Ratio of Japanese singles seeking marriage drops below 80% for first time

The proportion of single Japanese men and women who said they intend to marry one day has fallen below 80% for the first time, a government survey showed Friday.

The result highlighted a declining desire for marriage as more people see few benefits to tying the knot.

“More people believe they will not feel lonely even if they continue living alone, while more people have never interacted with infants, and these trends are also linked to the low desire to marry and have children,” an official at the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research said.

The survey, conducted in June last year, covered unmarried people between the ages of 18 and 54, and married couples in which the wives were under 55. Valid responses were obtained from 6,756 unmarried people and 5,024 couples. The previous survey was conducted in 2021.

Among the 3,459 unmarried people age 18 to 34, 75.1% of men and 77.8% of women said they intend to marry eventually. Both figures fell by more than 6 percentage points from the previous survey, dipping below 80% for the first time since the survey of unmarried people began in 1982.

The proportion of men who said they never intend to marry rose 6.7 points to 24%, while the proportion of women rose 6.9 points to 21.5%, exceeding 20% for the first time.

The proportions of men and women who saw no benefits to marriage rose by about 7 points each to 42.8% and 36%, respectively. Fewer people said they believed marriage would enable them to have children or a family, gain peace of mind or achieve greater financial security.

Of the surveyed married couples, about 20% of those in their first marriage who had been married for less than five years said they met online, doubling from the previous survey and reaching around the same level as those who met through their workplaces or jobs and through introductions by friends or siblings.

The average ideal number of children for married couples was 2.18, a slight decrease from the previous survey. One in 4.4 couples had undergone infertility testing or treatment.