For a long time in Japan there has been a more delicate issue than unemployment, tourist overcrowdingthe relationship with China either the weakness of the yen: babies. Or rather, the lack of babies. Despite his multiple (and costly) attempts to revive the birth rate, the country has been seeing for years how its demographic chronicle is filled with catastrophic headlines. The last one arrived last Marchwhen the Government confirmed that in 2025 births fell in the country for the tenth consecutive year to mark a new low historical.
Faced with such a panorama, an idea is gradually gaining strength in the country: daycare open bar in a desperate attempt to encourage the population to have children.
One figure: $142,000. a few months ago Mainichi Shimbunone of Japan’s leading newspapers, echoed from a curious survey by the National Center for Child Health and Development: how much it costs to raise a child in the country. According to their calculations, taking care of a boy or girl (at least the first one) up to the age of 18 costs $141,700, a figure that is close to $170,000 if extra expenses are included.
If we go down to detail, at least in 2024 the raising of preschool children was between 5,800 and 7,200 dollars annual. That figure, added to other factors, such as cultural changes, difficulties in reconciling professional and family life or one’s own aging dynamics the nation has been plunged into, leading more and more Japanese to choose not to become parents. In 2025 they signed up only 705,809 birthsalmost 15,200 less than in 2024.
Lightening the load. In view of these data and with the country immersed in a “silent emergency”Japanese society has been looking for ways to make parenthood more bearable for some time. A change in the labor model has been put on the table (betting on the four-day weekly), the ban of overtime in the office or ‘pro-birth’ programs millionaireswith government support per child comparable to Sweden.
Some initiatives come from companies, others from regional governments or the central Executive, but they all basically seek the same thing: to make parenting more bearable and activate birth rates once and for all.
One of the measures that has sounded the loudest in recent years is free preschool education. That is, allowing families to leave their little ones in daycare. without any cost. Not all experts share that economic aid policies are going to get Japanese demographics out of the hole (they point to much more structural reasons, such as changes at a social level); but they certainly show the importance that the authorities give to the issue.
October 2019. One of the most important steps in that direction was taken by in 2019 the Government of Japan. As details The Children and Family Agency (CFA), since October of that year, attendance at kindergartens, nurseries and children’s centers is free for children between three and five years old. The program also includes the same facility for children under three, but as long as their homes comply certain conditions.
Since then, other institutions have moved to fully cover that group, that of children between zero and two years old.
“No time to waste”. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has stood out in this effort. In 2023 It also began offering free childcare to children under two years of age. The only requirement, in a clear effort to encourage births, is that they have an older brother. In other words, the measure was limited to the second child onwards.
In 2024, however, that coverage already knew little and the governor of the region, Yuriko Koike, advertisement that free birth would be extended to all children under two years of age (including first-born children) starting in September 2025. The idea, Koike stressed at the time, was to “continue promoting efforts to combat the low birth rate without sparing resources.” “There is no time to waste.” At the beginning of last fall BCNR echoed that the measure had already begun to be implemented in the Japanese capital.
Setting an example. The most curious thing is that Tokyo has not been the only city that has decided to make it easier for families who want to expand. In early 2026, Urayasu, a town in Chiba Prefecture, advertisement also their plans to offer free daycare starting in April for children up to two years old. The idea was the same: to alleviate the financial burden of parents and, in the process, give a boost to the local birth rate.
Your goal, according to Mainichiis to cover 55 schools in the city with an investment of almost four million dollars in 2026 and benefit 1,900 children.
Is there more? Yes. With the birth rate indicators not rising and collapsing at a speed that even exceeds the worst forecasts of the experts, Japan has redoubled its bet. In April Kyodo revealed that the country has implemented a public system that allows children between six months and three years old to be left in daycare for ten hours a month.
The initiative is important because several reasons. To begin with, it provides extra help to families with younger children, preschool age, regardless of whether or not they live in municipalities with similar programs. On this occasion, however, the Japanese authorities have wanted to go further: the measure does not take into account the employment situation of the parents, which also covers children of couples with an unemployed member, who until now faced certain limitations.
Images | Design for Health by Ann Forsyth (Flickr) and Note Thanun (Unsplash)
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