In many countries it’s a teenage right of passage: a first kiss.
But a new survey of Japanese high school students has revealed that four out of five 15-18-year-old boys have yet to reach the milestone.
And things aren’t looking much different for the girls, with just over one in four female high schoolers having had their first kiss.
These are the lowest figures recorded since Japan first began asking teenagers about their sexual habits back in 1974 – and are likely to be a worry in a country with one of the world’s lowest birth rates.
The study by the Japan Association for Sex Education (Jase) quizzed 12,562 students across junior high schools, high schools and university – asking them about everything from kisses to sexual intercourse.
The survey takes place every six years, and has been recording a fall in first kisses since 2005 – when the figure was closer to one in two.
But this year’s report found kissing was not the only area which had seen a fall in numbers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it also revealed a drop in the numbers of Japanese youth having sexual intercourse.
According to the study, the ratio of high school boys who say they have had sexual intercourse fell 3.5 points from 2017 to 12%. For high school girls, it declined 5.3 points to 14.8%.
Experts have pointed to the impact of the Covid pandemic as one possible reason for the drop.
School closures and restrictions on physical contact during the Covid pandemic had likely impacted many of these students, as it happened “at a sensitive time when [they were] beginning to become interested in sexuality”, according to Yusuke Hayashi, a sociology professor at Musashi University quoted in the Mainichi newspaper.
However, the survey did find one area of increase: the number of teenagers admitting to masturbation across all demographics was at record high levels.
The results come after a separate survey earlier this year found that nearly half of marriages in Japan are sexless.
The results of the surveys come as Japan struggles to arrest its falling birth rate, and provide further cause for concern. In 2023, the then-prime minister warned that the country’s low birth rate was pushing it to the brink of being able to function.
Some researchers have suggested the population – currently at 125 million people – could fall to less than 53 million by the end of the century. A range of other contributing factors have been marked out as possible contributing factors – including rising living costs, more women in education and work, as well as greater access to contraception, leading to women choosing to have fewer children
Japan already has the world’s oldest population, measured by the UN as the proportion of people aged 65 or older.
In late 2023, Japan said that for the first time one in 10 people in the country are aged 80 or older.
In March, diaper-maker Oji Holdings announced it would stop making baby nappies to focus on making adult diapers.