TOKYO: The number of new marriages has dropped significantly in Japan due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with about 150,000 fewer newly wedded couples than expected.
A recent study showed the drop that was based on figures since the pandemic began in 2020 and the projections until the end of this year.
Researchers said the fall is believed to be a result of several factors that includes fewer opportunities to socialise and financial concerns, and these could lead to around 243,000 fewer babies being born.
The study was conducted by Asako Chiba, a postdoctoral fellow at the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research, and Taisuke Nakata, an associate professor at the University of Tokyo.
According to the Kyodo News, the study comes at a time when Japan was already facing a worrying trend of falling numbers of marriages and new-borns, and a population drop.
The Japanese government has also said that the number of new marriages in the country has decreased almost every year since 2010, when it recorded around 700,000 marriages.
Based on this trend, the researchers estimated the figures based on two scenarios - with a pandemic and one without a pandemic.
They said the number of new marriages in 2020 stood at around 526,000, about 50,000 lower than the projected figure, while the number for 2021 was about 501,000, some 63,000 fewer than the forecast.
The lower number of marriages is expected to continue this year although there are signs of a recovery but the number of marriages for 2022 is likely to total around 515,000, still about 38,000 lower than the projection.
Unless there is a significant increase in the number of births per woman, the decrease in marriages will directly lead to a fall in the number of births.
"The social and economic impact of the coronavirus takes time to manifest. Policymakers need to recognise that a crisis is steadily approaching," Chiba said.
Japan's number of annual marriages peaked at over one million in the early 1970s but has been steadily falling since then.
The number of births has also been falling with a record low of about 810,000 in 2021 from its peak at around 2.09 million in 1973.
Kyodo News also reports that Japan's population declined to 125.93 million as of Jan 1 this year. This is a drop of 726,342 people compared to the previous year and it is the biggest drop since comparable data became available in 2013.
Deaths outnumbered births and Covid-19 border restrictions also kept foreign resident numbers low.
According to government data, the population, including resident foreigners, dropped 0.57 per cent from the previous year.
The figures show that the number of Japanese people decreased by 619,140 to 123,223,561 for the 13th straight year of decline. Deaths are at an all-time high of around 1.44 million and births at a record low of around 810,000.
Resident foreigners fell 107,202 to 2,704,341, marking a drop for the second consecutive year due to tighter border controls amid the coronavirus pandemic.
All 47 prefectures except Okinawa, saw their population fall with Tokyo and the three surrounding prefectures of Saitama, Chiba, and Kanagawa having fewer people for the first time since 2013.
This is also partly due to the coronavirus pandemic causing the traditional influx of people to the capital region to slow down.
Tokyo saw the largest decrease at 48,592 people, the first drop since 2013 as the capital experienced significant outflow of foreign residents in addition to the decrease in Japanese moving in.
The northeastern prefectures of Akita, Aomori and Yamagata saw the highest rates of decrease at 1.52 per cent, 1.35 per cent and 1.25 per cent, respectively.
Okinawa was the only prefecture to see positive population growth of 186 people due to its relatively high birth rate.
The Kyodo News report said people aged 65 or older accounted for a record 29 per cent of the population, up 0.27 per cent from a year earlier, and it is the highest since data was first collected in 1994.
The number of people aged between 15 and 64, regarded as the working population, accounted for almost 59 per cent, the lowest on record.
The government has been trying to improve the birth rate and encourage people to live outside the Tokyo metropolitan area to revitalise regional communities, but the measures were yet to overcome population decline in the greying society.
Japan has been struggling with the challenges of a greying population and a declining workforce, and has hoped to ease the labour shortage by increasing foreign workers.