“Shotgun Weddings”: big in Japan

According to recent articles citing reports by the Ministry of Health, over 26% of children born in Japan were probably accidental pregnancies. The stats show that in the cases 26.7% of babies born in 2004, the parents got married after the mother became pregnant. In Okinawa Prefecture the figure was 42.2 percent. Is this figure higher than other countries? I don’t know.

Articles related to this topic:

From Yahoo! Asia News:

Half of women born in Japan’s 2nd postwar baby boom childless till 30 (Kyodo) _ More than half the women born during Japan’s second postwar baby boom from 1971 to 1974 had not had any children until they reached the age of 30, according to vital statistics released Friday by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.Coupled with an earlier prediction that the number of women of childbearing age, designated as 15 to 49, will continue to decrease in the coming 10 or more years, the ministry is concerned that the trend of falling birthrate will accelerate.

“That the numerous women in the second baby boomer generation have few children could mean the birthrate will fall at a faster rate and the population will further decline,” a ministry official said.

According to the ministry’s special report focusing on birth, the proportion of women who had not given birth until they were 30 was 18 percent among those born in 1953, and the ratio increases with each ensuing generation.

The figure topped 30 percent for those born in 1961 and 40 percent for 1967, while it marked a majority for the first time at 51 percent among those born in 1973 when more than 2 million people were born.

The average percentage for the second baby boom period was 50.3 percent, the report said.

he proportion of women who had not had any children until 40 was 10.2 percent for those born in 1953 and 22.3 percent for 1964, indicating that more women are bearing their first babies at a later age or not having children at all.

Meanwhile, 26.7 percent of couples’ first children born in 2004 were from those who had “shotgun” marriages, up 2.5 percentage points from the previous survey in 2000, according to the report. Among prefectures, Okinawa had the highest ratio at 42.2 percent.

The ministry issues a special report on vital statistics every year covering different themes. The last time the report focused on birth was in fiscal 2001.

The first baby boom following World War II was in 1947-1949.

And from Mainichi:

‘Shotgun Wedding’ numbers skyrocket, ministry stats show

More than one in four Japanese firstborn was the child of a so-called “shotgun wedding,” according to statistics for fiscal 2004 released by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare this week.

In the most recent statistics available, 26.7 percent of children were born to couples married only after the woman had fallen pregnant.

The rate is almost 2 1/2 times the 12.6 percent of children whose conception prompted marriages in 1980.

The finding was just one of the many alarming birth-related facts to hit the ministry, including the discovery that women born during Japan’s second baby boom of the early 1970s aren’t having as many children as expected and that efforts to increase the birthrate are not working.

The ministry issued a special report that looked deeper into the findings of a 2004 study into the number of children woman bear over a lifetime. That survey discovered women gave birth to an average of only 1.29 children throughout their lives.

Results from the more detailed probe showed that the younger the woman, the more likely her firstborn would prompt her marriage instead of result from it. Of 15- to 19-year-olds, 82 percent of marriages saw the bride already pregnant, while the figure dropped as the women got older, reaching 63.3 percent for the 20-24 age group, and 22.9 percent for those aged 25 to 29.

All the figures were around three times higher than in 1980. “Shotgun Weddings,” or dekichattakon in Japanese, were most common in Okinawa and Saga prefectures, while least frequent in Shiga, Kanagawa and Hyogo prefectures. Birthrates were also higher in areas where pre-marital pregnancy rates were high.

This week’s report also confirmed the growing tendency to shun motherhood. Of the number of women who had not given birth before reaching age 40, the figure was just 10.2 percent for those born in 1953, but more than double at 22.3 percent for those born in 1964.

Women were also waiting longer to have their children, with the average mother’s age for firstborn children in 1981 was 26.5 and second children 28.9-years-old, by 2004, that average age had grown to 28.9 for firstborns and 30.9 for a subsequent child.

Women’s first marriages are also coming at a later age. In 1988, the average age of a woman getting married for the first time was 25.8. It took 11 years for the average to gain a full year, when it reached 26.8 in 1999. But an identical gain was achieved in just five years from 1999, with the average age of a first marriage reaching 27.8 in 2004.

In 2004, 68.1 percent of women aged 30 to 34 had married, 4.8 percentage points fewer than the same age group in 2000. (Mainichi)

March 4, 2006