Are Families Still Avoiding a Fire Horse Baby?
In 1966, Japan's Fire Horse year, births fell by about a quarter. Babies born through May 2026 were conceived before this lunar year, and that count is slightly above last year.
Someone at the table says wait. If the baby might be a girl, wait until the horse year is over.
This is a Fire Horse year, the first since 1966. On the lunar calendar it began February 17 and runs until February 6, 2027. In Japan, the last one was loud enough to move the birth count.
The babies already born in 2026 were conceived before that lunar year started.
The 1966 drop was about a quarter, and the next year the count was higher again. Births through May 2026 are almost flat with last year, and those babies were conceived in 2025. November is the first month that can show a decision made after February 17.
What the warning was
The calendar pairs twelve animals with five elements. Fire and horse, written 丙午, land together once every 60 years.
In Japan the warning stuck to daughters. Stories from the Edo period said a girl born in a Fire Horse year would be too fierce for a marriage, and bad luck for her husband. Families could not know the sex ahead of time, so some sat the year out.
The counted collapse was in Japan. The year-name comes from the Chinese cycle. Japan's 1966 drop is the one large enough to see in a national birth record.
What 1966 counted
Japan's health ministry counted 1,823,697 live births in 1965. In 1966 it counted 1,360,974. That is about 463,000 fewer babies, a drop of about 25 percent.
The next year the count was 1,935,647, higher than the year before the drop.
Toru Kikkawa, a Japanese sociologist writing as this Fire Horse year approached, reads those three years as one decision spread out. Have the baby before the horse, or just after.
A 1975 medical paper counted more induced abortions in 1966 than in the years around it. Kikkawa wrote that he did not see that jump, or a missing share of girls. The argument is about abortions, not about whether the year was smaller.
The months we have
From January through May 2026, the ministry counted 282,222 births, about 0.4 percent more than those months in 2025. May by itself was a little lower than May 2025.
Those pregnancies began in 2025, before February 17. If couples stopped conceiving when the horse year began, the gap would start to show around November.
There is less room to postpone than in 1965. A preliminary count put 2025 at 705,809 births, including foreign residents, the lowest since national records began in 1899. In 1965 the country still had more than 1.8 million.
If someone says wait
If a parent tells you to wait, especially if the baby might be a girl, 1966 is the comparison. Births fell by about a quarter.
Through May of this year the count is slightly higher than those months last year, and those babies were conceived before February 17. A wait that started when this horse year began would not show until around November.