A study by the Japan Association for Sex Education (Jase) questioned 12,562 middle school, high school and university students about everything from kissing to sexual intercourse.
The survey is conducted every six years and has recorded a decline in first kisses since 2005, with the figure being close to one in two.
But kissing wasn’t the only area where numbers were down, according to this year’s report. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the number of Japanese teenagers having sex has been found to have declined.
According to the study, the percentage of male students who responded that they had sexual intercourse was 12%, a 3.5 percentage point decrease from 2017. Female high school students fell 5.3 points to 14.8%.
Experts cited the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as one of the reasons for the decline.
School closures and restrictions on physical contact during the COVID-19 pandemic likely affected many of these students, according to Yusuke Hayashi, a sociology professor at Musashi. That’s because it happened “at a sensitive time when they were just starting to become interested in sex.” Universities cited in the Mainichi Shimbun, external.
However, the survey found one area of increase. That means the number of teens admitting to masturbating across all demographics is at record high levels.
The findings come after a separate survey earlier this year found that almost half of Japanese marriages are sexless., external.
The findings come as Japan struggles to stem a decline in its birth rate, raising further concerns. In 2023, the then Prime Minister warned that the country was at risk of being unable to function due to the country’s low birth rate.
Some researchers have suggested that the current population of 125 million could fall to fewer than 53 million by the end of the century. A variety of other contributing factors, including rising costs of living, more women in education and employment, and improved access to contraception, have been flagged as possible contributing factors, leading women to choose to have fewer children.
Japan already has the world’s oldest population as measured by the United Nations as a percentage of people over 65 years old.
At the end of 2023, Japan announced for the first time that one in ten people in the country would be over 80 years old.
In March, diaper manufacturer Oji Holdings announced it would stop producing baby diapers to focus on producing adult diapers.
