Officials in Tokyo, Japan are launching a new dating app to help promote marriage and boost the collapsing national birth rate.
The fee-based app from the Tokyo Metropolitan government will ask people to prove that they are legally single, and sign a letter confirming their willingness to get married. It will also require that people submit a tax certificate slip that proves their annual income, along with roughly 15 other items of personally identifying information - including height, weight, educational background and occupation following a mandatory interview with the app's operator.
So - Match.com, only you give all of your data to the government instead of a private company.
According to the Independent, Tokyo officials allocated US$1.2 million towards the development of dating apps in 2023, and US$1.9 million for fiscal 2024 for the purpose of promoting marriage through said apps.
"If there are many individuals interested in marriage but unable to find a partner, we want to provide support," a Tokyo official told The Asahi Shimbun.
"We hope that this app, with its association with the government, will provide a sense of security and encourage those who have been hesitant to use traditional apps to take the first step in their search for a partner."
According to AFP, the app is intended to give a "gentle push" to the nearly "70 per cent of people who want to get married" but weren't "actively joining events or apps to look for a partner."
Falling Birth Rates
In February, we noted that in 2023 Japan's birth rate fell 5.1% from a year earlier to 758,631, while the number of marriages slid 5.9% to 489,281, the first time in 90 years the number fell below 500,000. The last time the number was this low the US had just dropped the atom bomb over Hiroshima and Nagasaki - signaling even greater declines in the population as out-of-wedlock births are rare in Japan.
The drop comes more than a decade earlier than the government's National Institute of Population and Social Security Research forecast, which estimated births would decline to below 760,000 in 2035, according to Kyodo news.
Meanwhile, the number of deaths also hit a record - only in the other direction - rising to 1,590,503, while divorces increased to 187,798, up by 4,695.
As a result, Japan's population, including foreign residents, fell by 831,872, with deaths outnumbering births by a record 831,872, double where it was just five years ago.
The fast pace of decline in the number of newborns has been attributed to late marriages and people staying single. The administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has called the period leading up to 2030 "the last chance" to reverse the trend; all Japan has to do is divert the millions of illegal immigrants entering the US every month through the southern border - with the expectation they will all become diligent Democratic voters - and give them a red carpet welcome.
"The declining birthrate is in a critical situation," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters. "The next six years or so until 2030, when the number of young people will rapidly decline, will be the last chance to reverse the trend."
Also, this is a problem:
And this:
