measures for raising birth rate, must be that live birth marked the lowest record since 1899, when the Japanese government started this survey, and total fertility rate also hit the lowest since 1947, when it started using this index.

The decline of live birth and total fertility rate has continued for eight years since 2016, the year when live birth fell below one million for the first time. Crude birth rate, which indicates how many children 1,000 of population have given birth, was 6.0, declined from 6.3 of 2022. Deaths were 1,575,936, increased by 6,886. Therefore, natural change of population in Japan was 848,659 of decrease.

 

Looking into the age of mother, births decreased in every class of agers except 45 or older, which suggested aging of women who gave birth. On the other hand, the group that experienced the biggest decline in birth rate was the women in 25 to 29 years old. While the most important point for increasing children is generally considered as promoting marriage, the couples that were married last year were 474,717, decreased by 30,213. In addition, divorced couples increased by 4,709, which amounted to 183.808.

 

The prefecture which showed the lowest fertility rate was Tokyo with 0.99, the only one that sank below 1. The urban area, such as Saitama, Chiba or Kanagawa, showed the same tendency as Tokyo. Okinawa marked the highest of 1.60, but decline from the previous year was common for all the prefectures.

 

In an estimation of National Institute of Population and Social Security Studies, live birth in 2023 was 739,000. The actual result was less than the estimation by about 10,000. The decrease of live birth is accelerated by ten years faster than the estimate.

 

It is required for the government to help families with children to raise the birth rate. the bill for raising children passed the Diet on the same day when the statistics of birth rate was released. While the law included measures for increasing allowances for children, it decided to create new financial resource called “support fund,” which would be collected from the payment for medical treatments.

 

However, one of the main reasons that young people do not dare to be married or to have a child is economic condition. While measures for raising wage or reducing working hours for young workers have not sufficiently achieved, real wage keeps on declining with inflation of consumers’ price.

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