Japan drops subsidy plan to draw women to rural areas upon marriage

Well, that was fast. I guess that even deaf politicians can notice when something should be abandoned as long as the disaster is big enough so it can't be ignored.

The government should follow the Fanuc example and give incentives to good-paying companies to locate in small towns outside major cities.

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From “How one small town in Yamanashi manages to have high birthrate,” Nov. 5, 2023 

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FANUC is a manufacturer of robots and other factory automation products. In 1984 it moved its head office to Oshino from Tokyo. Oshino is beautiful. Mount Fuji towers beautifully over it. The air is fresh, bracing, stimulating. It breeds ideas, so the thinking went, and ideas are what a cutting-edge high-tech venture like FANUC needs.

It’s a generous employer. The salaries it pays rank 20th among corporations nationwide, Playboy notes, citing 2023 figures from Toyo Keizai Online. Moreover, it hires some 100 freshmen employees a year. What does this have to do with Oshino’s birth rate? Everything.

It brought a sleepy old village to new life – or is it old life? – because, youthful dynamism and futuristic technology aside, there’s something just a little old-fashioned about FANUC’s transformation of Oshino.

The company compound is the size of three Tokyo Disneylands. It contains company housing, a company culture center, a medical clinic, a daycare center, a children’s park – just about everything a family needs to dispense with the outside world altogether, if so minded.

The compound swarms with rich young men – for FANUC’s researchers are overwhelmingly male, Playboy reports. With stable employment and salaries averaging 12.5 million yen a year, they are good catches for women looking for husbands in uncertain times. In times not long past they came from miles around, filling local coffee and tea shops in the hope of being noticed by FANUC men. A lot of families got started that way.

That’s considered undignified now, so it’s back to an even older recourse: the miai or marriage party bringing singles together to form, if the gods smile, couples.

The miai are often company events, the women coming from the local teachers’ union, the local nurses’ union, the local bank employees’ union, and so on. The trouble is, complains a FANUC researcher, “all the women tend to be of the same type.” He doesn’t say what type but he sounds discouraged. “Or,” he says, “we might get introduced to the single friends of colleagues’ wives.”

However it happens, happen it does, and the results, if fruitfulness is a  measure of happiness, are decidedly happy.

There’s no economic need for wives to work, and by and large they don’t. They bear and raise children instead.

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https://japantoday.com/category/features/kuchikomi/how-one-small-town-in-yamanashi-manages-to-have-high-birthrate?comment-order=oldest

Who said that $$$ don't talk ???

Instead of handing out cash to wives wanna be how about opening factories and creating jobs in Rural Japan then watch people move without any hesitation.

You mean, a government throwing money at a problem has decided it’s not going to work??

This is backwards ,by third world standard

The answer should be more government spending. Make massive investment in rural areas, improve infrastructure, transportation and create new jobs. Then people will leave Tokyo and relocate to these areas if they don’t receive monetary incentives.

@沒有問題 If you want to make that sort of investment I would suggest you make the investments in medium sized regional hubs like Nagano, Morioka, Kanazawa, etc. Not everyone who is moving is moving to Tokyo or Osaka. Many youths in other parts of Japan are moving to their regional major city which tend to be middle sized by most definitions but do have the requisite education, health and cultural assets.

S. Korea has spent a quarter of a trillion dollars over the past 18 to address its low birthrate, which has been wasted. I wonder how high the figure is for Japan? Just allow the population to naturally fall and stabilize and then enjoy the space, nature, free countryside houses and clean air.

Simple solution, set up taxes as follows:

Unmarried: 50%

Married: 30%

Every child you have decreases your tax rate by 10%.

This is backwards ,by third world standard

JGovt alway thought that subsidy and pledge will solve problem, doesn't matter how silly is that.

Japan should face and prepare for the reality. That is a massive depopulation of Tohoku and other rural areas in the next 30 years. Nothing is going to stop this. Don't waste money on schemes doomed to fail.

Simple solution, set up taxes as follows:

Every problem have simple solution that is nevertheless useless or unethical in principle.

Usually when people say “you think I can be bought?” what they mean to say is “I want more than what you’re offering.”

I agree with the people who are saying they need to invest in the infrastructure of these rural places. That being said, the people who are already living there might be upset that their way of living is starting to get more modernized, but I see no other way of incentivizing younger people to move out of Tokyo. They need not only to make more job opportunities in these rural areas but also more leisure activities as well. Not just more izakaya's and snack bars but actual attractions that the kids will like as well. Something maybe more along the lines of amusement parks or something as well as more to do at night.

They just can't think outside of the box - which with problems like this, or the falling birthrate for example, is; Throw money at the problem, that will solve it.

Swinging high at low curveballs.

Depopulations, repopulation, take your pick, the recognition of cultural values to encourage romance, relationships, requires subtlety, family unity within a willing youth community.

Not disingenuous brutal programmes of bribery/marriage then "relocation" to invigorate, revitalize rural areas.

Actually Kochi, my home, is a wonderful location, aging rapidly, however with careful planning forethought, revitalization is achievable.

I wonder how this country manages to run sometimes because all we hear are the idiotic policies made by these senile old men in tokyo !

The Japanese government on Friday shelved its plans to give money and encourage more women to relocate to rural areas upon marriage, after a chorus of criticism online that the move is discriminatory and lacks sensitivity, despite its intended aim of helping revitalize regional areas.

Hilarious. You can't write better comedy bits than this.

Maybe all these LDP jokers should just start doing stand-up.

They definitely are worlds better making people laugh and cringe, than they ever will be at leading anyone or making important decisions.

Bunch of jurassic clowns.

My impression was that this is not a "plan", just the government publically floating an idea that has been instantly withdrawn due to the backlash. The story on here yesterday had no details whatsoever, it said none of it was decided, just the "give inaka bound women 60 man" idea in the headline.

The government performs social engineering in loads of different ways, so I don't see why people should feel indignant about it. Any successful regeneration of the countryside will require massive social engineering, even if just in the form of grants, building roads or whatever.

Good Job Japan Today Posters! Our voices were heard!

As I said before. Simple Solution for a start: Pay Women equal wages as a man. Don't oust woman from a company or hiring process because they "may" have a family later. Pay higher wages to ALL.

How about creating a visa status for "Mail Order Brides" ?

Young people simply do not want to live in inaka countryside. You can spend as much as you like on infrastructure in the boonies but it will still be the middle of nowhere as far as young people are concerned and a poor second best to life in the big city. So don't waste money, Spend that money in the cities where the people are going to be.

Give them ni hyaku man they will go. Money does talk.

That measure is very insulting to Japanese women!

Spend how much to move a company to "middle of nowhere" and move workers to " middle of nowhere"..

How much does this cost?

And said company is going to be profitable?

Just accept that depopulation is going to happen and prepare for the reality.

Of course they will waste billions of tax payers money on their doomed to fail schemes.

MeiyouwentiAug. 31  07:20 am JST

The answer should be more government spending.

It's not. They keep trying that and just look at the results.

Make massive investment in rural areas, improve infrastructure,

Oh? What kind of infrastructure?

transportation

Like roads that don't go anywhere?

and create new jobs.

What kind of jobs? Who would provide them?