Japanese women in their 30s and 40s show declining fitness, survey finds

The Japan Sports Agency’s latest fitness survey, conducted from May to October last year and covering about 60,000 participants, reveals a persistent decline in physical fitness among women in their 30s and 40s over roughly a quarter-century. Using fiscal 2001 as a reference point, scores for women in their 30s fell to 96.3% and those in their 40s to 93.6% by fiscal 2025. The proportion of women exercising at least once a week dropped from around 40% to about 30% for the younger cohort and slipped from the high-40% to low-40% range for the older group.

Membership in sports clubs or similar facilities fell dramatically, reaching only about 10% for women in their 30s, compared with roughly 30% in 2001. Experts link the downturn to growing time constraints and financial burdens as women balance employment with household and childcare responsibilities, especially as female social participation rises. Noriko Sekine, a professor of exercise physiology at the Open University of Japan who helped compile the data, noted that single women may also lack sufficient income for club fees, further widening the gender gap in activity levels.