The number of people aged 20 years old this New Year's Day is estimated at 1.2 million, falling to less than half its peak of around 2.4 million in 1970 for the first time, according to government statistics released Saturday.
Of the 1.2 million people that reached adulthood in the last year, 620,000 are men and 600,000 are women.
The total number of 20-year-olds — the legal age of adulthood — is down 20,000 from last year, hitting a record low for the fifth consecutive year, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said.
The new adults account for 0.9 percent of the total population of 127.7 million, falling below 1 percent for the second straight year. The government began collecting comparable statistics in 1968.
Meanwhile, the number of Japanese who were born in a Year of the Dragon, as 2012 will be, is estimated at about 10.2 million. This breaks down to 4.9 million males and 5.2 million females.
Of the 10.2 million "Dragons," those who will turn 60 and 36 in 2012 form the largest groups, at nearly 1.8 million each.
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