Japan’s child population fell for the 44th straight year in 2025, hitting a record-low.

Government data showed that the number of children under 15, including foreign residents, was 13.66 million as of April 1, down 350,000 from a year ago.

The total is just 11.1% of the entire population, down 0.2 percentage point from the previous year, marking the lowest proportion on record after falling for 51 consecutive years.

By prefecture, Okinawa, Shiga, and Saga had a high percentage of children.

The lowest percentages were in Akita, Aomori, and Hokkaido, with the bottom three prefectures remaining unchanged from last year.

The United Nations data on the percentage of children in countries with populations of 40 million or more shows that South Korea has the lowest percentage at 10.6%, followed by Japan, Italy, and Spain.