Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare reported May 23rd that statistics 2015 indicate a slight upward trend of the Japan’s total fertility rate (TFR). The total fertility rate compares figures for the average number of children that would be born per woman if all women lived to the end of their childbearing years and bore children according to a given fertility rate at each age.

The rate for 2015 shows the rate at 1.46 that is a 0.04-point increase from the previous year. The actual number of births in Japan was 1,005,656, that is a 2117 births increase from the previous year. The number is the highest since 2010.

Okinawa Prefecture is maintaining the top slot in the nation with its rate of 1.94, which is a 0.08-point increase from the previous year. Shimane Prefecture is in the second place at 1.80, followed by Miyazaki Prefecture at 1.72. The lowest TFR in the nation is the 1.17 points in Tokyo and 1.26 points in Kyoto. TFR as a whole has been increasing for the last two years. The lowest point ever was 1994 when Japan’s TFR stood at 1.50.

On the other hand, Japan’s infant mortality rate has grown into the worst in the postwar period. The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare thinks that the societal tendency to delay the child-bearing of women to the age of 30’s and 40’s is one of the potential reasons for the increased mortality rate.

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