Japan's birth rate dropped 500,000 in a single year. The cause is back for 2026.

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Hello, Curse and Coffee friends,

Today, we explore the return of the horse (for Lunar New Year).

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The take: Sixty years ago, a superstition crashed Japan's birth rate by 25%. The zodiac year responsible returns next month.

What happened: The Year of the Fire Horse begins February 17—the first since 1966, when Japanese parents avoided having daughters they believed would be "headstrong" and "kill their husbands."

Why it matters: Japan recorded fewer than 700,000 births in 2024 (the lowest since 1899). Experts didn't expect numbers this bad until 2041. Any Fire Horse dip makes it worse.

What to watch: Japan's monthly birth stats through autumn, the first window where a 2026 effect would show up.

Japan's population research institute isn't even modelling for a Fire Horse effect. That's either confidence or a very expensive blind spot.

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Japan in 1966 had bullet trains and televisions in most homes.

A modern country. And yet local governments ran "Fire Horse Banishment Campaigns" that year.

The city of Kurume called the superstition "a fairy tale most unbecoming of a scientific Japan."

Parents ignored them and avoided pregnancy anyway.

The cost wasn't just fewer babies. One study found female infant mortality spiked in 1966—an estimated 721 extra deaths.

Researchers believe parents gave less care to daughters they saw as unlucky. The discrimination started before the child could walk.

By age 44, Fire Horse women earned less and divorced more than women born just one year earlier.

But something strange happened.

Fewer kids meant less competition. School was easier to get into. Jobs were easier to find.

The curse had an upside nobody planned for.

Pro: Arranged marriages dropped from 70% in the 1940s to 5% by 2010. Young people today see the Fire Horse as an old story, not a real warning.

Con: A 2014 study found 1966 women still faced discrimination at age 44. Old beliefs can stick around longer than the world that made them.

The unknown: Whether young Japanese couples have even heard of hinoeuma (that's the question nobody's polling yet).

Our read: The superstition probably won't move the needle. But when your baseline is already a disaster, "probably" isn't the comfort it sounds like.

[Report] Early Human Development, 2016

One study estimates 721 extra female infant deaths in Japan in 1966. Researchers believe parents gave less care to daughters they saw as cursed. The discrimination started at birth—before the child could even walk.

Source: ScienceDirect.

1966 Japan: 500,000 fewer births. In one year.

The Year of the Fire Horse: Why Did Births Plummet? — Nippon.com digs into how mass media turned an old wives' tale into a national event. How it spread is wild.

China expects record 9.5 billion trips — The Fire Horse is also kicking off the world's largest human migration. Same zodiac, very different vibe.

Born Into Bad Luck — Foreign Policy on the self-fulfilling prophecy: when society expects you to fail, the outcomes follow.

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