TOKYO, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- The number of babies born in Japan in 2018 was estimated to have decreased 25,000 ones from a year earlier, hitting a record low of 921,000 since data became available in 1899, government statistics showed Friday.
According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the figure remained under the one-million mark for the third consecutive year, despite Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's pledge to tackle the population issue by expanding assistance in child care and education.
Only 590,000 couples got married in 2018, 17,000 fewer than the previous year and the fewest since World War II, while 207,000 couples got divorced.
Deaths in 2018 increased to a postwar record high of an estimated 1.37 million, with a natural population decline of 448,000, the highest ever recorded.
The data indicated that Japan's population decline is accelerating as birthrate falls, increasing difficulty for the government to reach its goal of raising the total fertility rate to 1.8 by the end of fiscal 2025.
The number of infants born in Japan in 1949 reached 2.697 million, the highest since data collection began. In 2016, the number declined to 976,978, below the one million threshold for the first time.
