1 in 2 urban Japanese want to retire in the countryside, government poll reveals

More than half of the 10,000 respondents said ‘the rich natural environment’ appealed, while others wanted to go back to where their families were from

Rural Japan has seen a decades-long exodus of people to cities. Some towns are trying to lure people back to the simple life with cash and even cows

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The same survey two years ago saw just 23 per cent of respondents saying they hoped one day to move to rural Japan. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 10:30am, 1 Jun 2020Updated: 4:07pm, 1 Jun 2020

Right now, Kiyoko Iwamura, 40, is very content with her life in a suburb of Tokyo, where she works in the PR department of a major can manufacturer and has plenty of friends through her children’s school and her husband’s work. But sometimes, she hankers for a more relaxed way of life in Japan ’s countryside.

“I’m lucky where I live because it is a nice neighbourhood and I have a lot of friends, but my case is quite unusual,” Iwamura said. “Most of my friends don’t have good relationships with the people around them, they rarely see or speak to their neighbours, they live in very small apartments or houses in the centre of the city and it can be quite lonely and hard.

“One of my friends has been forced to stay at home with her three young children recently because of the coronavirus crisis, and she was very upset because she had a letter from one of her neighbours saying her kids were too noisy and that she should make them be quiet.”

That sort of un-neighbourly behaviour would be unthinkable in the small town where her mother lives in Kumamoto Prefecture, on the southern island of Kyushu, Iwamura said.

A town in Hiroshima. Photo: Getty Images

“My mother is retired but she’s constantly busy with the people who live close to her and her friends. She has a big old house and a smallholding to keep her occupied and she has a great relationship with everyone around her. Plus she gets lots of exercise and eats healthily,” she said.