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Births Down, Deaths up in the First Half of 2007

August 23, 2007
By Ken Worsley


Yesterday, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare published statistics for the January-June 2007 period showing that last year’s increased birth rate has not yet taken root as a trend. In the first half of 2007, births in Japan fell 0.5% to 546,541. In June, 90,779 children were born, a decrease of 1.4% against the 92,047 children born in June of last year.

During the same half-year period, deaths in Japan rose 0.9% to 569,015. During the first half of last year, 564,082 deaths had been recorded in Japan. In June, deaths rose 1.1% to 83,093. Last June saw 82,223 deaths in Japan.

With deaths outnumbering births in the first half of the year, the population fell by 22,474.

The number of marriages also fell in the first half of 2007, from 367,965 to 359,925, for a 2.2% decline. On the plus side, the number of divorces also fell in the first half of 2007, from 136,128 last year to 133,776 this year. Although the number of divorces did rise in April and May, they had been lower in the first three months of the year, and fell off sharply in June.

In April, a new law allowed for divorced couples to split a husband’s public pension benefits. There has been no word from the government officially denying that the current crisis over missing pension payments was not simply an elaborate ruse intended to prevent the divorce rate from skyrocketing…

Filed Under Demographics, Japan 

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Comments

3 Responses to “Births Down, Deaths up in the First Half of 2007”

  1. Edward Hugh on August 24th, 2007 4:35 pm

    Just while I’m here, while the birth dearth is undoubtedly extremely serious in Japan, it is hard to draw conclusions about anything very much from one year to the next.

    The number of children born in any one year is a reflection of a number of factors, none of which necessarily have to do with underlying fertility rates. One factor is obviously the size of the principal cohort giving birth, which will probably be females born between 1975 - 1980 or thereabouts. If there were a lot of children then, then this will leave a shadow now, etc.

    Also, the rate of birth postponement (ie of first and second birth ages for women who do have two - or one - child). As this rate slows you get more children, as it accelerates you get less (the missing births effect). Postponement is the principal factor in crunching the shape of the population pyramids (and not fertility as such) as it regulates flow and hence the size of each new cohort in the pyramid. To know what is going to happen to the Japanese pyramid in the next couple of decades we need to know more about what is happening to postponement in Japan, how fast is it rising, and where will the upper limit be?

  2. Rodrigo on September 6th, 2007 4:27 am

    What people don’t understand is that there are already more people in the world that it should be. a decline in japan is needed, there are 127 million
    of people living in a “small” island. i will get worried when
    population drops to below of 50 million…

  3. Ken Worsley on September 6th, 2007 4:39 am

    What people don’t understand is that there are already more people in the world that it should be.

    So…how many should there be and how did you arrive at this mystery number?

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