"NAGI, Japan -- Mayor Masachika Oku is worried about the children in this remote town getting tired. "They're being chased by visitors with cameras every day," he said.
The visitors, including Japan's leader, are making the trek in search of a valuable secret that may lurk here: how to make more babies.
Women in Nagi, a town of about 5,700 people, on average bear more than two children. That figure makes it a standout in a country where the average is closer to one than two.
Fewer than 800,000 children were born in Japan last year, the lowest number since comparable records were first kept in 1899. It was about half the nearly 1.6 million deaths recorded.
Over three decades, the government has tried an Angel Plan, a New Angel Plan, a Child and Child-Rearing Cheering Plan and more, without much discernible difference. Some frustrated officials have concluded that the only step left is to go on a pilgrimage to Nagi, the town on which the gods of fertility have smiled.
Here they meet people like Yuri Takatori, 35, who is raising four boys.
"It's quite common here to see a family with three or four children," said Ms. Takatori, while holding her youngest, 7-month-old Kippei, on her lap.
She said her husband works long hours at a factory making industrial refrigerators, earning around $1,800 to $2,200 a month.
Despite a tight budget and lack of help at home, Ms. Takatori said she felt child-rearing was manageable. She credited aid from the town such as free medical care for all children as well as support from other moms and elderly women who help look after children.
At a park stocked with play equipment, Ai Todaka, 35, watched her 6-year-old daughter, Riko, holding her younger brother Aoi, 3, as they slid down a long winding slide together.
"The elder one begged for a baby because she envied her friends with many siblings," said Ms. Todaka. "That's why I had another one."
Until a few years ago, Nagi's claim to fame was serving as the model for the mystical "hidden leaf village" of ninjas depicted in the manga series "Naruto" by Masashi Kishimoto, who hails from the town. It also has a museum devoted to an extinct snail.
Then local media noticed the town's birthrate. In 2019, it hit 2.95 -- the average number of babies a woman would bear if conditions that year lasted permanently. The number slipped a bit the next two years but still was 2.68 in 2021, the latest year for which data are available. Japan overall stands at about 1.3, while the figure in South Korea was just 0.78 last year.
As visitors started showing up to witness the Nagi miracle, the town hall started billing delegations the equivalent of $73 plus an additional $7.30 per person. Credit cards aren't accepted.
Still, the groups keep streaming in at a pace of seven or eight a month, according to local officials. It has gotten more hectic recently after Prime Minister Fumio Kishida put tackling the low birthrate at the top of his agenda in January.
On a recent Sunday morning, Mr. Kishida, a father of three, made his own pilgrimage. He flew to the nearest provincial capital and, with the governor in tow, took a 90-minute drive through the mountains. He visited a center where families get help with child-rearing, talked to mothers and held some babies for the cameras.
Mr. Kishida and his delegation weren't billed for their tour, said Nagi official Eiji Moriyasu, explaining that Tokyo already does its part by providing grants. He said everyone else except journalists has to pay up.
A few days after the prime minister's visit, a bus of South Korean officials rolled into town with 20,000 yen, about $150, of cash in an envelope. After handing over the money, the delegation from the city of Miryang listened to an hourlong lecture via an interpreter and got a tour of the child center.
The visitors learn that parents pay no more than $420 a month for daycare for their first child, half that price for their second child and no charge for a third. Parents get the equivalent of $1,000 a year for each child in high school. Caregivers also get help from elderly women who look after children for a nominal sum.
"We'd like to make policies like this," said Kang Mu-seung, a member of the South Korean delegation. He is the father of a 7-year-old boy but said he wasn't planning on having another child because his wife is also working.
Nagi officials say it took two decades to lift the birthrate and required sacrifices such as cutting back public-works projects. The town assembly pared back its membership to 10 from 14.
On the same day as the Koreans, another delegation showed up from the Japanese island of Shikoku. Mr. Moriyasu, the town official, gave them his sermon about encouraging more births.
"It's like working on a diet or studying," he said. "You try very, very hard for a long time before reaching a tipping point."
Mayor Oku said he was thinking of trying to combine such delegations so children don't have to deal so often with camera-toting visitors.
Nagi still has more deaths than births each year. But it has managed to keep its population stable by drawing young couples. One promotion now on until March 31 offers the equivalent of up to $4,400 for couples in their 20s who register their marriage in the town and up to $2,200 for couples in their 30s.
Nozomi Sakaino, a 34-year-old mother of three boys, said the availability of child care and a job-matching system allowed her to fit in occasional part-time work such as teaching elderly people how to use a smartphone.
"In Nagi, mothers are like mothers for everyone. We look after each other's children," she said." [1]
Help each other more. Less bureaucracy, more babies. Great.
1. In Aging Japan, One Town Holds The Secret to Making More Babies --- Japanese leaders swarm a remote village on which the gods of fertility have smiled
Inada, Miho. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 04 Mar 2023: A.1.
