1 in 2 urban Japanese want to retire in the countryside, government poll reveals

Right now, Kiyoko Iwamura, 40, is very content with her life in a suburb of Tokyo, where she works in the PR department of a major can manufacturer and has plenty of friends through her children's school and her husband's work. But sometimes, she hankers for a more relaxed way of life in Japan 's countryside.

"I'm lucky where I live because it is a nice neighbourhood and I have a lot of friends, but my case is quite unusual," Iwamura said. "Most of my friends don't have good relationships with the people around them, they rarely see or speak to their neighbours, they live in very small apartments or houses in the centre of the city and it can be quite lonely and hard.

"One of my friends has been forced to stay at home with her three young children recently because of the coronavirus crisis, and she was very upset because she had a letter from one of her neighbours saying her kids were too noisy and that she should make them be quiet."

That sort of un-neighbourly behaviour would be unthinkable in the small town where her mother lives in Kumamoto Prefecture, on the southern island of Kyushu, Iwamura said.

A town in Hiroshima. Photo: Getty Images alt=A town in Hiroshima. Photo: Getty Images

"My mother is retired but she's constantly busy with the people who live close to her and her friends. She has a big old house and a smallholding to keep her occupied and she has a great relationship with everyone around her. Plus she gets lots of exercise and eats healthily," she said.

"The old customs are still alive in the countryside and that is the sort of place that I want to live in when I retire," she said. "I want that relaxed lifestyle."

Iwamura is not alone in eyeing the simple life at some point down the line, with virtually half of all the residents of Tokyo and the three surrounding prefectures of Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama saying in a survey that they want to live in the countryside in the future.

The annual survey of 10,000 people was conducted by the Cabinet Secretariat in the first two months of this year, just as the full scale of the coronavirus pandemic was becoming apparent. The same survey two years ago saw 23 per cent of the respondents saying they hoped one day to move to a rural part of Japan.

The national government is in favour of reversing the surge of people moving to the big cities in search of work over recent decades. In 2018, it announced a scheme under which residents of Tokyo could receive 3 million yen (US$27,850) if they would swap life in the congested capital for a home in the countryside.

About 9.3 million people live in the 23 wards that make up central Tokyo, an area of 619 square kilometres, while the 2,188 sq km of the greater Tokyo metropolitan district is home to more than 36 million people.

And while the nation's population is in gradual decline after peaking at 127.3 million in 2010, the number of people living in Tokyo continues to rise as young people leave the rural hinterland in search of better education and employment opportunities. And the strain is beginning to tell on public transport systems, utilities, hospitals and other infrastructure.

At the same time, countless villages and towns in the countryside are today made up of elderly residents, with schools closing and farmland left to go fallow because there are no young people left to work it.

Asked in the most recent study why they wanted to swap the city for the countryside, nearly 55 per cent cited "the rich natural environment", while slightly more than 16 per cent said they wanted to go back to the areas where their families were originally from.

Over the past several decades, many Japanese have left the countryside for the big cities in search of better opportunities. Photo: Getty Images alt=Over the past several decades, many Japanese have left the countryside for the big cities in search of better opportunities. Photo: Getty Images

Encouraged by the findings of the survey, the government plans to set up a website providing information about places that are actively looking for people to move to their communities and details on national and local subsidies that are available.

Shingo Kominato says the people of the island of Kuroshima would welcome newcomers with open arms.

With an area of just 15.37 sq km and six hours by boat from Kyushu, the island had more than 200 residents a decade ago, but that figure has shrunk to just 111 individuals today.

"We want to have a bigger community on the island " but we also want to strike the right balance and not have too many people here," said Kominato, who works in the village office in the island's only hamlet, called Mishima. "The population is going down in all the rural parts of Japan, but the decline is even steeper here because young people want to have a good job and to live in a big city."

Just 10 children attend Kuroshima's junior school, with pupils required to move to Kagoshima and board at a senior high school when they reach 15 years old. There is some fishing and agriculture on the island, but no hotel or tourism infrastructure.

In an effort to attract people to live on Kuroshima, the village council some years ago introduced a system of subsidies. Every person who moves to the island receives 85,000 yen (US$788) as expenses a month and the cost of moving to the island is also covered. An added sweetener, Kominato said, is a choice between a one-time payment of 300,000 yen (US$2,781) or a cow.

And last year, the incentives paid off as nine people moved to the island from mainland Japan.

Asked what the biggest attraction of Kuroshima is, Kominato is quick to reply: "There is very little here, so it is completely relaxing."

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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