The Japanese government is taking the bull by the horns and upping matchmaking antics to bridge the gap between natality and death rates, which has further widened as the country, for the eighth time in a row, recorded a decline in births.

In a desperate attempt to avoid a looming population decline, Japan’s capital, Tokyo, is setting up a dating application where single, young people can find themselves and propose marriage. The application will be launched by early summer.

The government is keen to ease the dating-to-marriage process by providing a tax certificate for intending users to verify their income earnings and budgeting hundreds of millions of yen to ensure the dating app yields maximum success.

“We learned that 70 per cent of people who want to get married aren’t actively joining events or apps to look for a partner,” AFP cited a Tokyo government official with knowledge of the app as saying. “We want to give them a gentle push to find one.” 

Japanese authorities budgeted 300 million yen (nearly $2 million) to support young people in getting married and having children in 2024 through phone applications. This amount was 100 million yen more than 2023’s budget, indicating the government’s desperation to increase Japan’s population. 

The app users would be mandated to register their marital status, indicating that they are legally single and intend to get married.

Personal information such as height, education and work background must also be accurately registered.

“The declining birthrate is in a critical situation,” chief cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi was cited by Independent as saying. “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.”

Thirty-two per cent of 50-year-old men in Tokyo are unmarried, while 24 per cent of the same age bracket of women are still single, according to the country’s capital unmarried rates.