Japan’s government just dropped some pretty blunt numbers about how young people actually feel about tying the knot.
A large survey from the Children and Families Agency looked at around 100,000 people aged 15 to 39. Among those who aren’t married, 35.1% said they simply don’t intend to get married. Another 37.5% said they’d like to eventually. That’s a pretty even split between “maybe someday” and “nah, I’m good.”
The biggest reason people gave for staying single? Money. About 40% worried they wouldn’t earn enough to keep a stable married life going. Coming in right behind that, 34.4% didn’t want to lose free time or time for hobbies. Another 32.6% said they just hadn’t met anyone they actually wanted to marry.
None of this is shocking if you’ve been paying attention to Japan for a while. Marriages and births have been sliding for years, and the government has been throwing policies at the problem with mixed results. What is a little different this time is a small flicker of good news: births in the first half of 2026 actually rose 0.8% compared to the same period in 2025. That’s the first year-over-year increase in first-half births since 2015. Marriage registrations have also ticked up for two years in a row. It’s not a turnaround yet, but it’s not nothing.
The survey also asked about everyday worries. The number one complaint wasn’t work or money this time—it was dissatisfaction with their own appearance. Relationship stuff came up a lot too: trouble trusting people, difficulty actually talking to others, that kind of thing.
Officials say they’ll use the full results (coming by the end of the fiscal year) to figure out what kind of support younger people actually need. Whether that turns into policies that make marriage or having kids feel more realistic is another question.
For now the picture is pretty clear. A big chunk of young people in Japan look at marriage, do the math on money and free time, and decide it’s not for them. The slight bump in births is interesting, but the attitude numbers suggest the bigger trend isn’t going away overnight.