Japan has signed its worst birth rate in 2023 in its recent history. Last year only 700,000 children were born, a figure that has made the Tokyo City Council create a dating app to help form more marriages and drive population growth.

An identity document, income and certification of seeking marriage. This is what a Japanese person who wants to register for ‘Tokyo Futari Story’, the name given to the application by the city council, needs.

The city has been proposing initiatives to encourage marriages for some time, from websites with advice to matchmaking events. Birth data are at historic lows and they link it to the country’s growing loneliness, although experts point to other factors.

“In the end, the main reason is that people want to raise their children in a good economic environment and they do not give birth or marry until those conditions are met,” explains Masahiro Yamada, a sociologist specializing in family.

A vision that agrees with that of the young people targeted by this plan. According the surveys, young Japanese are increasingly reluctant to have children due to few job prospects, the high cost of living and discrimination against working mothers.

“People are now quite free to choose whether to have children or not, so I’m not sure if this will have any impact,” explains a young Japanese woman.