Photo/Illutration A sleeping baby (Shiori Tabuchi)

The number of Japanese babies born in 2022 totaled 770,747, the lowest since 1899 when the number started being recorded, according to the health ministry's vital statistics released on June 2.

It also marked the first time that the number of births dropped below 800,000.

The total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman is expected to give birth to in her lifetime, fell to 1.26 in 2022.

It’s the lowest number since 1947, the starting year for collection of the data, and tied with 2005.

The figures in the latest statistics show the accelerating decline in the birthrate in Japan.

Officials at the ministry’s section responsible for demographics, health and social statistics speculated that the pandemic may have played a major role in the drop.

“We can’t generalize the reasons, but there is a possibility that the COVID-19 pandemic made people feel worried about giving birth and raising children, which might have affected (the number of births and the total fertility rate),” they said. 

The number of births in 2022 was 40,875 fewer than in 2021, marking a 5.0 percent decline.

That marked a drop in the number of births for the seventh consecutive year. In 2021, which also saw a new low, births fell around 29,000, or 3.5 percent, from the previous year.

The two figures mean that the decline in the number of births is accelerating.

The total fertility rate in 2022 was 0.05 point lower than in the previous year, when the number was 1.30--if the 2022 figure is rounded to the second decimal point.

The rate also dropped for seven consecutive years. The total fertility rate was the lowest in Tokyo, where it was just 1.04. The highest rate was marked in Okinawa Prefecture at 1.70.

That means that the rate was in its usual trend of “high in the western part of the nation and low in the eastern part” in 2022.

This data shows that the total fertility rate in Japan is far from 2.06, which is regarded as vital to maintain the population level.

The figure is not even close to the “desired fertility rate of 1.8,” the government’s policy goal of the estimated fertility rate that would be reached if all people wanting to get married and have children did so. 

The number of marriages, which in Japan is thought to have a strong correlation with the number of births, reached 504,878, marking an increase for the first time in three years.

Ministry officials said that the increase might have been due to the leveling off of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the number of marriages still didn’t recover to pre-pandemic levels with 599,007 in 2019.

In addition, the 2022 figure was less than half the record number of marriages marked in 1972, which was 1,099,984.

Last year also marked a record number of deaths at 1,568,961.

The most common cause of death was cancer. That accounted for 24.6 percent of all deaths and killed 385,787 people.

COVID-19 was the seventh largest cause of death, making up 3 percent of all deaths. A total of 47,635 people died of COVID-related causes in 2022.

In the category of “the natural population increases or decreases,” which is the difference between the number of births and deaths, Japan’s population decreased by 798,214 in 2022, the largest drop on record.

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