In Japan, January starts with its own festival, the Seijin no Hieither ‘Coming of Age Day’a day during which the country congratulates young people who have made the leap from children to adults. The problem is that this celebration is less and less celebrated. And not because Japan doesn’t love its new generations. On the contrary. If he Seijin no Hi loses steam is basically because the population that leaves adolescence and enters adulthood is ‘shrinking’, which means a bucket of cold water (one more) for a nation in crisis.
Old holidays, new worries.
When demography sounds like tragedy. To Japan it’s not going well in demographic terms. That is something known and required. While waiting for the final balance of 2025, the first data that the country manages show that it has not managed to correct the birth rate crisis in which it has been immersed for years: during the first half of the year the Government registered 339,280 births3.1% less than in the same period in 2024. And during the second half the picture was not much better.
The initial projections of Asashi Shimbuncarried out with data from December 23, suggest that Japan said goodbye to 2025 with 667,542 newborns, the lowest figure since at least 1899, the year in which the historical series begins. Not only that. The data is below what the authorities expected. When the Population Research Institute did the math in 2023, it estimated that in 2025 there would be about 749,000 babies, 681,000 in the worst case scenario.
An increasingly less festive party. With that background it is much better understood that Seijin no Hi has become a bittersweet tradition. ‘Coming of Age Day’ is a day in which the country honors the part of its population that makes the leap from child to adult. It is celebrated at the beginning of January and its protagonists are young people who have turned (or are about to) turn 20, although in 2022 the Government set the legal age of majority in 18 years.
The ceremony is showy because young people usually dress in brightly colored kimonos and traditional costumes. The problem is that in a country with fewer and fewer babies, twenty-somethings are also beginning to be missing for Siejin no Hi.
What does the data say? The figures disclosed by The Japan Times They leave little room for doubt. As of January 1, the number of people who had reached the age of majority in the last year amounted to 1.09 million people (560,000 men and 530,000 women), the second lowest figure since records began.
In fact, it is only surpassed by that of 2024, when that indicator was at 1.06 million. These are interesting data because (unlike other statistics) they include both the local population and foreigners who have been in the country for at least three months.
Are there so few? Yes. At least if we take into account the number of young people who were in a position to celebrate the Siejin no Hi not so long ago. In 1994 there were 2.07 million and in 1970 2.46 million, more than double that of the current year.
It is true that the data for 2025 is slightly higher than that for 2024 and the proportion of new adults has increased, but as remember The Japan Times It is a poor consolation in a country where the birth rate continues to plummet, draining the territory. Only between January 2024 and January 2025 did the number of Japanese citizens decrease by more than 900,000 peoplethe biggest drop since the 60s.
More than a curiosity. That there are fewer people celebrating the Siejin no Hi It could be a simple curiosity if it weren’t for the fact that it is basically an indicator of a much bigger problem: a birth rate crisis with implications that branch out to other areas of the country. Right now in Japan just 59% of the population is of working age (between 15 and 64 years), significantly below the world average, which according to the OECD is usually around 65%. This percentage threatens to strain Japanese society, politics and economy.
Especially because (despite their multiple attempts) the authorities have not yet found the key to increasing the birth rate and there are those who warn that the country is running out of time. 2025 marked the ‘red line’ in which a good part of the population born during the Baby Boom of the late 1940s exceeded 75 years of age, an age from which the employed population plummets and the dependent population rises.
Images | Bruce Dailey (Flickr) and Wikipedia
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