Japan birthrate hits record low in 2024 says health ministry
- Adam German
- Feb 28, 2025
- 2 min read
Japan recorded 720,988 births in 2024, the lowest annual total since comparable records began in 1899, according to preliminary data released by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare on February 27, 2025. Births fell 5.0% from the previous year, marking a ninth consecutive annual decline.
Deaths reached a record 1,618,684, up 1.8% year on year. The resulting natural population decrease - deaths minus births - widened to a record 897,696, highlighting the accelerating imbalance between the number of people entering and leaving Japan's population.
Common site seen in rural trains, this one from Nara, offering contrast to the packed commutes of Tokyo. Photo by Victoriano Izquierdo on Unsplash.
The figures are preliminary and cover vital events reported in Japan, including births to foreign nationals, as well as Japanese nationals overseas and some events occurring in earlier periods.
Final statistics covering Japanese nationals in Japan, together with Japan's 2024 total fertility rate, were not yet available as of February 28th.
Why it matters
Japan's demographic challenge extends beyond the annual birth count. In 2023, people aged 65 or older already represented 29.1% of the population, while the working-age population aged 15 to 64 accounted for 59.5%. Government projections indicate that the share aged 65 and over could reach 34.8% by 2040.
The government has described the period before the 2030s as a critical window for responding to population decline. On February 28th, Economy Minister Ryosei Akazawa noted projections showing the working-age population could fall by around 12.96 million between 2020 and 2040, increasing the importance of productivity improvements and broader labor-force participation.
For Japan's real estate market, the demographic shift points to increasingly uneven demand rather than a uniform national decline. Fewer births and a smaller future workforce are long-term headwinds for household formation and housing demand, particularly in regions already losing population.
At the same time, population concentration remains significant. Statistics Bureau data show that Tokyo was the only prefecture to record population growth in 2023, while the population declined in the other 46 prefectures.
