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September 06, 2025
 

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PARENTHOOD

The annual number of babies in Japan has been on a downward trend since around 1975, falling below 1 million in 2016, 900,000 in 2019 and 800,000 in 2022.
JAPAN / Society
Aug 29, 2025
Japan births hit fresh low in first half of 2025
The January-June figure, including babies born to foreign nationals living in Japan and Japanese nationals living overseas, stood below 400,000 for the fourth consecutive year.
The Justice Ministry has drafted an ordinance proposing a legally mandated post-divorce child support amount of ¥20,000 per child per month, sources said.
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2025
Statutory post-divorce child support to be set at ¥20,000 a month
According to a 2021 welfare ministry survey, only 28.1% of single-mother households and 8.7% of single-father households had actually received child support from the other parents.
Nadia, a military radio operator who served until she was eight and a half months pregnant, with her son Pavlo, 6, at their home in Lubny, Ukraine, on Jan. 28.
WORLD
Aug 28, 2025
Expecting on the front lines: Motherhood in Ukraine’s military
Despite the hardships they face, many pregnant soldiers say they are motivated to serve for the future of Ukraine — and their children.
The Financial Services Agency plans to expand Japan's Nippon Individual Savings Account tax exemption program for small investments, with a focus on supporting families with children.
BUSINESS
Aug 27, 2025
Financial Services Agency eyeing NISA expansion to support child-rearing
The FSA will call for a revision of the age limit for installment-type investments under the NISA program.
Kid carts and strollers were a common sight at the Fuji Rock Festival this year.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 4, 2025
The families that rock together at Fuji
Taking children to Fuji Rock is a rite of passage that should be supported.
The number of children waiting to be accepted into <i>gakudō hoiku</i> after-school care facilities for elementary school students has dropped from a year earlier.
JAPAN
Jul 29, 2025
Number of children on after-school care waiting lists drops to 17,000
By prefecture, Tokyo had the largest number of children on waiting lists at 3,375.
China's government will offer subsidies to parents to the tune of $500 per child under the age of three per year, Beijing's state media said on Monday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jul 29, 2025
China rolls out childcare subsidy to boost birth rate
The assistance is meant as an incentive for young couples wary of rising costs of child-rearing.
It is recommended that screen time for children should be kept to under two hours a day.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 24, 2025
Study first, screens later: Japanese kids have summer projects to do
From book reports to free research, parents are helping kids build good habits — and grammar — over summer break.
Pham Thi Bich Hau (fifth from left) began translating and interpreting for the Vietnamese community in Japan in 2013, when she was working for a trainee management organization. She went on to found the Vietnam Women's Union in Japan, organizing activities like the Tet festival pictured here.
COMMUNITY / Issues / The Foreign Element
Jul 21, 2025
The mothers holding up Japan's Vietnamese community
Online support groups and in-person events are helping Vietnamese women from all walks of life manage motherhood abroad.
A woman holding a child listens to a stump speech in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward on June 25.
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 18, 2025
Parties vow measures to tackle falling birth rate
Last year, Japan recorded fewer than 700,000 births for the first time.
One out of every 5,000 births is affected by mitochondrial diseases, which cannot be treated, and include symptoms such as impaired vision, diabetes and muscle wasting.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jul 17, 2025
World-first IVF trial reduces risk of babies inheriting diseases
The results raise hopes that women with mutations in their mitochondrial DNA could one day have children without passing debilitating or deadly diseases on to the children.
The Osaka District Court ordered the man to have his son appear at a hearing, but the man failed to bring him on all three designated dates.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jul 11, 2025
Osaka man detained for three weeks under human protection law
It is rare for a person to be detained under the human protection law, which has no clause on a specific period for such detentions, said an expert on Japan's family laws.
Emperor Naruhito (left) visits a special education school in Iruma, Saitama Prefecture, in May and looks at a student attending to a customer at a cafe inside the school.
JAPAN / Society
Jul 9, 2025
Boosting support for parents of children with disabilities in Japan
