The coronavirus pandemic has caused a major decline in the number of new marriages in Japan, with there expected to be some 150,000 fewer newly wedded couples than expected in the three years to the end of 2022, a recent study showed.
The fall, believed to be a result of several factors including fewer opportunities to socialize due to pandemic-related restrictions, could also lead to around 243,000 fewer babies being born if there is no recovery in the new marriage rate, researchers warned.
The findings by Asako Chiba, a postdoctoral fellow at the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research, and Taisuke Nakata, an associate professor at the University of Tokyo, come when Japan was already facing a worrying trend of falling numbers of marriages and newborns.