More than 60% of unmarried adults under the age of 30 in Japan do not want children, as they are concerned about economic burdens and career disruption, according to recent findings by a major pharmaceutical company.

Rohto Pharmaceutical conducted an online poll of 400 unmarried men and women between ages 18 and 29 in December as part of its annual survey on pregnancy and family planning.

The figure reached 62.6% in 2025, jumping 18 percentage points from 2020, when the annual survey first asked the question.

And the percentage of unmarried female respondents who did not want children surpassed that of men for the first time. Nearly 65% of women said that they did not feel inclined to have children ¡ª the highest rate on record ¡ª while the percentage was 60.7£¥ among male respondents.

More than 70% of women surveyed said they were concerned about the financial burden of having a child, compared with 63.2% for men.

In addition, 61.4% of women said they felt that having a child would obstruct their careers, compared with 51.2% of men who felt so.

Even among single men and women who are interested in having a child, the age at which they hope to have their first child has gone up. In 2018 when the company first asked the question, nearly 40% of the group said they wanted a child by age 30, while just 1 in 4 held such hopes in 2025.

Rohto Pharmaceutical, which sells products such as pregnancy tests, ovulation predictor kits and fertility supplements, has been conducting the survey since 2018.

In the latest report released earlier this week, the firm also surveyed 800 married individuals between ages 25 and 44 who are thinking about having children.

More than 60% of women and half of men responded that having children would disrupt their career, and roughly the same percentages of respondents said they would think about changing jobs or moving to a new position if they were to have children.

The results reflect the rapidly declining birth rate in the country. The number of births hit a record low in 2025 with 705,809 newborns, dropping to a threshold that the country had not been projected to reach until 2040, according to the health ministry¡¯s preliminary report.