Japanese government will offer 1M yen per child for families to move out of Tokyo:
Japan is experiencing a rapid decline in population. From 2020 to 2021, the population decreased by 644,000. The current population of 125 million is expected to drop to 88 million in 2065. Because rural regions of Japan are the hardest hit, the Japanese government is offering families a $7,500 bounty per child for families willing to move out of Tokyo. This is in addition to other cash incentives already in place that could boost the maximum payout to 5 million yen ($38,000) per family.
Here are more highlights from the article in The Guardian:
- The payment, in addition to up to 3 yen million in financial support, will be offered to families living in the core wards of Tokyo and surrounding areas
- To qualify for the payment, families must meet one of three criteria: employment at a small or mid-sized company in the area they move to, continuing in their old jobs through remote work, or starting a business in their new home
- The scheme aims to attract 10,000 people to move from Tokyo to rural areas by 2027
The last item strikes me as weird. Tokyo is the most populous city in the world, with 35 million people living in the greater metropolitan area. Is 10,000 going to make a noticeable difference? And will those ten thousand people make a difference to the rest of the country when they get spread out? Maybe the idea is to kickstart a mass exodus out of Tokyo after people who have left tell their friends how great it is in Nagano prefecture.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday January 07, @12:34AM (2 children)
They need to capture people's imaginations [cbr.com]. Plus, improve mass transit and high-speed Internet to rural areas. When electric passenger VTOL and cars become ubiquitous, living in the countryside might become more attractive.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by looorg on Saturday January 07, @01:12AM
From my very limited experience they do have good mass-transport, it was quite expensive but good. But then there is a difference in experiencing it as a tourist compared to living there. I only had to ride it for fun a few times and it was all new and exciting and not the normal daily drudgery to transportation.
The idea of paying the people to move out of the big city to the burbs or country is an interesting idea. That said I don't think it's so much down to the normal citizen. It's more down to the company they work for if they will allow it. After all they already spend a lot of time in transport to get in and out of the big cities so if this will just make that commute even longer then money probably isn't enticing enough. There have to be jobs out there or jobs that actually allow them to work remote. After all they are probably not all going to start their own companies out there in the countryside.
An interesting idea could be for a small company to have all their employees move out and take the company with them to form a new little company town out in the country side.
As noted finding only 10k people in a pop of 35M is like a drop in the bucket. I doubt you would even notice 10k people just vanished into thin air. While there might be some nice ideas about getting people to move out in the the countryside with their children (or just making more of them) etc there is probably a somewhat more sinister thought behind it -- they want poor people to move out of the poorer central wards of the city. It's probably a fair amount of gentrification involved in this proposal. They want to get the wrong people out, re-develop, and then get the right people in. I don't see anything about them paving buildings in the central wards to build parks or anything nice like that.
Also it's a one time payment from the looks of it. I don't really know how far a few million yen will go in Japan but I imagine it's not setting them up for a life of luxury outside the city. So what happens when the poor people they shipped out squander the money and then they come back again. Could be interesting to note how this develops. Cause as noted finding 10k people to take the bait is probably the least problematic part of it.
They do think about such plans in other places of the world to. They have not come to fruition yet but if they do I could just take my stuff and move out in the the furthest part of the boonies. One such plan was to forgive all your student debt over a period of a decade or so and while not a massive sum it could be nice enough.
So perhaps the question would be how much or what would the government have to offer you to move out of the big city into the boonies?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edinlinux on Saturday January 07, @01:17AM
Huh? Transit is amazing in Japan, even in the rural areas, I have ridden it everywhere in the two decades I lived there. 100mbps or 1gbps Fiber internet is available pretty much anywhere in the country as well, even on the farms in remote areas and tiny towns.
Here in downtown Sacramento, a mile from the Capitol of what is supposed to be the 'tech-capitol' of the world, you can only get 5mbps DSL from AT&T, and transit even within the city (or even California in general)..don't get me started... ;-)
(Score: 2) by Username on Saturday January 07, @03:54AM (1 child)
Why would less people make life more difficult? People live in the country to get away from other people. Is it a regional tax thing? Not enough funds for roads/etc? I wouldn't think employers would have problems finding people since jobs are more scarce than people in rural areas. That's how they get away with paying so little, what other option do you have?
Though, it may be a cultural difference. I noticed towns in japan, even in rural areas, houses are all crammed in next to each other. Nobody has yards it looks like. Maybe they're more communal?
(Score: 2) by ese002 on Tuesday January 10, @06:42AM
Because towns that fall below a certain size fail to provide basic services. The decline accelerates as remaining residents bail because the town isn't functional any more.
