Japan drops subsidy plan to draw women to rural areas upon marriage

The Japanese government on Friday shelved its plans to give money and encourage more women to relocate to rural areas upon marriage, after a chorus of criticism online that the move is discriminatory and lacks sensitivity, despite its intended aim of helping revitalize regional areas.The government initially planned to incentivize the relocation of would-be brides to rural areas by expanding the scope of an existing program that hands out up to 600,000 yen ($4,100) per person to those moving out of the Tokyo metropolitan area and work in other parts of Japan.The plan was to remove that work…READ FULL ARTICLE