On August 28, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare released preliminary vital statistics, showing that the number of births for the January–June 2026 was 342,068, a 0.8% increase from the same period last year. This marks the first year-on-year increase for the first half of the year in 11 years, since 2015. The birth rate (total fertility rate)* had been declining year-on-year by around 5% from 2022 to 2024 due to a decrease in the number of marriages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the decline leveled off in 2025, narrowing to 2.2%. This was attributed to the number of marriages turning upward in 2024.

That said, the birth rate of 1.14 is a record low, marking the 10th consecutive year of decline from the previous year. According to the population projections released in 2023 by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, the fertility rate was projected to be 1.25 for 2025 in the medium-fertility scenario, while it was 1.10 in the low-fertility-scenario, considered the pessimistic projection. In reality, the figure is closer to this pessimistic scenario, and the downward trend in the number of births is running about 15 years ahead of the medium scenario. Natural population change - the difference between the number of births and deaths - has been negative for 19 consecutive years, and in 2025, the decline exceeded 900,000 for the second consecutive year. The population decline shows no signs of slowing down.

The Agency for Children and Families conducted the “Comprehensive Survey of 100,000 Young People” from May through August of this year, targeting men and women aged 15 to 39, and released an interim report on August 31. While the survey covered a wide range of topics, including life satisfaction and attitudes toward social participation, the findings regarding marriage came as a surprise. Among unmarried respondents, 35.1% said they “have no intention of marrying.” While “anxiety about income” and “a loss of free time and time for hobbies” ranked among the top obstacles to marriage, an even larger share said that they simply “do not want to marry” in the first place. This was the response given by 53.1% of those who have no intention of marrying, equivalent to 18.6% of all unmarried respondents. With the youth population already declining, it is difficult to see how the birth rate can rise under these circumstances.

In 2021, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism published the final report of its “Long-Term Outlook for the National Land.” Based on three projections for 2050—approximately half of Japan’s inhabited areas will become affected by population decline and aging; about 30 percent of all municipalities will see their populations fall to less than half their current levels; and 70 percent of the total population will live in areas at high risk of natural disasters—the report emphasizes the need for sustainable regional development through a “Compact and Networked Structure” approach. In other words, we must accept population decline as a given and, on that basis, seek to create prosperous communities. This cannot be achieved through competition among regions to leverage Tokyo’s advantages as the capital, and its economic power and innovative strengths—the idea behind the “Secondary Capital” concept. The priorities should instead be the “formation of new regional living spheres with diverse forms of prosperity and distinctive characteristics” and “appropriate management of the national land in response to natural disasters and population decline.”

*The total fertility rate (TFR) is the sum of age-specific fertility rates for women aged 15 to 49 in a given year, representing the average number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime. A TFR of 2.07 is considered necessary to maintain a stable population.

Takashi Mizukoshi, the President
This Week’s Focus, August 30 – September 3, 2026