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September 18, 2025
 

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POPULATION

The estimated number of people age 65 or older in Japan stands at 36.19 million as of Monday, accounting for record 29.4% of the country's total population, according to the internal affairs ministry.
JAPAN / Society
Sep 16, 2025
Japan's elderly population down at around 36.2 million
The estimate, released ahead of Respect for the Aged Day on Monday, decreased for the first time in two years.
Shigeko Kagawa, Japan's oldest person at 114, in Yamatokoriyama, Nara Prefecture, on July 30
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2025
Aging Japan’s centenarian population nears 100,000
The number has grown steadily in recent years and comes as the birth rate continues to plummet.
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.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 5, 2025
‘Confugenics’ and East Asia's demographic crisis
The numbers are staggering when you dig into them. Parents in Japan covered half of higher education costs in 2024 — more than double the OECD average.
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.
New Zealand saw its weakest population expansion since the third quarter of 2022, with immigration slowing as more citizens look overseas for better-paying jobs.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Aug 19, 2025
New Zealand posts slowest population growth in three years
New Zealand’s economy has struggled to sustain a recovery from a deep recession in 2024 even as interest rates fall.
The area around Shibuya Station in Tokyo. After the end of World War II, population concentration in the capital accelerated while other parts of Japan continue to see population declines.
JAPAN / FOCUS
Aug 18, 2025
80 years on: Tokyo prospers while local revitalization still insufficient
Experts stress the importance of setting up a system in which industrial resources are circulated locally in order to create a sustainable society.
A street in Tokyo's Shinjuku district on Wednesday
JAPAN / Society
Aug 7, 2025
Biggest drop in Japanese nationals seen alongside record high in foreign residents
The number of Japanese nationals on Jan. 1 was 120.7 million, while the number of foreign residents had risen 10.65% in a year to 3.68 million.
Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki attends a news conference at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Society
Jul 31, 2025
Japan's foreign population could top 10% in 2040, says justice minister
A 2023 estimate had projected that Japan's foreign population would exceed 10% in the 2070s.
Miyazaki Gov. Shunji Kono speaks at a meeting of the National Governors' Association in the city of Aomori on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 24, 2025
Governors urge central government to address Japan's shrinking population
During a two-day meeting in Aomori Prefecture, governors called for the establishment of a government agency-level control tower to coordinate related policies.
Shuhei Nakata, president of Nakata Kogei — a wooden-hanger maker in Toyooka, Hyogo Prefecture — says a revised work evaluation system and a strict policy against workplace harassment has helped to attract women to the company.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Fukushima
Jul 14, 2025
Fukushima looks to local initiatives to combat population decline
The measures will bring the area in line with other parts of Japan that are proactively trying to retain residents.
A registration system linking local governments with the so-called connected population — nonresidents who regularly interact with regional areas — is designed to encourage people living in urban areas to play active roles in rural communities amid their shrinking populations.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 15, 2025
Japan considers new system to connect urban and rural populations
The system aims to help those in overpopulated cities to play more active roles in rural communities with shrinking populations.
The government is looking to ease the overconcentration of businesses in Tokyo to tackle labor shortages in the countryside, ensure nationwide economic growth and realize a sustainable society.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 13, 2025
Government aims to create 10,000 jobs via business relocations from Tokyo
The move is aimed at easing overconcentration of companies in the capital and bridge an urban-rural divide in economic growth.
An Afghan woman carries away food aid donated by the Indian government in Kabul on May 18.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 10, 2025
Trump's cuts are 'devastating' for vulnerable women worldwide, U.N. says
Though it is too soon to estimate the impacts of the U.S. cuts, they will likely result in increased maternal mortality and more unintended pregnancies.
A mother takes her child to kindergarten in Hanoi on Wednesday. Vietnam's birth rate fell from 2.11 children per woman in 2021 to 1.91 last year.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Jun 4, 2025
Vietnam scraps two-child limit as birth rate declines
The birth rate fell from 2.11 children per woman in 2021 to 1.91 last year, below replacement level.
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.
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 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.
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.
Declining birth rates in China are driven by a myriad of causes, such as a shrinking childbearing-age population, lifestyle changes, the one-child policy’s lasting effects, an oversupply of men and high youth unemployment.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 30, 2025
Why China’s marriage crisis matters
According to China’s 2020 census, 61% of babies are born to women aged 20 to 30. But the number of women in this cohort dropped from 111 million in 2012 to 73 million in 2024.
Wealthy foreign nationals picking up ultimate souvenir — a condo in Tokyo
A high-end property in the fashionable Daikanyama district in Tokyo
Japan dispatches five language education 'partners' to India
Five members of the Japan Foundation's Nihongo Partners program (front) gather at the Japanese Embassy in New Delhi on Monday.
Struggling train firm in Chiba Prefecture turns to self-deprecating humor
"Laughter is important when you're in a difficult situation," said Katsunori Takemoto, president of Choshi Electric Railway, on Aug. 5 in Choshi, Chiba Prefecture.
Japan's elderly population down at around 36.2 million
The estimated number of people age 65 or older in Japan stands at 36.19 million as of Monday, accounting for record 29.4% of the country's total population, according to the internal affairs ministry.
Japan’s front-line researchers see bright path ahead for dementia treatment
A scientist looks at scans of grains at the Memory Centre at the Department of Readaptation and Geriatrics of the University Hospital (HUG) in Geneva, Switzerland, on June 6, 2023.
Wealthy foreign nationals picking up ultimate souvenir — a condo in Tokyo
A high-end property in the fashionable Daikanyama district in Tokyo
Japanese athletes inspired by raucous home fans at World Athletics Championships
Fans cheer on the home favorites during the women's marathon at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo on Sunday.
Japan's major art events converge this fall
Shinji Ohmaki’s “Tokinokage” exhibited at Fuji Textile Week 2021 shows the use of fabric as art.
Tara Davis-Woodhall leaps to gold and finds redemption at world championships
Tara Davis-Woodhall celebrates after winning the women's long jump final at the World Athletics Championships at Tokyo's National Stadium on Sunday night.
An aesthetic escape to Hakone’s art-drenched hills
Between traditional examples of fine art and sleek, modern exhibitions that blend with nature, Hakone offers a unique escape from Tokyo's urban sprawl.

Podcast

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

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’
By Alex K.T. Martin

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