(Tokyo) The Tokyo metropolitan government will launch its own dating app this summer, hoping the tool will help stem Japan’s “critical” birth rate crash.
To register, people will need to provide documentation proving they are legally single, and sign a letter stating they are looking for a soul mate to marry.
Submitting a tax notice will also be required to prove your annual income. Dating apps in Japan often require you to declare your income.
“We have learned that 70% of people who want to get married do not participate in events (marriage dating, Editor’s note) or are not on partner search applications,” an official told AFP on Tuesday. of the Tokyo government responsible for the new application.
“We want to give them a little boost” with this new tool, which is currently in the testing phase, he added.
It is not uncommon in Japan for town halls to organize matrimonial dating events. But it is still rare for them to launch their own online application in this area.
The Tokyo project sparked a lot of negative comments on Japanese social media: “Should the government do this with our taxes? » asked an Internet user.
But others said they were interested because they would feel more secure with an official app.
The decline in the marriage rate in Japan is a key factor in the fall in the birth rate in the country, with births outside legal unions remaining very low, around 2%, noted an OECD report published in early 2024.
Births in Japan fell last year for the eighth year in a row, and the number of deaths was about twice as high as the number of births in the country.
The national fertility rate reached a new low in 2023 since these statistics began in 1947, at 1.2 children per woman on average, according to figures published Wednesday by the Japanese Ministry of Health.
“The situation is critical,” a ministry official told AFP.
“Various factors, such as economic instability and difficulties juggling work and family life” can explain these constantly declining figures, she added.
A new law which will notably increase family allowances was also adopted on Wednesday by the Upper House of the Japanese Parliament, in accordance with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s desire to intensify efforts to stem demographic decline.
Japan has the oldest population in the world, after the Principality of Monaco.
This situation poses increasingly significant problems in the archipelago, generating labor shortages in many sectors of activity and calling into question the long-term sustainability of public health and insurance systems. illness and retirement.
Until now, all Japanese governments have failed to reverse the trend, while the country limits its use of immigration.