Japan: Paying families to move to the countryside

Would you leave the city to live in the countryside?

The government in Japan is offering money to families to encourage them to move away from the capital city Tokyo.

The scheme aims to encourage young people to move to less popular villages and towns around the edges of the city, where mostly only elderly people live.

The scheme has been running for the last three years, but the government has announced that it is increasing the amount of money it is offering from ¥300,000 (£1,900) to ¥1m (around £6,400) per child from April this year.

Japanese officials hope that the offer will encourage families with children aged up to 18 to bring life to villages with hardly any people, and help ease some of the pressure on space and public services in the centre of Tokyo.

Why is the government asking people to move?

Tokyo is one of the world's busiest cities

Tokyo is the world's most populated city - which means it has the most people living in it - with around 37 million people calling the capital their home.

For comparison, the population of London in the UK is around 9 million people.

Around 123 million people in total live in the country of Japan, which means that around a third of the entire population lives in the capital city.

Having a super busy city can boost the economy as there are lots of jobs there, and fun things to do, but it can also cause problems like there not being enough homes for people to live in, and meaning that things like schools, trains and hospitals are very busy.

It can also mean that small towns and villages around the big city can disappear, as people move away from them to live in cities.

How does the scheme work?

Many people move away from small towns and villages because there aren't many opportunities or things to do there, so they have small populations of mostly elderly people

The Japanese government is offering money to families who live in 23 "core" wards - or areas - of Tokyo and parts of Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa to encourage them to move away from the city centre.

To be able to claim the money however, families must move outside the greater Tokyo area, live in their new homes for at least five years and one person must be in work or plan to open a new business.

Half of the money for the scheme will come from the central government, and the other half from local governments, according to a Japanese news agency.

The Japanese government hope that around 10,000 people will move from Tokyo to the countryside around it by 2027.