Businesses and local governments are taking steps to support parents after care programs for their disabled children are discontinued at a certain age.
Yoshiomi Tamai
JAPAN / Society
Jul 7, 2025
Philanthropist Yoshiomi Tamai dies at 90
Tamai was the founder and longtime president of the Ashinaga Foundation, which has supported over 110,000 orphaned students.
A teacher at the Honkawa day care center in the city of Hiroshima puts away disposable diapers delivered by a subscription service provider.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Hiroshima
Jul 7, 2025
Use of diaper subscription expands at Hiroshima public day care centers
The service saves parents from having to put their child's name on each diaper and bring them to the day care center.
The share of households with children in Japan slid 1.5 points from the year before to a record low of 16.6%.
JAPAN / Society
Jul 5, 2025
Record 80% of Japanese mothers are employed
The latest survey also found that 58.9% of households felt they were struggling to make ends meet, almost unchanged from the year before.
Expectant parents Masataka and Saki Ohita look at ultrasound images of their unborn twins.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Fukushima
Jun 23, 2025
Childbirth facilities disappearing from Fukushima towns
With just 26 facilities in the prefecture that can handle deliveries, there is concern that the trend could accelerate population decline.
A notice sent from the Sendai Municipal Government to those denied entry to an after-school care facility
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Tohoku
Jun 16, 2025
Sendai faces growing waitlist at after-school care facilities
The Sendai government has been working to expand the capacity of such programs, but many of them are still full.
A man holding a baby wades through a flooded road following heavy rainfall in Zhengzhou, China, in July 2021.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jun 13, 2025
Natural disasters may be shaping babies’ brains
The findings signal how new generations of children may be marked by climate crises that occur before they were born.
The Children and Families Agency will conduct a survey in an effort to offer better assistance measures for expectant mothers in trouble.
JAPAN / Society
Jun 9, 2025
Japan to study ways to help more pregnant women in danger
As of January, 23 prefectural and municipal governments have taken part in a program to offer temporary housing, meals and medical services to struggling women and their babies.
Bangladesh is a South Asian time bomb
Many Bangladeshis hoped that the overthrow of long-time leader Sheikh Hasina last year would revitalize the country’s democracy after an authoritarian lurch under the “iron lady.” Instead it has led to proliferating human-rights abuses, intensifying repression and widespread Islamist violence.
‘Confugenics’ and East Asia's demographic crisis
East Asia’s fertility plunge is driven not just by financial costs but by perfectionist cultural expectations that burden parents with intense educational and social demands.
Tropical Storm Peipah brings heavy rain to parts of western Japan
Tropical Storm Peipah made landfall in western Japan on Friday, prompting the Japan Meteorological Agency to issue warnings of landslides and other disasters due to heavy rainfall in several areas.
Trump signs order reducing tariffs on Japanese autos
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Ryosei Akazawa, Japan’s chief tariff negotiator, shake hands.
Tamagotchi hatches 100 million shipments worldwide thanks to ’90s nostalgia
The latest version of Tamagotchi, called Tamagotchi Paradise, is awarded the best digital toy at Tokyo Toy Show on Aug. 28.
London’s calling and sumo’s top division — along with Hello Kitty — are ready to answer
Yokozuna Hoshoryu and Hello Kitty, an ambassador for sumo's upcoming tour to London, at Tokyo's Kokugikan on Tuesday
Resonac creates 27-member consortium to pursue advanced chip developments
Representatives from member companies of JOINT3, a consortium working together on semiconductor-related developments announced by Resonac, pose for a photo in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Haru Nemuri’s radical new album refuses easy listening
Musician Haruna Kimishima, better known as Haru Nemuri, confronts Japan’s politics, nationalism and censorship on her recent output.
Overseas sluggers step up to bat in small-town Hokkaido
The Betsukai Pilot Spirits welcomed new players (left to right) Yuta Yamanaka, Roman Guthrie, Scott Bellina and Leo Jiminian this year, pictured here with Yassir Lachkar of the Ishikari Red Phoenix.
Xi — joined by Kim and Putin — delivers stark warning at military parade
Chinese leader Xi Jinping walks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un before a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of victory over Japan and the end of World War II, in Beijing on Wednesday.

Podcast

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

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo
Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

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