Xinhua News Agency, Tokyo, May 4 (Reporter Hu Xiaoge and Guo Dan) The population projection data released by the Ministry of General Affairs of Japan on April 4 showed that as of April 1, the population of children under the age of 15 in Japan, including permanent foreigners, was 14.01 million, a year-on-year decrease of 330000; The proportion of children in Japan's total population was 11.3%, down 0.2 percentage points year on year, both of which were the lowest since the statistics began in 1950, reflecting the further intensification of the trend of fewer children in Japan.

Data shows that the number of children in Japan has decreased for 43 consecutive years since 1982. In terms of gender, there are about 7.18 million boys and 6.83 million girls in Japan; From the perspective of age, there are 3.17 million children between the ages of 12 and 14, and 2.35 million children under the age of 2. This shows that the younger the children, the smaller the number of children. Regionally, Okinawa County has the highest proportion of children in the total population, 16.1%; The area with the lowest proportion of children is Akita County, which is 9.1%.

According to the data, as of October 1 last year, the number of children in all 47 prefectures and counties in Japan had decreased year on year. Only Tokyo and Kanagawa Prefecture have more than 1 million children.

In addition, according to the United Nations Demographic Yearbook, although the deadline for population estimation varies from country to country, among the 37 countries with a global population of more than 40 million, Japan has the second lowest proportion of children in the total population, only higher than South Korea.