‘Fear and finances’: births in Japan predicted to fall below this year’s record low over coronavirus concerns
Julian Ryall in Tokyo
In 2017, researchers at Tohoku University calculated that if population decline continued at the current rate, the Japanese people would go extinct in August 3766. Photo: Getty Images
With the country's birth rate already in alarming decline, the number of children born in Japan next year is now predicted to fall to a new low of below 800,000 as a result of worries over the Covid-19 pandemic.
The figures are based on pregnancies reported by local health authorities across the nation, and come on top of the health ministry's announcement that it expected a record low of around 848,000 births this year - approximately 17,000 fewer than in 2019, and the lowest since such figures were first compiled in 1899.