Japan’s Child Population Falls to New Record Low of 13.3 Million

Continuing to Fall

Japan’s estimated population of children (defined as those aged 0 to 14 years) was 13.3 million as of April 1, 2026, according to annual data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, released on the May 5 Children’s Day holiday. There were 6.8 million boys and 6.5 million girls. This total was 360,000 fewer than the previous year, and marked the forty-fifth straight year since 1982 that the number has fallen. It is also the lowest on record since comparable statistics were first compiled in 1950.

Children under 15 represent 10.8% of the total population, down 0.3 percentage points from the previous year, in the fifty-second consecutive annual decline since 1975. Meanwhile, the population of those 65 or older numbers 36.2 million, or 29.5% of the overall population. At around 2.7 times greater than the number of children, it demonstrates a clear demographic imbalance.

By three-year age groups, children aged 12 to 14 were the most numerous, at 3.1 million, followed by 3.0 million for 9- to 11-year-olds, 2.7 million for 6- to 8-year-olds, 2.4 million for 3- to 5-year-olds, and 2.1 million for newborns to 2-year-olds.

According to the United Nations Demographic Yearbook, Japan has the second lowest percentage of children among the 37 countries in the world whose populations are 40 million or greater. South Korea has the lowest percentage with 10.2%, followed by Japan (10.8%), Italy (11.7%), and Spain (12.6%).

Data Sources

• Data on Japan’s child population (Japanese) and the overall population (Japanese) from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo © PhotoAC.)