OREANDA-NEWS. The total number of children born in Japanese families in the country and abroad was 872,683 in 2020. This is the lowest figure since the beginning of the registration of birth statistics. In 2019, there were 26 thousand more Japanese newborns. According to the «Kyodo» news agency, last year, the death rate in the island nation also decreased for the first time in 11 years, despite the coronavirus pandemic. In 2020, 10 thousand fewer people died in Japan than a year earlier.

The number of Japanese marriages fell by 12.7%, the biggest drop in 51 years. Representatives of the Ministry of Health of the country note, that reasonable conclusions about the impact of the pandemic on demographic indicators can be made no earlier than the end of 2021.

Earlier, the authorities of the central prefecture of Japan and the western regions asked the country's leadership to prematurely cancel the emergency regime introduced until March 7, 2021 due to the spread of a new type of coronavirus. On the territory of these prefectures, the number of detected cases of infection, as well as patients with severe symptoms of the disease, is falling.