Births in Japan edge up 0.4% in January-June, thanks to Tokyo

The number of births in Japan in the first half of the year rose in 2026 for the first time in 11 years, driven by strong numbers in more urban areas, especially Tokyo, according to health ministry data.

A total of 320,458 Japanese children were born in the country between January and June, an increase of 0.4% compared with the same period in 2025. This is the first increase since January-June 2015, when births rose 2.6% from a year earlier.

In particular, births in June exceeded those in the same month of last year by over 1,000. This marked a second straight year that births grew on a year-on-year basis in the month of June, following 10 years of decreases.

The number of births increased in 24 prefectures — many of them in urban areas including Tokyo, Aichi and Fukuoka prefectures — while 23 prefectures saw decreases.

Tokyo’s 4.7% jump was the highest among all prefectures, and marked its third straight half of year-over-year growth.

Excluding Tokyo, which made up around an eighth of the country’s first-half births, the other 46 prefectures actually recorded a cumulative decrease of 0.2% compared with the first half of 2025, in a reflection of the outsize contribution births in the capital made to the overall number.

Tokyo offers its own subsidies on child-rearing, including a monthly ¥5,000 ($32) handout for children up to the age of 18, in addition to central government support.

Meanwhile, the number of deaths in Japan continue to far outpace births. There were 766,746 deaths in the first half of 2026, well over double the births recorded in the same period. There were also more deaths recorded than births in every prefecture.

But the number of deaths has slowed, with year-over-year monthly figures between January and June consistently running below the corresponding months of 2025. The 12 months through June saw 1.53 million deaths, which was also down by about 100,000 compared with a year earlier.