The serious birth rate problem that Japan faces has led the country to implement various measures to encourage citizens to have children, including improving paternity leave. However, the Government is now looking for a plan with a greater social impact to achieve its goal and has focused on promoting dating apps to revive marriage.
With the birth rate at historic lows, the serious aging of the population is already affecting the workforce and complicating future projections. With this outlook, Japan has relied on the power of the match (the term used in dating apps when two profiles show mutual interest in each other) to overcome the demographic crisis that compromises its economy.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is at the forefront of the new plan. It even hopes to launch its own dating app in the coming months to complement the singles events it already organizes with a similar objective. Until then, it has launched a pilot program called Tokyo Futari Story (‘futari’ is the Japanese term for a couple) that aims to help people find love. The challenge is significant as in Japan, being single has become a normalized state, surpassing pressures from the past.
There is no room for deception, or that is what Tokyo intends with the development in which it has invested over a million dollars to provide greater security to a population reluctant to these types of tools. Anyone who wants to socialize through this app must submit various identification documents and fill out tax forms reflecting annual income, as well as the corresponding singlehood certificate. Once through the strict bureaucracy, users will have to undergo a diagnostic test from which their ‘biography’ (the values that person holds and the type of partner they are seeking) will derive.
As reported by The Asahi Shimbun, the official version will be paid and will require, in addition to everything mentioned earlier, that users sign a commitment contract promising that their partner search is serious and not for a casual relationship. The primary idea is to rekindle the Japanese people’s desire to get married at a time when marriage is also declining.
Eight years of declining birth rates
The number of births in Japan has been declining for eight consecutive years and the number of marriages fell below half a million for the first time in 90 years, signaling that baby statistics will not improve. Estimates from the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research indicate that Japan’s population will decrease by around 30% to 87 million by 2070, with 40% of citizens being 65 years or older.
If the situation is not reversed, Japan’s workforce, already struggling, will experience increasing pressure due to the acute shortage of labor that is already forcing longer working hours.
The use of dating apps is anecdotal but is part of the unprecedented package of measures announced by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, which will include more support for child-rearing and more facilities for child care in an attempt to beat the countdown to turn the red mark on the calendar for 2030.
