Births in Japan fell for a 10th straight year in 2025 underscoring the demographic strain Japan faces as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi pursues new measures to counter the decline.

The number of newborns dropped 2.1 percent from a year earlier to about 706,000, the Labor Ministry reported Thursday in preliminary population data. Deaths fell 0.8 percent to roughly 1.6 million for the same period, the report said.

Ahead of the Liberal Democratic Party leadership race in October, Takaichi proposed tax breaks for babysitters and household help, and corporate tax cuts for firms operating in-house childcare centers. Japan’s first female premier has also pledged to introduce a national qualification for childcare workers and improve their pay and working conditions.

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At the opening of the current parliamentary session last week, Takaichi said the government would ease costs tied to pregnancy and childbirth, including prenatal checkups and delivery, though none of these proposals has yet been implemented.

The preliminary tally is broad in scope, including babies born to foreign residents in Japan and Japanese nationals living overseas. The narrower finalized figure for 2024, which counts only Japanese nationals living in Japan, was about 686,000, the lowest since such records began in 1899. The final number is typically released in September.

Some argue that the government’s attention has shifted toward other priorities, such as national security and policies on foreigners, compared with previous administrations.

Former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in 2023 rolled out a ¥3.6 trillion ($23.1 billion) childcare package he billed as “unprecedented measures to tackle the falling birthrate,” a stance later continued by Shigeru Ishiba.

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Under Takaichi, the child policy has been folded into a broader population agenda that also addresses foreigners.

Hitoshi Kikawada, the minister tasked with tackling the shrinking population, also oversees 11 other portfolios, including territorial disputes and food safety, raising questions about whether the birthrate issue has been put on the back burner.

Japan is not alone in trying to reverse demographic decline. In South Korea, data released Wednesday showed the fertility rate rose for a second straight year in 2025 as marriages recovered from a prolonged slump, supported by incentives aimed at easing childrearing costs.