(Bloomberg) -- Japan’s population decline continued in 2018, with fewer than 1 million babies born for the third consecutive year.

Live births of Japanese nationals in Japan were estimated at 921,000, the lowest annual figure since records began in 1899, according to a health ministry survey released Friday.

The most deaths in any year since the end of World War II led to a record net population decline of about 448,000 people, 54,000 more than in 2017.

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