Japanese diaper firm to focus on adults amid birthrate drop
Japan’s plummeting birthrate has led a diaper manufacturer to stop making them for babies at home and instead ramp up production for adults, the company said on Tuesday.
Oji Holdings is to wrap up domestic output of infant diapers in September, after production dropped from a 2001 peak of about 700 million annually to 400 million today.
“Demand for baby diapers is decreasing because of factors including the falling birthrate,” a spokesman said.
They are to continue to be sold in Japan until stocks run out.
The number of births in Japan dropped to a new low last year, with more than twice as many deaths as new babies.
The spokesman said Oji Holdings would boost production of the sanitary items for adults in the country, anticipating their use mainly in facilities like nursing homes.
Japan has the world’s oldest population after Monaco, and the market for adult diapers is “expected to grow domestically,” the company said in a statement on Monday.
Oji Holdings, which also makes other paper products, said it would “maintain and expand” baby diaper production and sales overseas, including in Indonesia and Malaysia, citing expectations of growth there.
In Japan, births in last year fell for the eighth consecutive year to 758,631, a drop of 5.1 percent, preliminary data showed last month. The number of deaths stood at 1,590,503.
The nation is facing growing labor shortages, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has vowed policies including financial aid for families, easier childcare access and more parental leave to try and boost the birthrate.