Japanese government to pay Tokyo women to marry men in rural areas
How to deal with depopulation in rural areas? This question has been haunting Japanese regional governments for decades now.
Above all, not only do they need to encourage the people who move away to major urban centers for work to return, they really need to target younger people with families. Because above all, these areas need young people.
The central government’s policy when it comes to urgent matters is typically to launch a PR campaign — in terms of the climate crisis, it’s mostly about promoting the UN SDGs — or throw money at it.
For the issue of depopulation, they have resorted to the latter with a decision that some have found insulting.
According to media reports that emerged this week, the government plans to give women ¥600,000 if they move out of Tokyo and marry someone in a less populous part of the country.
To qualify for the lump sum, bachelorettes have to currently live or work in one of Tokyo’s 23 central wards, and then move out to another part of Japan.
The list of places where their marriage partner has to live to qualify has not been announced, but it will likely include most places except major urban centers like Osaka, Yokohama, Nagoya, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Sendai, and so on.
The scheme is set for introduction in fiscal 2025, according to government sources quoted by Kyodo News.
The sum is pretty paltry (it’s a bit over $4,100 at current exchange rates) and would likely just about cover relocation costs and some of the fees associated with renting a new home.
Some have said this is the equivalent of promoting the kind of arranged marriages that took place in the farm, where a farmer would “send away” for a wife to be sent to him.
Comparisons have been drawn with the Edo-period hitogaeshi “people going home” decrees in the 19th century, when the shogunate ordered peasants out of Edo (Tokyo).
Cynics have also pointed out that the current monetary incentive for individuals and families to move away from Tokyo to live and work in rural areas has so far failed to produce a significant demographic shift.
Some municipalities already have similar initiatives in place. A scheme in Bihoro, Hokkaido, even tries to play cupid, matching women with single farmers in the area.
There are possibly as many as two million more unmarried men in Japan than woman.
Update (August 31) Due to public criticism, the government is now saying that this proposed scheme will be reconsidered.
9 Comments
So many countries around the world wringing their hands over how to deal with falling birthrates seem to be trying absolutely everything except undoing the thing they did that caused the fall in the first place.
Face it. Uplifting women socially and economically – and using the power of the state to provide them with the bare minimum life-sustaining services for free (aka on taxpayers dime) – causes them to be more picky and in many cases so picky that they never find the man that meets their expectations and go unwed and childless in perpetuity.
The thing that made them *need* a relationship was removed. It would be like if mens’ sex drive was removed. How hard would women find it to secure a companion if that was the case?
Most women openly admit that they wouldn’t consider marrying a man that earned less money than she does and is ‘less educated’ than she is (even if her ‘education’ is just a social studies degree). So what’s happens when women start earning more money and start getting all the university degrees? Their pool of ‘acceptable husbands’ gets smaller and smaller and smaller because despite claiming to be in favour of equality, women have staunchly refused to adjust their expectations and the majority remain repulsed by the idea of supporting a ‘house husband’ that has less than them.
These are just the facts. You’re welcome to debate back and forth as to whether gender equality is worth birthrates collapsing towards zero.
Probably one of the dumbest comments ever. Blud thinks Japan has gender equality LOL
Japan has to send the UN and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to hell by withdrawing from the organization. The countries that are screwed for following the SDGs are France, USA, Spain, Mexico, Chile, etc.
The UN manipulates Japanese women with the issue of “gender equality.”
To put an end to this nonsense on the part of the UN. Companies have to hire qualified employees and always remember that the salary is equal to your Title, Experience and Skills regardless of whether you are a man or a woman.
@BlahDumbAss
More gender equality than when they had positive birthrates lol. 46% of Japanese university students are women. I get that if you’re from a western nation your idea of ‘gender equality’ involves worshipping the dirt women walk on without question which admittedly Japan is not at yet.
It’s the one unifying factor that all nations with sub-replacement birthrates share. Legally enfranchised women with government-funded access to higher education, security, healthcare etc. who essentially no longer ‘have’ to have a marriage and children to survive. It’s as simple as that, taxpayer money is used to give women the luxury of not needing to have children, and many of them are therefore choosing not to have children at all.
The whole “waah it’s too expensive” excuse has always been a deflection and all initiatives to pay people to have children have failed. This is most apparent in Scandinavia that have been trying for years. Norway and Finland provide huge benefits to women for having children and it’s still not enough. According to Mads Larsen (PMC9939451) in Norway the government on average transfers $1.2 million more to each woman over a lifetime than she pays in tax, while the average man pays more in tax than he receives in benefits. Still not enough to make them have above-replacement numbers of children.
Only $4100? I wonder if they deliver overseas. I’d pay the extra shipping.
Dear @Blah Blah Blah:
I agree with you on several points you have mentioned.
I believe that the government should fund higher education, security for all people (regardless of whether they are men or women) who want to study.
But let’s not let the UN interfere in education because otherwise Japan will have radical feminists and simps manginas.
They must eliminate all gender ideologies, Woke and other ideologies as the president of Argentina Javier Milei is doing. Do not let ministries be invented with Woke themes such as “Ministry of Equality and Gender”
I think the government should give financial incentives for married couples to have children.
Why not drop the gates and let foreign heathens in to knock up Japanese women by the million?
@Lee Mroszak
There are no gates. Basically, anyone can come to Japan and knock up a woman if they so wish.