The number of births in Japan next year may fall even further than in recent years due to the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry released Wednesday the number of recent pregnancy notifications (see below). Women who notified the ministry of their pregnancies from May had become pregnant around March, when fears about COVID-19 began to heighten. From May to July, the number was more than 10% lower than the same period last year. There are concerns that the number of births, which dropped below the 900,000 mark last year, may fall short of 800,000 next year.
According to the impromptu survey by the ministry, the number of pregnancies reported from May to July was 204,482, down by 26,331 or 11.4% from the same period last year. The biggest year-on-year monthly decline happened in May, when the number of pregnancy notifications fell to 67,919, down 17.1% or by 13,992. Nine prefectures recorded a decline of more than 20%, including Yamaguchi Prefecture, which came in at the bottom with 29.7%.
"I was surprised by the results," said Masakatsu Sase, a member of the board of the Yamaguchi Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. "In Yamaguchi Prefecture, the number of pregnancy notifications is relatively small, so various effects tend to be easily noticed in the figures. We need to keep monitoring the issue over a longer period."
The risk of infection among pregnant women and a drop in income are believed to have prompted women to refrain from having a child. "In some cases, people were maybe slow to report pregnancies due to the voluntary stay-home policy," a ministry official said.
The number of births is decreasing in Japan. In 2019, the number was 865,239, a 5.8% decrease from the previous year.
"The coronavirus disaster has reduced the income of couples who want to have children, making it difficult for them to make ends meet. The number of births next year could fall below 800,000," said Chuo University Prof. Masahiro Yamada, an expert on the declining birthrate.
A woman expecting a child needs to complete a pregnancy notification to obtain a maternal and child health handbook and a medical checkup card. The procedure, in which a women confirmed to be pregnant submits the notification to their local authority, is based on the Maternal and Child Health Law. More than 90% of pregnant women do so by the third month of pregnancy, or between weeks 8 and 11. The number of notifications at a certain point in time is also used as the estimated number of births seven to eight months later.
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