In 2025, births in Japan continued to decline, while in South Korea, they rose for a second year

The latest official demographic data show opposite trends in the two East Asian countries. Despite government measures and some tentative signs regarding fertility rates, Japan is failing to reverse the trend. South Korea is experiencing a rise in births among women over 30, but the country is still the most affected by the demographic winter.

Milan (AsiaNews/Agencies) – In 2025, Japan recorded a tenth consecutive year of decline in births; by contrast, South Korea recorded an increase for the second year in a row.

The two Far East Asian countries, who have long been firmly at the bottom of the global demographic winter rankings, are now diverging if the latest figures are to be believed.

The data released today in Tokyo are particularly striking, not only because they confirm the existing trend but also because of the magnitude.

Preliminary data show that 705,809 children were born in the country in 2025, down 15,179 (-2.1 per cent) over the previous year. It should be noted that this figure includes children born in Japan to foreign nationals, numbering 22,878 in 2024.

The data released today – in a country where migration is a controversial political issue – did not specify how many foreign couples contributed to births in Japan, but the trend in this segment of the population has been consistently rising in recent years.

Overall, the data confirm that the various measures announced in recent years by successive Japanese governments to support the birthrate have only slowed the decline, which in the past few years has consistently hovered around 5 per cent.

It should be noted that reversing a demographic trend is a complex operation, but a certain shift is nonetheless visible in Japan.

In fact, for two years, the fertility rate – which is calculated by dividing the number of newborns by the number of women aged between 15 and 49 – in Japan has recorded a slight increase, from 1.2 to 1.38, still well below the two children per woman deemed the "replacement threshold" necessary to maintain a stable population.

So, Japanese women of childbearing age are having a few more children at present, but fewer than in previous years, and so the overall birthrate is still falling.

Births decreased in 45 of Japan's 47 prefectures. Tokyo bucked the trend, recording its first increase in nine years at 88,518. The other increase concerns Ishikawa Prefecture, where experts believe the recovery is merely a rebound from the previous year's sharp decline, linked to the impact of the Noto Peninsula earthquake.

Regarding Japan's general demographic profile, although deaths are expected to decrease by 0.8 per cent in 2025 over the previous year, the natural population decline (the difference between births and deaths) is still widening to 899,845 (out of a population of approximately 122 million).

The situation is different in South Korea, where the 254,500 births recorded in 2025 are 16,100 more than in 2024. This 6.4 per cent increase is the largest since 2010, and the fourth-highest increase since annual statistics began to be collected in 1970.

The growth parallels the fertility rate, which has returned to 0.8 children per woman after hitting a record low of 0.72 in 2023.

South Korea, however, remains last in terms of the birthrate among the 38-member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

“The main drivers of the rise in the total fertility rate are the increase in marriages after COVID-19, the growth of the population in the early 30s – the prime childbearing age – and positive changes in perceptions of having children,” said Park Hyeon-jeong, head of the vital statistics division at the Statistics Ministry. “This may be the result of government policies aimed at easing penalties for getting married and starting a family,” she explained.  

The average age of mothers at childbirth last year was 33.8 years, up 0.2 years from the previous year. Four out of ten children (37.3 per cent) were born to women over 35.

These two figures will need to be monitored to see whether the rebound in South Korea's birthrate is lasting or just a blip in a otherwise long-erm trend.

• japan
• south korea
• demographics
• birthrate
• fertility
• decline
• increase