Japanese government offers families 1M yen a child to leave Tokyo | Hacker News Reader

Japanese government offers families 1M yen a child to leave Tokyo

theguardian.com

74 pointsPaulHoule35 comments

It doesn't seem like nearly enough money to convince someone to leave their home and job.

The reverse might work - offering companies big incentives to move from Tokyo to the declining areas (and take some of their employees with them). After all, one of the primary reasons people flock to the big cities is because of the availability of work.

> It doesn't seem like nearly enough money to convince someone to leave their home and job.

It's gotta be intended to push people who are on the fence over to the "move" side, not to get people who've not been considering it to decide to move.

I'm not sure if Japan also became more remote work friendly during COVID, I feel like this could be a good opportunity for those types of employees

From what I have heard from my (admittedly few) friends there, it hasn't changed much outside of the pure tech sector. The culture of being in the office hasn't changed as much as it has in the US.

Within the tech sector lots of companies went permanent, partial work from home (need to be in the office a couple of days a week or month depending on the company). Some examples:

- Office downsized to only hold 30% of staff, and you can work from home as little or as much as you want.

- Need to come a few consecutive days per month, travel expenses from anywhere in Japan (within reason) are reimbursed.

I also know a handful of people in non-tech (but not what I would call salaryman/desk jockey jobs) that went to 75% or more work from home.

Some non-pure-tech traditional big corp introduces remote work regardless of covid ending (but usually don't allow living far away). They noticed that having big office in Tokyo is expensive.

How can you proof that you are present after hours, if you are only remote employed? Remote work sounds thoroughly uncompatible with Japanese working culture.

It says that you can find a new job in your new location, continue to work your current job remotely or start a new business to qualify. Seems like the remote work category would be the easiest sell.

I wouldn’t move cities for that amount. We’re talking about the equivalent of just over $7500 here.

That number seems so low I don’t know who they’re hoping to leave. Or they don’t have a plan in that regard. Real numbers would be like “discounted rail tickets” or some per month stipend for the additional costs. Or maybe it’s just to get homeless people to say they’re leaving.

I’m grasping at straws here.

There are around 4,000 homeless people in all of Japan. A country of 125 million. A number so small I doubt it has any impact on the policy whatsoever.

https://tomorrow.city/a/homelessness-in-japan

I converted the value to USD to see if it changes the article title. 1,000,000 Japanese Yen equals 7,646.05 United States Dollar Jan 3, 3:27 PM UTC.

Japanese government offers families 7,500 dollars a child to leave Tokyo.

I don't think the work culture in Japan allows the teleworking situation that the government expects. The goal of 10,000 people out of 13 million by 2027 also seems wildly ineffective for the described objective. I don't know if I agree with even 3 million yen being generous for this kind of relocation. There's a condition where the people have to return the money if they relocate within five years.

Is there a cultural motivation I am missing?

What is one place that is near Tokyo that would be of "milder" inconvenience that the government most likely wants them to go to?

Is it that the population of Tokyo just loves the convenience? Would be hard to ask people to give up what they know for an alternative.

I think the goal is injecting bodies into the surrounding economies, rather being an attempt to substantially reduce the population of Tokyo proper.

-10,000 is trivial compared to 13 million, but even +20 to a nearby farming community is substantial (then multiply that impact by x500).

I think the greatest incentive would be to normalize remote work.

Offering tax benefits to companies that move out of Tokyo might be effective but only in the long term.

Very hard to effect that change if working culture is built on the 'visibility' of late hours and long nights in the office.

If they can shift pretending to work in an office to pretending to be "online", that actually might be a pretty big QOL improvement for much of the population, basically for free, and maybe even at some savings overall if it takes pressure off Tokyo.

Most people aren't as enthusiastic about remote work as people are on Hacker News. You cannot make teachers, most doctors, janitors, drivers, etc. Work From Home.

Besides, it's one thing to Work from Home from a beautiful place vs. a middle of nowhere town. I don't see many people on Hacker News moving to Nebraska or the Sahara to Work From Home.

The infrastructure to adequately support WFH did not exist or was not accessible from my SILs pov as a teacher. Doctors can perform quite a bit through telehealth appointments and request that you come to a clinic onsite for labs when necessary.

My clinic has an urgent care team on site for labs and immediate issues that allows for PCPs to work from home. It hasn't been bad at all for them or for me in treating a congenital health condition.

FYI ...

¥ 1,000,000 = $ 7,650 (USD)

¥ 1,000,000 = € 7,250 (Euro)

¥ 1,000,000 = £ 6,350 (GBP)

Yen has truly tanked...

1M Yen is about 7500 USD.

A lot of people are missing that it's per child and it's not just the ¥1m / $7500:

"The payment – which comes on top of up to ¥3m already available in financial support – will be offered to families living in the 23 “core” wards of Tokyo and the neighbouring commuter-belt prefectures of Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa."

'Per child' doesn't seem significant as the average family has 2 kids max. Moving costs, rent and mortgage amounts would be interesting to compare the $7500 against.

I wonder if we'll see this in the US as the midwest food infrastructure starts to require replacements as the older generation dies off.

Younger generations, even in the midwest, are gravitating to office work as opposed to the farms (there aren't a lot of tech companies compared to the coasts, but there are enough).

I drove around New Mexico four years ago and there are a number of ghost towns between Las Cruces and Roswell, these are towns that have nothing but boarded up buildings and no people. A waiter in a restaurant explained to me that once the population drops below a certain level the grocery stores disappear then the schools and finally the post offices and police where people are expected to drive to the next town for any of the above. At the point people just migrate to a city even if they don't sell their houses (which seems wrong to me like who would just abandon a house?) but I didn't actually stop in the towns, i just drove through. A handful of remote techies aren't going to bring these ghost towns back but they might prevent others from collapsing.

I think the opportunity cost of leaving a city like Tokyo for an "unfashionable" one as the article mentions is huge. Seems like it will enforce inequality because rich people won't leave, and people is where opportunities are, friends, partners, co-founders, etc.

Interesting that this is per child. The amount they are offering (~7500 USD) is significantly less than public school cost per pupil per year (10k-30k USD in US schools).

I hate to say it but the “ideas” from the Japanese government lately are just terrible.

I’m concerned, I know this ageist, but those in government itself are just too old.

Yeah but 1M yen isn't that much...

1 yen is == 0.0076 USD

1M yen is == 7643.65 USD

So many bad ideas before they come to the conclusion that they will have to liberalize their immigration system.

I've read it as "1M yen and a child" :facepalm:

So what, this will not solve anything, they should reduce the taxes for companies in rural areas as does Norway.

$7648

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