In Japan, where population decline has emerged as a social problem due to a declining birth rate and aging population, Nagareyama City, an area where the population has increased naturally for six consecutive years, is drawing attention. The number of births increased significantly as a result of the city authorities and residents taking the lead in focusing on policies that ensure childcare convenience.
In particular, it was evaluated that the city led the way to increase the number of daycare centers nearly 10 times the previous one, eliminating the wait for admission, and implementing a pick-up service in which local governments directly send children to and from daycare centers instead of working parents. It is emerging as a model example of countermeasures against the low birth rate both inside and outside Japan.
On the 26th, the Asahi Shimbun, citing the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications’ population announcement as of January 1 this year, announced that the population of Nagareyama City, Chiba Prefecture exceeded the number of deaths by 221, ranking first in the country for six consecutive years in terms of natural increase. Looking at Japan as a whole, Japan’s population decreased by more than 800,000 from the previous year in this announcement, the largest decrease ever, but Nagareyama City showed the opposite result.
The Japanese media also paid attention to this miracle, and it is evaluated that the measures that took into account the parenting concerns of dual-income couples succeeded. Since Mayor Yoshiharu Izaki was elected in 2003, childcare policies카지노사이트 have been significantly strengthened. The year following his inauguration, Mayor Izaki set up a marketing department at City Hall and started public relations activities. He created the catchphrases ‘If you become a mother, Nagare Yamashi’ and ‘If you become a father, Nagare Yamashi’, he started promoting child-rearing policies.
Administrative support has also been significantly strengthened, increasing the number of daycare centers in Nagareyama City from 17 in 2010 to 102 as of this year, nearly tenfold. Thanks to this, parents who want to leave their children at the daycare center have achieved ‘zero waiting children’, which allows them to go to school without a waiting period.
For dual-income couples, a “pick-up childcare system” has been established that allows children to go to and from daycare centers. Anyone can apply if the distance from their home to the daycare center is more than 500m, and their parents are both working and cannot take their child to and from the daycare center.
Pick-up stations are set up at some stations, and parents take their children to the station on the way to work, and the city automatically picks up and leaves the children by bus. In the case of going to school, parents leave their children at the station during rush hour between 7:00 and 7:50, and around 8:00, a bus provided by the city picks up the child and moves it to the daycare center, and picks it up. The usage fee is 100 yen per day and 2,000 yen (18,000 won) per month.
In addition, the city is actively participating in events for parents, such as setting up a night market four times a year where parents in their 30s and 40s can have a glass of beer at the station after work.With word of mouth spreading as a good place for two-income couples to raise children, the number of people in their 30s who moved into Nagareyama City increased by 13,495 from 2012 to 2022, and the number of children under the age of 10 also increased by 7,805. Although Japan’s aging population is a problem, as of last April, the number of children under the age of 10 exceeded the number of elderly people in their 70s by 1,700. Following nicknames such as ‘the place where McDonald’s Happy Meal sets are sold the most’, it is now called ‘the happiest city in Japan’.An official from Nagareyama City told Asahi, “It seems that the city’s policies, which were clearly communicated to those in need of support and made easy to reach, led to an increase in population.”