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Screenshot of the home page of the online marriage support center set up by Shiga Prefecture Image: Shiga Prefecture website
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AI plays cupid as Japanese authorities try to boost marriage rate

25 Comments
By Mayuko Kobayashi

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25 Comments
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Heavy tax burden is the cause of young people don't want to produce children.

Taxes in Japan are low.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

AI won't help to resolve the fundamental problem behind the falling marriage rate of young people in Japan; low wages.

Make the average salary of Japan's full time workers to 10 million yen/year and marriage rate will soar.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

elephant200Today 01:37 am JST

Heavy tax burden is the cause of young people don't want to produce children. What does that mean if the doctors and nurses congratulate you got a boy or a girl? That means a long long list of payments you got to pay for those children in coming 20 years. Money, money, money......that is the result of having children. Where comes those huge money? The Japanese people were very hard working people but most of them were not wealthy. Why? Because of taxes or fees they are going to pay. They are not even close to buy a decent home. How can you encourage people to make babies, a bill you know you are not able to afford?

Why the Japanese people has to bear such heavy burden? Because of the LDP stupid policy of "Militarization" to rival China. Buying arms from USA and paying fees for American occupying forces in Japan. Also Japan's throwing money know as "Aid" to foreign countries who has conflicts with China or perceived. Those unnecessary taxes were not and should not be implied on their people!

Japan spends 1% of its gdp on defense and sends 0.5% to the US for the bases. These are not the wasteful expenditures you are looking for, no matter how much you would like to believe.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Heavy tax burden is the cause of young people don't want to produce children. What does that mean if the doctors and nurses congratulate you got a boy or a girl? That means a long long list of payments you got to pay for those children in coming 20 years. Money, money, money......that is the result of having children. Where comes those huge money? The Japanese people were very hard working people but most of them were not wealthy. Why? Because of taxes or fees they are going to pay. They are not even close to buy a decent home. How can you encourage people to make babies, a bill you know you are not able to afford?

Why the Japanese people has to bear such heavy burden? Because of the LDP stupid policy of "Militarization" to rival China. Buying arms from USA and paying fees for American occupying forces in Japan. Also Japan's throwing money know as "Aid" to foreign countries who has conflicts with China or perceived. Those unnecessary taxes were not and should not be implied on their people!

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Marriages does not mean producing more children. That was too different things do not be mixed up.

How to raise the children in coming two decades, that was the whole problem. With Japan's dire living standard deterioration,heavy tax burden and Yen devaluation, many couples don't want children and they might go divorced soon after their marriages, that was not AI matching can solve!

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Thank you, Fizz. It was an amazing 30 years. We made it a point to visit that bar each time we returned to Kyoto.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Today there are 6 different news in JT about 8 children including 3 infants being killed and 2 children seriously injured by getting hit by a car with 88yo driver.

it sounds like it’s for the good if Japanese couples have no child. Before marrying and making a child, there needs to be a serious mentality shift.

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

Luguna

Sad news. My sympathy

2 ( +2 / -0 )

A.I? Sadly many Japanese men are happy with anime porn and a box of tissues and many Japanese women are happy to live alone. A.I is not going to change this.

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

I met my wife the old-fashioned way: met her in a bar talking with another guy, and stole her away. A playboy at the time, I reveled in the hunt but grew bored quickly after the capture. At our first meeting, though, I knew that this was something different. We built a home and raised two children together. Sadly, she died from cancer recently, our relationship still quite warmed by the hunt and chase (she made me wait a full year between my proposal and her acceptance) even after 30 years of marriage. If AI can facilitate that, more power to it, but somehow, that hunt and chase is missing.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Oh come on, this is Japan. If your coffee maker switches itself off when boiled, it's AI. Don't you know that?

This isn't AI. It's just a basic matching programme - dating agencies have been using them for years.

-3 ( +3 / -6 )

JDoeToday  10:25 am JST

Japan needs to address the work culture and toxic cultural misogyny before it can begin improving the birth rate issue. NO simple fix!!.................Well said!!!!!

Toxic cultural misogyny is one of the main reasons women are choosing not to marry.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Can AI be sued if it ends in divorce?

6 ( +6 / -0 )

What’s the point of marriage for the sake of marrying when there is no real attachment and feelings in depth. If you ask me, marriage should be removed from the society. Because the true purpose of marriage has long gone. Currently too many people are marrying for the purpose of getting money through divorce, financial security or any other purpose not involving intention of life time commitment no matter how the life condition changes.

since it’s too difficult to identify people’s real intentions, it’s better to remove the marriage and people who like each other can live together without a paper endorsement. They can still make children and care for the child. They don’t need a paper confirming their liking or loving each other. I really can’t see the purpose of marriage at current way of living in japan.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

I hope they are keeping data of whether these schemes have any effect, and if no effect then stop wasting money trying to get people to marry who don’t want to.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Japan needs to address the work culture and toxic cultural misogyny before it can begin improving the birth rate issue. NO simple fix!!

3 ( +6 / -3 )

I seem to remember readings last year, that Japanese young people are waiting to marry and start families, primarily due to uncertainty in the economy.

If indeed true, I have some doubts that a couple of AI-inspired nudges towards sailing on some electronic Love Boat ('Love . . . exciting and new . . . ') will quite overcome their understandable anxiety towards a stable financial and occupational future.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

...and the internet browsing history of the person looking for a mate.

Oh dear. This might not be a good idea if the searcher is a guy.

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

It'll help a lot also if all the private matchmaking websites turned out Free of charge...many have Free choice, but in that case, we can't contact the partner with whom we are interested.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Governments needn't bother as long as people don't feel financially secure enough to start families, because they're on crappy part-time contracts with no free time and crappy salaries.

9 ( +12 / -3 )

Men who act like men can attract women who behave like women.

That's the basic function missing from the Japanese relationship equation

-3 ( +6 / -9 )

Japan always try to use technology and money to solve it's problem, is it work so far? No

-8 ( +7 / -15 )

It's odd that we encounter so many people in Japan in one day while going outside that we still end up not finding anyone outside of our usual circle domain. Many people find their special other through friends like myself, many find through work, or school. If one were to strike a conversation in a public space, I wonder what the odds for success would be?

3 ( +3 / -0 )

This isn't AI. It's just a basic matching programme - dating agencies have been using them for years.

14 ( +15 / -1 )

I would feel like cattle.

If you are not able to find and seduce your partner alone, do you think those people can manage on their own children ?

AI soon compulsory in Japan, including how and when to mate lol.

-5 ( +9 / -14 )

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