(Score: 3, Redundant) by crafoo on Saturday January 07, @06:25AM (2 children)
An article from 2018 concerning Japan and it's monetary policy. https://www.monetarywonderland.com/japans-monetisation.html [monetarywonderland.com]
In case you do not know what debt monetization is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_monetization [wikipedia.org]
Japan is right now monetizing it's debt. According to MMT (modern monetary theory) this is OK and fine. If you didn't know, MMT is a simple theory that we can print fake money forever because money isn't real. The rules are different this time because, you see, it's a modern theory.
Japan is over. All that is left now is to watch it fall.
The only good thing about USD is that we are more powerful and ever so slightly more useful to our masters. We are on the same track as Japan, though. No one can even talk about the economic issues we would have to address to change course. The plan so far has been to simply gaslight the populace to keep them from panicking as long as possible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07, @09:55AM
Easy solution - no capital gains, abolish inheritance tax and abolish social security? We can start giving the wealthiest among us titles - Barron, for example. I feel we have been here before...
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 07, @11:00AM
There's plenty of good things about the USD for the USA. The USA owes mainly in USD and also all sorts of stuff from fossil fuels, wheat to CPUs are bought and sold in US dollars.
1) That's like owing other people in a currency you can make anytime you feel like or you're forced to. Imagine the banks requiring you to pay back your loans in CrafooDollars that you can print millions of.
2) When the US Gov creates money and spends/uses it there could be inflation but the ones receiving the created USD would still be wealthier than the ones not receiving it.
3) Also usually when money is created there's a lag between the entities spending the created money and the rest of the world noticing that the money should be worth less.
One other thing is that most finance people's idea of "flight to safety" is to buy US bonds denominated in US dollars AND this is even if it's the USA that's having a financial crisis! Around 2008 or so the USA had financial issues and the majority response was the finance bunch fled to the US dollar (which thus strengthened in value). In contrast if some other country had financial issues the finance bunch would flee AWAY from that country's currency. So paradoxically the US Gov could print money and the USD actually appreciate in value relative to other currencies (this actually happens)...
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/22/business/worldbusiness/22iht-dollar.4.17174760.html [nytimes.com]
https://www.bostonfed.org/publications/research-department-working-paper/2018/the-dollar-during-the-global-recession-us-monetary-policy-and-the-exorbitant-duty.aspx [bostonfed.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rich on Saturday January 07, @12:48PM
Ah, welcome the world of "Non Non Biyori". Wholesomely satisfying.
Alas, if you're not part of a clique of cute girls doing cute things, and have to somehow pay for living expenses on top, the prospect of living in the woods in Japan might not be as convincing.
Nb: real estate on the countryside seems to be incredibly cheap, and news site "soranews24" exploit that fact by running a series of articles how they bought a country house for the company and restore it: https://soranews24.com/2022/11/18/turning-a-crazy-cheap-country-japanese-house-into-a-home-step-14-before-and-after-%E3%80%90sorahouse%E3%80%91/ [soranews24.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by wArlOrd on Saturday January 07, @06:30PM (2 children)
> Tokyo is the most populous city in the world, with 35 million people... Is 10,000 going to make a noticeable difference?
Perhaps the goal is not to depopulate Tokyo, but to infuse new life into rural areas?
This should require smaller numbers to make a difference.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Saturday January 07, @10:22PM (1 child)
Solid point. Removing 10k from 35M is basically nothing, 0,0something%.
Obviously I dont think all 10k will move to the same place, still getting a few new people here and there makes a big diff for these remote places. An extra family or two arriving could be a big deal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08, @06:18PM
Yeah Japan is slowly dying.
Transferring new blood from cities to rural areas can help those rural areas. But not sure if that would actually help Japan in the big picture. It's like a country with bonfires that are slowly going out and you're transferring a few embers/coals to some small fires in rural areas to try to keep them going. But the big bonfires are also actually going out too: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/07/in-rapidly-aging-japan-adult-diaper-sales-are-about-to-surpass-baby-diapers/277706/ [theatlantic.com]
See also:
https://soranews24.com/2016/01/12/train-continues-to-stop-at-rural-station-for-lone-schoolgirl-until-she-graduates-in-march/ [soranews24.com]
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-28/kyu-shirataki-train-station-in-hokkaido-japan-closes-after-student-graduates [bloomberg.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Sunday January 08, @02:15AM
It will matter to rural areas where a hundred people is a significant boost.
There are small towns in Nebraska offering free property if you'll come there and start a business, because even one or two new families is worth the effort.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.