Gender inequality accelerates Japan’s rural depopulation : NPR

Families in the United States and around the world are having fewer children as people make vastly different decisions about their lives. NPR series Population shift: how small families are changing the world explores the causes and consequences of this trend.

AKITA, Japan — Young people in traditional festive clothing balance heavy bamboo poles up to 40 feet high on their heads, arms, hips and shoulders. The crossbars on the pillars are decorated with dozens of paper lanterns with candles.

Part ritual, part festival and part competition, Kanto It is a centuries-old display of strength, skill and culture unique to Akita Prefecture, in the Tohoku region of northern Japan.

Traditionally, only men are allowed to touch the poles. Women play the flute and drums.

Kanto practitioners believe that women cannot participate because, according to the Japanese Shinto religion, women's blood from menstruation and childbirth is considered impure for religious rituals.

Some Japanese women accept Kanto gender differences as part of the culture or simply refrain from criticizing them. College student Mayaka Ogawa, for example, says: “We cannot argue with tradition and religious considerations.”

Kanto is a symbol of the cultural splendor of Akita and its conservative rural society.

And Akita itself is a symbol of Japan’s demographic problems in the 21st century: the oldest people live here population (39% were over 65 in 2024), has the lowest birth rate and fastest population decline among Japan's 47 prefectures, according to government data. Gender inequality is accelerating depopulation in rural areas.

Rural women flee gender inequality

Japanese government report A study on inequality published in June found that 27% of young women want to leave their hometowns, compared with 15% of young men, and rigid gender roles in rural society encourage young women to vote with their feet.

The survey shows that most women move to cities in search of better job opportunities, but there is also a gender aspect to it. Widespread expectations that women will prioritize housework and childcare also reduce the educational prospects of young women, encouraging them to leave rural areas.

In rural communities, “women are forced to work in temporary or part-time jobs, and only men receive promotions. Women don't want to work in these places, so they move to Tokyo,” says Masahiro Yamada, a sociologist at Chuo University.

According to him, the problem persists because “middle-aged and older men in rural areas do not want to change the current situation of discrimination against women.”

While Sanae Takaichi's election last month as Japan's first female prime minister breaks an important glass ceiling, she advocates a conservative, traditional view of gender roles.

Japanese women's political empowerment ranks 125th out of 148 countries in the ranking. World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report for 2025.

A study Last year, 744 Japanese municipalities, or 43% of the total, mostly in rural areas, were found to be in danger of disappearing as their proportion of women of childbearing age is expected to halve by mid-century.

But the consequences of depopulation in Japan can no longer be ignored. Hundreds of thousands of jobs remain unfilled due to… labor shortage. Millions of houses stand vacant or abandoned.

Making women's voices heard

Although the exodus of rural women continues, some women remain or return to rural areas to try to improve their situation.

Ren Yamamoto wanted the voices of young rural women to be heard. So the 26-year-old from Nirasaki, a city in Yamanashi Prefecture, home to Mount Fuji and about 80 miles west of Tokyo, taped 100 interviews with rural women and started her own YouTube. channel.

Many of her interlocutors told her that “when they return to their hometowns, they are asked: “When are you getting married?” When are you going to have children? and they were tired of being forced into that role,” she says.

Japan's public broadcaster NHK reported according to her project. Earlier this year, then Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba invited her meet with him.

“Policies to support women have focused on childcare and marriage, without taking into account the reasons why women leave rural areas,” Yamamoto Ishibe said. “Politicians are not aware of the fact that women have their own choices. We feel like we're looked at as baby-making machines.”

Ishiba told Yamamoto that he was trying to improve the situation, but it was not easy because local officials were mostly middle-aged men.

The government is looking for ways to correct the policy

The Japanese government noted that issues of gender equality and falling birth rates are inextricably linked. Central and local authorities are trying various policy to solve both problems.

Some local authorities, including Tokyo and Akitas serve as matchmakers in an attempt to increase marriage and birth rates.

“I hate it,” exclaims Mayaka Ogawa, a student at Akita College. “It's almost like women can't do it themselves.” She adds, “Women are starting to wake up to the fact that they don't actually need to start a family to be fulfilled.”

On a recent weekend, several women, mostly middle-aged, attended a lecture in Akita where an “assertiveness coach” taught them how to persuade their husbands to help more with housework and childcare. The event's poster shows smiling men ironing clothes and cradling children.

“Even though so many people throughout Japan are making so much effort [toward gender equality]“We are still in a situation where progress is extremely slow,” said Naoko Tani, director of the Akita Prefecture Central Gender Equality Center, where the lecture took place.

Depressing anxiety and pessimism

Some Akita women say they suffer from moya moyaa vague, gnawing feeling that something is wrong, but they can't put their finger on it. Taboos against challenging gender roles and male authority thicken the fog moya moya.

Tani says she, too, once suffered from this confusion, but “learning about things from a gender perspective, there were moments when everything suddenly clicked for me – when I thought, 'Oh, so this is what it is.' And then this realization moved me to tears.”

Others just want to walk away and not look back.

“Akita is often called an isolated island on land,” said high school student Yukina Oguma, whose family is the hereditary steward of the Akita Buddhist Temple.

She plans to go to college in another prefecture.

When asked what she would do if she were told or expected to stay in Akita and take over the temple, she replies, “I would run away.”

Some women are pessimistic about improving gender equality in Akita in the near future.

“Let the Akita become depopulated. Honestly, there is no way to stop it,” said college student Miwa Sawano. “They won’t realize they have a problem until the women leave.”

Chi Kobayashi contributed to this report in Tokyo and Yamanashi and Akita prefectures.