(WS News) – With fewer than 60 people living in the Japanese village ofIchinono, and a majority past retirement age, residents have installed handcrafted stuffed mannequins to recreate the once bustling community.
According to data from the internal affairs ministry, only one baby was born in Ichinono in the last two decades.
The youngest member of the village is two-year-old Kuranosuke, who came to the village in 2021 with his parents, Rie Kato, 33, and Toshiki Kato, 31. The couple chose to move to the rural area from Osaka because of the sense of community, which they found lacking in the city.
The Katos stand in stark reflection to the youth of Ichinono, who were encouraged by parents to move to the city to pursue better opportunities for education, jobs, and then marriage. The youth moved to the cities, but never returned.
“We were afraid they would become unmarriageable if they remained stuck in a remote place like this. Out they went, and they never came back, getting jobs elsewhere. We’re now paying the price,” 88-year-old widow Hisayo Yamazaki told AFP.
The puppets, all handcrafted by residents, are placed on swings or bikes, positioned as if they are pushing a cart of firewood, or prepare to work in the fields, an eerie replica of what families must have once done.
“If the village is left as it is now, the only thing that awaits us is extinction,” said 74-year-old Ichiro Sawayama, head of Ichinono’s governing body.
Ichinono is one of more than 20,000 communities in Japan where a majority of the residents are aged 65 and above, underscoring the formidable task ahead of the country as it sees a rapidly declining birth rate.
Preliminary government data released earlier this year showed that the number of babies born in Japan fell for an eighth straight year to a fresh record low in 2023.
The number of births fell 5.1 per cent from a year earlier to 758,631, while the number of marriages slid 5.9 per cent to 489,281.
In 2023, Japan recorded more than twice as many deaths as new babies.
This is the first time in 90 years the number fell below 500,000, foreboding a further decline in the population as out-of-wedlock births are rare in Japan.
“The declining birthrate is in a critical situation,” chief cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters in February. “The next six years or so until 2030, when the number of young people will rapidly decline, will be the last chance to reverse the trend.”
