Tokyo (AFP) – The number of births in Japan last year fell below 700,000 for the first time on record, government data showed Wednesday.

The fast-ageing nation welcomed 686,061 newborns in 2024 – 41,227 fewer than in 2023, the data showed. It was the lowest figure since records began in 1899.

Japan has the world’s second-oldest population after tiny Monaco, according to the World Bank.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has called the situation a “quiet emergency”, pledging family-friendly measures like more flexible working hours to try and reverse the trend.

Wednesday’s health ministry data showed that Japan’s total fertility rate – the average number of children a woman is expected to have – also fell to a record low of 1.15.

The ministry said Japan saw 1.6 million deaths in 2024, up 1.9 percent from a year earlier.

Ishiba has called for the revitalisation of rural regions, where shrinking elderly villages are becoming increasingly isolated.

In more than 20,000 communities in Japan, the majority of residents are aged 65 and above, according to the internal affairs ministry.

The country of 123 million people is also facing increasingly severe worker shortages as its population ages, not helped by relatively strict immigration rules.

In neighbouring South Korea, the fertility rate in 2024 was even lower than Japan’s, at 0.75 – remaining one of the world’s lowest but marking a small rise from the previous year on the back of a rise in marriages.