Shichi‑Go‑San is a Japanese festival that celebrates children who are three, five or seven years old. Today the festival also shows how Japan’s low birth rate is changing family life.

Japan’s population is falling. The fertility rate is at a record low and the median age is 49.9 years, so the society is getting older.

Priest Kenji Kaji says many families have no children or have grown‑up children, and they treat pets like family members. Because of this, more people bring cats and dogs to the shrine for the purification rite. The shrine has taken about 400 families each year since the early 2000s because many pet owners want to join.

Pet owners dress their animals in colourful kimonos and ask the priest to bless them. Dr. Shoko Kodama made a bright red kimono herself for her cat Amber, showing how pets are treated like children.