According to Japan's 2023 population migration report, Tokyo welcomed about 68,000 arrivals, more than half of whom were women.
More and more young women are moving to Tokyo to improve their education and find job opportunities. The exodus has led to rural depopulation, and schools and hospitals have closed.
Therefore, the Japanese government has proposed a plan to provide money to women in 23 wards of Tokyo if they get married and move to rural areas.
Through the local government, participants will receive a grant of 600,000 yen per person.
According to SCMP (China), Japanese women will be paid for their travel expenses if they attend matchmaking events in the countryside. At the same time, when they leave Tokyo to go to other regions to get married and work, they will continue to be provided with money, which can exceed 600,000 yen.
Single men who want to move to the countryside to work or start a business also receive subsidies from the government.
However, the initiative to provide money for women to leave Tokyo has caused controversy and sparked outrage across Japan.
YouTube user commented: "This is so sad. These girls left the backward countryside and came to Tokyo in search of a better life. But now people want them to go back to the countryside."
According to SCMP, under public pressure, the Japanese government has decided to suspend a plan to subsidize 600,000 yen for urban women to motivate them to marry rural men.
Regarding the above incident, Japanese media said that the government built the above system to address the rural economic situation, regional gender imbalance and promote marriage.
As of 2020, Japan had about 11 million single men and 9.1 million single women between the ages of 15 and 49.
In 2023, official data showed that Japan was experiencing a marriage crisis, with fewer than 500,000 couples getting married, the lowest in 90 years. This problem also led to a serious decline in the country's birth rate.
Similar to Japan, the strategy of encouraging marriage and childbirth is also popular in China. A company in Guangdong has offered to pay 20,000 yuan per person for marriage and childbirth.
Meanwhile, a region in the east of the country also gives 1,000 yuan to brides who marry before the age of 25.
Unlike Japan, these policies have been well received by the Chinese people, who see them as consistent with the country's traditional values.
