More babies follow two consecutive years of more marriages.

Japan’s population has been shrinking for a long time, as fewer couples have children, and those that do have kids have fewer than generations past. But for the first time in more than a decade, there’s been an increase in the numbers of babies born in Japan within the first six months of the year.

According to statistics released last week by the Japanese government’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, there were 342,068 babies born between January and June of 2026, with that figure including babies born to foreign nationals in Japan. That’s 2,788 babies more than for the same period in 2025.

While that works out to a modest 0.8 percent increase, it’s still a noteworthy reversal of several consecutive years of declining birth rates. The last time Japan experienced an uptick in babies for this period compared to the previous year was all the way back in 2015. So while it’d be going to far to call 2026’s first-half increase a full-on baby boom, it’s still broken a downward trend that had been going on for 10 consecutive years, and is a pretty sizable reversal from the first half of 2025, when births were down 3.1 percent compared to the period in 2024.

▼ Births per month in 2025 (blue line) and in 2026 so far (red line)

The increase in first-half births comes on the heels of two years of increased marriages, with more couples tying the knot in both 2025 and 2024 than in the previous year. 2026 is currently tracking to make that three years in a row, with its 238,979 marriages so far 0.2 percent ahead of last year’s figure at the half-year mark. With couples choosing to have children out of wedlock still a rare occurrence in Japanese society, more couples getting married is a hopeful sign in terms of potential first-time parents contributing to the birth rate.

This doesn’t mean, though, that Japan’s population has stopped shrinking, as the 339,280 births this year is still fewer than the 778,982 deaths that have occurred. The 0.2-percent increase in births is also a small enough margin that it might not hold through the rest of the year. With any kind of birth rate increase in Japan being a rare occurrence, though, it’s still encouraging to see one finally taking place.

Source: Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Jiji via Yahoo! Japan News, Yomiuri Shimbun
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert images: Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare
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