Only one in five boys in high school in Japan have experienced their first kiss – the lowest figure since 1974, according to a survey conducted by the Japan Association for Sex Education (JASE), involving over 12,500 students, published in the newspaper The Mainichi. The poll, conducted in the 2023 academic year, revealed that only 22.8 per cent of boys had experienced their first kiss while 27.5 per cent of girls in the same age group had got their first kiss.

Since hitting the peak in 2005, the proportion of high school students, who have had their first kiss, has been steadily declining in Japan. Additionally, the ratio of those who had sexual intercourse also fell by 3.5 points to 12 per cent among high school boys, while the figure plummeted by 5.3 points to 14.8 per cent among high school girls.

Experts have attributed the COVID-19 pandemic as the likely cause for the fall in numbers as high schoolers were forced to stay at home and urged to avoid the ‘three Cs’: crowded places, confined spaces and close-contact settings.

Tamaki Kawasaki, a columnist and sociology lecturer said the Japanese youth preferred to stay home and watch sexual content alone, which threatened the already low birthrate.

“It shows that the trend is for people to move away from real, physical sexual activity, even at a time when it’s natural for them to be sexually active,” Kawasaki was quoted as saying by The Guardian.

“Instead, there is a stronger tendency for them to stay home and watch sexual content alone. If teens, who represent the country’s future, continue like this then it is hard to see any improvement in the declining birthrate.”

Also read | Japan Birth Rate Hit Record Low In 2023 As Nation’s Population Crisis Deepen

Declining birth rate and ageing population

Japan has been hit with the double whammy of a declining birth rate and an ageing population in recent years. According to government data, the number of babies born in the country fell for an eighth consecutive year in 2023 to 758,631.

Meanwhile, the number of citizens aged 65 and over, reached a staggering 36.25 million in 2024, constituting 29.3 per cent of the overall population.

Tokyo:

Japan’s plummeting birth rate has led a diaper manufacturer to stop making them for babies at home and instead ramp up production for adults, the company said Tuesday.

Oji Holdings will wrap up domestic output of infant diapers in September, after production dropped from a 2001 peak of around 700 million annually to 400 million today.

“Demand for baby diapers is decreasing because of factors including the falling birth rate,” a spokesman told AFP. They will continue to be sold in Japan until stocks run out.

The number of births in Japan dropped to a new low in 2023, with more than twice as many deaths as new babies.

The spokesman said Oji Holdings will boost production of the sanitary items for adults in the country, anticipating their use mainly in facilities like nursing homes.

Japan has the world’s oldest population after Monaco, and the market for adult diapers is “expected to grow domestically,” the company said in a statement on Monday.

Oji Holdings, which also makes other paper products, said it would however “maintain and expand” baby diaper production and sales overseas, including in Indonesia and Malaysia, citing expectations of growth there.

In Japan, births in 2023 fell for the eighth consecutive year to 758,631, a drop of 5.1 percent, preliminary data showed in February. The number of deaths stood at 1,590,503.

The nation is facing growing labour shortages, and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has vowed policies including financial aid for families, easier childcare access and more parental leave to try and boost the birth rate.

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