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June 06, 2025
 

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DEPOPULATION

The total number of births dropped to about 686,000, marking the first time the figure has fallen below 700,000, according to a health ministry release on Wednesday.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 2025
Japan’s fertility rate hits record low despite government push
The new low underscores the immense challenge facing the government as it attempts to reverse the trend in one of the world’s most aged societies.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi (third from left) speaks at a Council for Gender Equality meeting held at the Prime Minister's Office on Monday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 3, 2025
Japan to promote women's startups as part of push to stop rural outflow
Seeing fewer job prospects for women in the countryside as a problem, the government will improve consulting systems for business startups in rural areas.
A revised pension reform bill that calls for a measure to shore up basic pension benefits passed the House of Representatives plenary meeting on Friday.
JAPAN / Politics
May 30, 2025
Japan's Lower House OKs revised pension reform bill
The bill, which comes amid concerns over pension shortfalls due to Japan's aging population, is expected to be enacted later in the spring.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks at the Regulatory Reform Promotion Council on Wednesday at the Prime Minister's Office.
JAPAN
May 29, 2025
Japan may allow bus and railway firms to enter ride-hailing business
The council called for promoting ride-hailing services to address the nationwide transportation shortage and suggested a trial for bus and railway operators.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba talks during a meeting with business leaders about his Regional Revitalization 2.0 initiative.
JAPAN
May 22, 2025
Government to set numerical goals for regional revitalization
The targets will be set for 10 items, including the rate of young people relocating to regional areas.
Tokyo officials are pushing back against arguments that blame the dwindling national population partly on the concentration of people and businesses in the capital.
JAPAN / FOCUS
May 15, 2025
Regional revitalization faces Tokyo-countryside divide
Some blame Japan's dwindling national population partly on the concentration of people and businesses in the capital.
The government should "design a specific system by around fiscal 2026 to make standard childbirth expenses free of charge,” an expert panel said, as the aging nation seeks to reverse its declining population and shrinking pool of tax-paying workers.
JAPAN
May 15, 2025
Expert panel suggests Japan’s government make childbirth free
The proposal follows a child care policy package adopted in 2023 to reverse Japan’s declining birthrate by supporting families with young children.
Carolina Kawakubo, head of the Japanese arm of NRW.Global Business GmbH, during an interview on April 28 in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward
BUSINESS
May 8, 2025
German agency to strengthen its support for Japan startups
The German agency plans to hold seminars in four cities across Japan through November to provide such companies with free expertise.
Takaaki Nezu, executive director of Maruto Group Holdings, says it is the company’s social responsibility to help tackle the falling birth rate.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Fukushima
May 5, 2025
Fukushima firms seek ways to encourage marriages
One supermarket chain has said such moves reflect a corporate responsibility to tackle the nation’s chronically low birth rate.
The health ministry and some municipalities are turning to spot workers to solve the labor shortage in the nursing care industry.
JAPAN / Society
May 5, 2025
More nursing care facilities in Japan embrace 'spot work' amid labor shortage
The demand for care providers is expected to rise to around 2.4 million by fiscal 2026 and about 2.72 million by fiscal 2040.
Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
May 5, 2025
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan
How one artist is using history, culture and community spirit to revive a fading samurai legacy — and possibly reshape rural Japan’s future.
The proportion of children in Japan's overall population came to a record low of 11.1% as of April 1, dropping for 51 years in a row.
JAPAN / Society
May 4, 2025
Japan's child population falls for 44th straight year
The country's child population hit the lowest level since comparable data became available in 1950.
Regional lenders Daishi Hokuetsu Financial Group and Gunma Bank have entered into an agreement to consolidate their businesses in 2027.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 24, 2025
Regional lenders Daishi Hokuetsu and Gunma Bank agree to consolidate
The banks have entered a memorandum of understanding to integrate their businesses under a holding company structure on or around April 1, 2027.
Of the 721,000 childbirths reported in 2024 in Japan, 13.8% involved the use of an epidural, according to the Japan Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Apr 22, 2025
Cases of epidural use in labor rise in Japan alongside concerns
More demand for epidurals may place a strain on the nation's anesthesiologists, who are already facing staffing shortages.
Japan’s population has been falling year on year since 2011 after peaking in 2008.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 14, 2025
Japan’s population shrinks for the 14th consecutive year
Japan’s population has been falling year on year since 2011 after peaking in 2008.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and others at a ceremony to encourage regional revitalization support officers on Wednesday at the prime minister's official residence
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 10, 2025
Ishiba names 180 regional revitalization officers
The officers will work in groups of three to help 60 municipalities.
The number of people who moved from urban to nonurban areas under a government program to help revitalize local communities increased by 710 in fiscal 2024 from the preceding year, according to the internal affairs ministry.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 4, 2025
Record 7,910 people served as 'community reactivators' in FY2024
About 70% of over 8,000 urban residents who moved to nonurban areas under the government program continued to live in areas where they served.
A dog lies on the street as a man walks pushing a baby stroller in Matera, Italy, in 2021.
WORLD / Society
Apr 1, 2025
Italy's demographic crisis worsens as births hit record low
Italy's ever-falling birth rate is considered a national emergency, but no one has so far been able to halt the drop.
A poster calling for the earlier extension of the Hokkaido Shinkansen line to Sapporo is seen in the city's Chuo Ward in May.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Hokkaido
Mar 31, 2025
Hokkaido's rail network faces tough challenges
Falling ridership is putting pressure on JR Hokkaido to close underutilized local lines even as it struggles to complete the Hokkaido Shinkansen.
Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
LIFE / Lifestyle / Longform
Mar 31, 2025
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan
A growing industry quietly erases the final traces of those who die alone, exposing deep societal fractures.
Japan’s fertility rate hits record low despite government push
The total number of births dropped to about 686,000, marking the first time the figure has fallen below 700,000, according to a health ministry release on Wednesday.
Japan eyes tougher rules for foreign residents and tax hike for tourists
A tax-free shop in Kyoto in April 2024. Last week, members of a Liberal Democratic Party study group drafted a proposal seeking to scrap the country's tax-free shopping system altogether.
Hakuho’s departure highlights worrying sumo trend
Former <i>yokozuna</i> Hakuho performs a ring-entering ceremony at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo in February 2020.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic
After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
Is Japan ready to say goodbye to tax-free shopping?
Arrows lead to the tax-free counter at a branch of discount retailer Don Quijote in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward.
New Naoshima museum bets on Asia, not the West
Detail of Takashi Murakami, “Rakuchu-Rakugai-zu Byobu: Iwasa Matabei RIP” (2023-25)
Japan’s prison reform focuses on rehabilitation
Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki speaks to reporters in Tokyo on Friday. Suzuki said preparations for the changes that will focus more on rehabilitation are being actively made at each correctional facility.
Six months into 2025, J-pop is having a full-on identity crisis (and a great time)
The year so far is only proving that Mrs. Green Apple is the biggest band in Japan. Their success also seems to be hinting at a change in the musical landscape more broadly.
Nintendo’s Switch 2 console is finally here
The Switch 2 is Nintendo's first new gaming console in eight years.
Hakuho’s departure highlights worrying sumo trend
Former <i>yokozuna</i> Hakuho performs a ring-entering ceremony at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo in February 2020.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic
By Alex K.T. Martin

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