Japan to offer families $7,600 per child to leave Tokyo

TOKYO, Japan

Japan is planning to sweeten the financial incentive for parents who opt to move out of Tokyo as the government attempts to reverse decades of demographic decline, economic migration and the lure of the world’s biggest metropolis. 

Officials familiar with the plan say the government will try to tempt families to relocate with a generous payment of up to ¥1mn ($7,600) per child if they swap overcrowded Tokyo for municipalities outside the city and its surrounding prefectures. 

The figure is more than triple the ¥300,000 on offer under an existing scheme in place since 2019. 

The increased payment per child is only part of the government’s commitment to encouraging young families to leave Tokyo. 

Families that relocate are already being offered as much as ¥3mn in one-off financial support and can receive even more if they start a business. 

Those that take the money must embrace the provincial life for a minimum of five years, or refund the state. 

Japan’s shrinking and ageing population and the migration of younger people to the capital have disproportionately hit the regions beyond Tokyo, Osaka and a handful of other major cities. 

Many rural towns and villages have been hollowed out, their businesses starved of customers and available staff. 

The estimated glut of empty homes in Japan — dwellings that often lie deliberately unclaimed by heirs — is expected to reach about 10mn in 2023. 

At the same time, Tokyo’s status as the prime magnet for economic activity and migration has grown. 

In 2021, despite the slowdown caused by the pandemic and the supposed new popularity of remote work, the average price of a new condominium in Tokyo, according to the Real Estate Economic Institute, surpassed the peak set at the height of Japan’s property bubble in 1989.