Births in Japan hits a lower record in 2024, falling for the ninth-straight year as young people delay marriage while the elderly population rises.
This is according to a Data revealed by the Japanese’s government today.
The numbers highlight the dramatic demographic challenges facing the world’s fourth-biggest economy, where a shrinking workforce is having to shoulder the costs of caring for a ballooning elderly population.
In 2024, 720,988 babies were born in Japan, including to foreign nationals, down five percent from 758,631 in 2023, according to preliminary health ministry data.
The number of births shrank to the lowest since government started tracking the data in 1899 and deaths became more than double the number of births, rising 1.8 percent from 2023 to 1.62 million
