In a context of rapid population aging and declining birth rates, sales of adult diapers have exceeded those for newborns for over a decade.
A Japanese diaper manufacturer has announced that it will stop producing baby diapers in the country and instead focus on the adult market.
Oji Holdings is the latest company to make this change, amid a rapidly aging population in Japan, where the birth rate has reached an all-time low.
For more than a decade, adult diaper sales have outpaced baby diapers in the country.
In 2023, the number of children born in the country stood at 758,631, down 5.1% from the previous year.
It was also the lowest number of births recorded in Japan since the 19th century: in the 1970s there were more than two million per year.
In a statement, Oji Holdings said its subsidiary, Oji Nepia, currently produces 400 million baby diapers a year. And production has been declining since 2001, when the company reached its peak: 700 million diapers.
In 2011, Japan’s largest diaper maker, Unicharm, reported that its sales of adult diapers had surpassed those of infants.
The adult diaper market is growing and is estimated to be worth over $2 billion. Japan today has one of the oldest populations in the world, with nearly 30% of its inhabitants aged 65 or older. Last year the percentage of people over 80 exceeded 10% for the first time.
Oji Holdings added, however, that it will continue to produce baby diapers in Malaysia and Indonesia, where demand is expected to grow.
The shrinking population, a consequence of both aging and a sharp decline in the birth rate, has become a crisis for Japan, one of the world’s largest economies. But the Japanese government’s efforts to address these challenges have so far met with little success.
Increased spending on child-related programs and subsidies aimed at young couples or parents does not appear to increase the birth rate. Experts say the reasons are complex, ranging from lower marriage rates and more women entering the workforce, to rising costs of raising children.
“Japan is about to know whether we can continue to function as a society,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said last year, adding that it was “now or never.”
But Japan is not alone. Fertility rates are also falling in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea – the latter has the lowest birth rate in the world.
China also saw its population decline for the second consecutive year in 2023 and, like Japan, introduced several incentives to increase the birth rate. But the aging population and the impact of the decades-long one-child policy, which ended in 2015, are creating demographic challenges in China too.
Source: Terra
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