TOKYO — Japan has crossed a new demographic threshold: for the first time since a major national survey began more than four decades ago, fewer than four in five unmarried young Japanese men and women say they intend to marry someday.
The finding adds another warning sign to Japan’s long-running struggle with falling births and a shrinking population — but buried deeper in the data is a potentially important qualification.
Some of the people who currently say they never intend to marry also admit they could change their minds if their circumstances change.
According to the latest National Fertility Survey conducted by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, 75.1% of unmarried men and 77.8% of unmarried women aged 18 to 34 said they eventually intend to marry.
It was the first time both figures fell below 80% since the institute began surveying unmarried people in 1982.
The decline is significant even compared with the previous survey in 2021. At that time, 81.4% of unmarried men and 84.3% of unmarried women said they intended to marry someday. The earlier figures were already down substantially from 2015, when the corresponding percentages stood at 85.7% and 89.3%.
That means Japan is not simply experiencing a short-term fluctuation. The long-term trend shows marriage increasingly losing its status as an assumed milestone of adulthood.
Record Share Says Marriage May Never Happen
The latest survey found that 24% of unmarried men and 21.5% of unmarried women aged 18 to 34 said they had no intention of ever marrying.
Both percentages surpassed 20% for the first time.
In the 2021 survey, the comparable figures were 17.3% for men and 14.6% for women, according to official National Institute data.
Attitudes toward the benefits of marriage are changing as well.
The latest results showed 42.8% of men and 36% of women saw no particular benefit to getting married, increases of roughly seven percentage points from the previous survey. Respondents were less likely than before to associate marriage with having a family, emotional security or improved financial security.
Researchers also pointed to changing social expectations. An official from the institute told Jiji Press that more people now believe they can live alone without necessarily becoming lonely, while declining interaction with infants may also be connected to weaker interest in marriage and children.
But “Never” May Not Always Mean Never
One of the most revealing findings complicates the headline numbers.
Japanese television reporting on the survey found that among respondents who said they had no intention of ever marrying, roughly 40% of men and close to half of women said their intentions could potentially change.
Two circumstances stood out: meeting someone they genuinely wanted to marry and seeing their income or savings increase.
That distinction matters.
The survey suggests that Japan’s falling marriage intentions may reflect not only changing values toward relationships but also whether young adults believe marriage is economically or personally worthwhile under their current circumstances.
In other words, some people may not be rejecting marriage in principle. They may be rejecting marriage under the conditions they currently face.
Dating Apps Are Quietly Rewriting How Japanese Couples Meet
While enthusiasm for marriage is declining, the path taken by those who do marry is rapidly changing.
Among first-marriage couples married for less than five years, roughly one in five met through the internet, including dating apps and social media.
That is about double the level recorded in the previous survey and puts online meetings roughly on par with couples who met through work or through introductions from friends and siblings.
The shift suggests that while traditional routes into marriage are weakening, digital matchmaking is increasingly filling the gap.
Another Government Survey Points in the Same Direction
The latest findings arrive shortly after a separate Children and Families Agency survey produced similarly sobering results.
Its preliminary findings showed 35.1% of unmarried young respondents said they had no intention of marrying, while 27.4% hoped to marry within five years and another 37.5% said they wanted to marry eventually.
Among respondents who did not plan to marry, leisure and personal time ranked highly, while concerns about income and financial security also emerged as significant barriers.
The two surveys should not be compared directly because they cover different age groups, samples and questionnaire designs. The National Fertility Survey focuses its headline marriage-intention figures on unmarried people aged 18–34, while the Children and Families Agency study surveyed a broader group of young people.
But both point toward the same broader shift: marriage is becoming less automatic in the life plans of younger Japanese.
The Demographic Stakes Are Enormous
The trend carries consequences well beyond dating and family life.
Japan recorded just 671,236 births among Japanese nationals in 2025, another record low, while the total fertility rate slipped to 1.14 children per woman.
Births have now fallen to record lows for 10 consecutive years. At the same time, marriages among Japanese nationals edged up to 489,119 in 2025, marking a second straight annual increase — evidence that even a modest recovery in weddings has not yet reversed the decline in births.
The latest fertility survey provides another clue to the challenge ahead.
Among married couples, the average ideal number of children declined slightly to 2.18, while about one in every 4.4 couples had undergone infertility testing or treatment.
Japan therefore faces two interconnected problems: fewer young adults see marriage as essential, and even among couples who do marry, achieving their desired family size can be difficult.
Japan’s Marriage Problem May Be About More Than Romance
For policymakers, the newest data suggest that simply encouraging people to marry may not be enough.
Young adults appear to be reconsidering what marriage offers them, how financially secure they need to feel before committing and whether traditional expectations around family life still fit the way they want to live.
Yet the survey also contains a signal that the decline is not necessarily irreversible.
If a significant portion of those currently rejecting marriage say they could reconsider after meeting the right person or becoming more financially secure, the real question may no longer be whether Japanese young adults believe in marriage.
It may be whether Japan can create the social and economic conditions that make marriage feel worth choosing.
And with marriage intentions now below 80% for the first time in more than four decades of surveying, that question is becoming increasingly urgent.
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