The newest matchmaker on the scene, the Japanese government

Romance, once the realm of poetry and poor decision-making, has now become a line item in public budgets. In Japan’s Kochi prefecture, the state has tiptoed into matters of the heart with a subsidy in hand, as part of a larger effort to address the country’s twin crises of dwindling birth rates and rising loneliness. Single individuals in the age group of 20-39 years will be eligible for financial assistance of up to 20,000 yen annually for using approved matchmaking assistance and dating applications.

It is admittedly an odd arrangement. But as one of the world’s fastest-ageing societies, Japan faces a deepening crisis of loneliness and social withdrawal that goes well beyond falling birth rates. In 2016, over 5,00,000 Japanese, aged 15 to 39 were identified as hikikomori — social recluses who had withdrawn from public life. By 2022, this figure had risen to about 1.46 million people. In 2021, Japan appointed a Minister for Social Isolation and Loneliness. In the years since the pandemic, local governments have been tasked with taking actions for mitigation.

If loneliness is one half of the problem, beneath the subsidies lies a tangle of other modern anxieties — precarious work-life balance, constricting job opportunities, and rising cost of childcare. By offering financial support, the state tacitly admits that the obstacles to romance today extend well beyond individual choice. Still, if a modest subsidy can nudge someone to a first date, perhaps it is money not entirely misspent. After all, even the most practical of love stories have room for a little irrationality, and, with luck, a story worth telling.