Japan: births to girls aged 15–19 are 2.5 times rarer than in 2010, and the first child comes at 30.6 on average
From 2010 to 2022 births per 1,000 girls aged 15–19 fell from 4.6 to 1.8 a year. The mother’s average age at first birth rose from 29.3 to 30.6. Total births fell by 27%: 787k instead of 1.07M.
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Three separate series: births per 1,000 girls aged 15–19, the mother’s average age at her first child and the total number of births a year. They do not show that the same births simply moved to a later age.
One percentage scale relative to 2010: 0% is the starting value, +100% is a doubling, −50% is a halving. Lines show the yearly path; on a short screen, bars show the change to 2022. Equal distances mean equal relative changes. For shares, this is relative change, not percentage points. Gaps are not filled; original values and units are below.
- Mean age at first birth years
29.27 (2010) → 30.59 (2022)
- Adolescent fertility rate births per 1,000 women aged 15-19
4.603 (2010) → 1.821 (2022)
- Births thousand births per year
1,071 (2010) → 786.6 (2022)
Start: 2010; end: the latest year up to 2023 with every series (2022). Published values, no gap filling or smoothing. Births and children per woman come from the same source at both ends: UN estimates are not compared with national statistics, whose level differs. Thresholds select a story and do not establish statistical significance.
Age is the age-standardised average for first births, not the age of all mothers.
A question for this picture
What does family life look like when early births almost vanish and the first child arrives after thirty?