Japan plans to increase financial incentives for parents who choose to move out of Tokyo as the government tries to reverse decades of demographic decline, economic migration and the lure of the world’s biggest metropolis.
Officials briefed on the plan say the government will try to convince families to move with a generous payment of up to 1 million yen ($10,000) per child if they leave overcrowded Tokyo for inland municipalities and neighboring prefectures. The amount is more than triple the 300,000 yen (R$12,300) offered in an existing scheme since 2019.
The increase in per-child pay is just one part of the government’s commitment to encourage young families to leave Tokyo. Families who move already receive up to 3 million yen in one-time financial support and can receive even more if they start a business.
Those who receive the money must embrace provincial life for at least five years, or repay the state.
Japan’s shrinking and aging population and the migration of younger people to the capital have disproportionately hit regions outside Tokyo, Osaka and some other major cities.
Many rural towns and villages were emptied, their businesses starved of customers and available employees. The estimated surplus of vacant homes in Japan — homes that often go unclaimed by heirs — is expected to reach around 10 million by 2023.
At the same time, Tokyo’s position as a major magnet for economic activity and migration has grown. In 2021, despite the slowdown caused by the pandemic and the supposed new popularity of remote work, the average price of a new apartment in Tokyo, according to the Real Estate Economic Institute, surpassed the peak reached at the height of Japan’s housing bubble in 1989.
Some 1,300 Japanese municipalities have already signed up to receive migrants from Tokyo. According to government sources, just under 2,400 people took advantage of the relocation payment in the 2021 fiscal year — a number that equates to about 0.006% of greater Tokyo’s population of 38 million.
Websites for municipalities trying to attract newcomers combine publicity about their rural charms with a revealing honesty about their situation. Umaji village in Kochi prefecture (population 820) offers a free day care “and, of course, no children on the waiting list”. The nearby town of Tano offers the attraction of a rare sun-dried salt factory, but notes that 42% of the local population is over 65.
Rural townships are watched by Japan’s state broadcaster NHK, which heavily promotes the idea of ​​moving to the countryside in a program that follows the lives of families who have made the leap.
“We watch this show, and naturally you think you’d do the same,” said Erika Horiguchi, a working mother who moved into a central Tokyo apartment with her husband and daughter in 2018 but isn’t looking to leave the city for inside. “My husband left Aomori Prefecture when he was young because he knew it would be harder to find work there. There’s a reason Japanese people are coming to Tokyo, and I don’t think the government will be able to change that.”
Online, reaction to reports about the government’s offer of 1 million yen per relocated child was marked by similar skepticism. “Sounds like a lot of money but not enough to really make someone decide to have kids,” one post said.
The government’s move to encourage people to move comes amid concern about Japan’s below-replacement-level birth rate — a demographic reality for several decades and stubborn resistance to many efforts to encourage larger families.
The number of babies in Japan is also decreasing faster than previously thought. In 2021, the number of births in Japan dropped to just over 811,000. Predictions based on the first nine months of 2022 suggest the number will drop below 800,000 for the first time since records began in the late 19th century.
In its comprehensive forecasts for future population size, published in 2017, the government-affiliated National Institute of Population and Social Security Research believed that this line would not be crossed until 2030.
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