Japan Plans Financial Assistance For Single Women To Move Out Of Tokyo: Report (image @ Pixabay)

Japan is planning to introduce initiative to support single women, moving to rural areas to get married in fiscal year 2025. The move is to address the shrinking population of young women in the countryside, said media report.

As per the report, the government will cover costs for women traveling to rural areas from Tokyo in order to attend matchmaking events. It is said that the government is ready to give them more money if they want to move to the areas. According to Japan Times, details like the amount to be paid, will be considered during the budget compilation process.

Greater Tokyo areas has witnessed a higher influx of women than men recently. As per government official, women from rural areas who relocate to Tokyo for educational or professional purposes are tend to settle down in the region permanently, rather than returning to their hometown or other parts of the country outside Tokyo.

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This has created a disparity among the number of single women and men in rural areas. As per the census of 2020 of Japan, it was revealed that over 46 out of 47 prefectures in the country, excluding Tokyo, the population of single women aged 15 to 49 was approximately 9.1 million, which is about 20% lower than the 11.1 million single men in the same age bracket. In some prefectures, the gap was as high as 30%.

This decline in the number of younger women in rural areas poses a significant challenge to preventing depopulation in the future, which the country has been worried about. Realizing this, the government has concluded that providing focused support to single women who are interested in relocating to the countryside is of utmost importance.

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Japan is confronting a severe demographic crisis. Last year, the birth rate reached a record low last year. Only 727,277 births were recorded, and the fertility rate stood at 1.20, which is significantly below the 2.1 required to maintain a stable population, according to The Independent.