【Aging, safety net and fiscal crisis in Japan】No.282: The number of children waiting for entry into nursery facilities has been steadily decreasing over the past five years

As the shortage of nursery facilities has become a major political issue and is one of the causes of the declining birthrate, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare publishes statistics on the supply and demand of nursery facilities in April every year (Columns 117 and 202). According to data released by the Ministry on September 4th, the number of children waiting for nursery facility entries decreased from 23,167 in April 2015 to 12,439 in April 2020 (Figure 1). In terms of age group, 77.2% of those waiting were children between 1 and 2 years old.

The decrease in the number of children waiting for nursery facility entries may be the result of an increase in the number of nursery facilities (from 28,783 in 2015 to 37,652 in 2020), as the government supported the opening of these facilities through subsidies and deregulation (Figure 2). The number of children using nursery facilities increased from 2,373,614 to 2,737,359 during the same five-year period (Figure 3).


Figure1 Number of children waiting for nursery facility entry

Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare


Figure 2 Number of nursery facilities

Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare


Figure 3 Number of children using nursery facilities

Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare