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Good Spouses Hard to Find? Japanese Parents Getting Involved in Matchmaking Events for Children

As Japan’s unmarried adults and their parents confront a bewildering marriage market, the growth of apps, agencies, and publicly funded matchmaking reveals not only demographic anxiety but a deeper uncertainty about intimacy, responsibility, and how happiness is to be found.

Nippon.com · 7 June 2026 · read the original in Japanese →

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Many Japanese parents can readily name their children’s virtues: earnest and kind, perhaps, or dependable and hardworking. They may have fine academic credentials and a steady job. Yet the anxious question often follows: “Why can’t they get married?” According to Japan’s 2020 census, 51.8% of men aged 30 to 34 and 38.5% of women in the same age group were unmarried.

Of course, not everyone wishes to marry, and marriage guarantees happiness to no one. Even so, marriage businesses aimed at parents are flourishing, as older people worry about how their children will manage in the future if they live alone, or what will become of the family business when there is no next generation to inherit it.

In Japan, the active search for a marriage partner is known as konkatsu, or spouse-hunting. But unlike the usual case, in which people seek love for themselves, some parents across the country are desperately conducting konkatsu on behalf of their unmarried children, meeting other parents and trying to arrange matches.

A Cutthroat BusinessA Cutthroat Business

As a mother with an unmarried son in his thirties, I have attended three matchmaking events with other parents since 2022, partly for research purposes.

The first was held at a hotel in central Tokyo, with a participation fee of ¥16,000. I submitted an application giving details about my thirty-six-year-old son: his height, where he lived, his occupation, education, hobbies, and what I regarded as his strengths. A week before the event, a list arrived with information about the participants’ children, allowing us to assess likely prospects in advance.

At last the day came. Around one hundred parents wore badges around their necks showing their children’s numbers on the shared list. They also carried more detailed profiles, including information about family members, as they approached the parents of the candidates who interested them.

The ruthless character of parent-led spouse-hunting soon became painfully clear. Questions such as “What is your son’s annual income?” and “Does he work for a listed company?” showed how heavily income and employment status weighed, compared with personality. One mother of a daughter sighed as she told me, “For women, it all comes down to looks and youth.”

One father stressed the importance of the family information provided, such as siblings’ educational background and occupations. It seems that when there is little to distinguish prospective partners who are all “earnest and kind” and have “a steady job,” the added value supplied by other family members can help one stand out from the competition.

The second and third events I attended were likewise filled with parents dreaming of the perfect match.

No Way Forward?

There must be many people who feel that parents should not rush to involve themselves, and that konkatsu is better left to the children themselves.

Indeed, singles now have many ways to search for a spouse, including dating apps, marriage agencies, and various local-government initiatives. My son tried a major marriage agency for a year and a half, beginning when he was thirty-four.

Every day he searched for possible partners on a dedicated app, paying ¥11,000 each time he met a woman in the lounge of a first-class hotel. Under that agency’s old-fashioned rules, only men paid this fee, as well as the cost of drinks.

If both parties agree, they can begin trial dating; at this stage, it is possible to date more than one person. Then, if a particular pair wishes to move to the next stage, they enter a serious relationship, with marriage lying further ahead. That is the theory, but reality is not so simple.

My son met or had trial dates with around twenty women, without reaching marriage. Including enrollment and monthly fees, as well as dating expenses, it cost roughly ¥1.5 million. In the end, he quit, saying, “There’s no way I can get married.”

At the time I knew nothing about how these services worked, and wondered how it was possible that he had found no success. I then began investigating the various methods of spouse-hunting.

App Stress and Agency ProblemsApp Stress and Agency Issues

First, I looked into dating apps, which might now be considered the standard method of konkatsu. Although individual apps may target different users, such as those serious about marriage, those seeking more casual dates, or people hoping to remarry, their systems tend to be broadly similar. After registering a profile and face photo, users search by factors such as age, income, and occupation.

If you like someone’s profile and receive a like in return, you can begin exchanging messages.

Usually, men pay several thousand yen a month, while women can participate for free. All one needs is a smartphone to choose from what may be tens of thousands of members, although that also means one must be chosen oneself from among the crowds of candidates.

The combination of feeling that someone better may be out there and fearing that one’s current relationship may fail can be stressful for many people. There are cases in which users pay large sums in additional fees for optional services to improve their chances, have to deal with sexual predators, or even become entangled in romance scams.

Despite the ease of using these apps, growing numbers of singles are deterred by their risks and are turning to marriage agencies. Because documents such as graduation certificates, proof of income, and proof of unmarried status are required for membership, established agencies can state with a high degree of reliability that people are who they say they are. Many companies emphasize the robust support provided by their marriage counselors and the high percentage of clients who marry.

Yet there is no standard method by which agencies calculate their marriage success rates. More importantly, the definition of “marriage” used by agencies, seikon, is highly misleading.

Some define a three-month relationship from the first meeting as sufficient for “marriage,” while others consider an overnight date enough. This differs greatly from the ordinary image of seikon among the Japanese public, which is associated with filing a marriage registration with the authorities and holding a wedding ceremony. Even so, agencies collect fees of tens of thousands of yen for what they define as the successful conclusion of their efforts.

Marriage agencies have complex rules and payment systems for singles who choose this route. But how many of their clients actually marry?

Rather than rely on the agencies’ own figures, I would like to introduce some reliable data. Although it dates from twenty years ago, a 2006 survey of the marriage business by the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry found that 8.4% of men and 10.1% of women married within one year of using a marriage agency. In other words, nine out of ten did not succeed. Even in this government report, a note explained that the figures included cases based on opinion or supposition when the businesses themselves did not clearly know whether clients had married.

A recent private survey by Recruit Bridal Research Institute found that 15.3% of people who married in 2023 had used some kind of konkatsu service. Only 2.4% used a marriage agency, which is hardly a figure to boast about.

Love and Local GovernmentLove and Local Government

Matchmaking efforts by local governments have increased rapidly in recent years. The national government began funding such activities in fiscal 2013, regarding them as one way to address population decline. The initial ¥3 billion budget more than tripled, reaching ¥9.3 billion in fiscal 2025.

Local governments are subsidizing the costs of marriage agencies for their unmarried residents, while also providing matching systems of their own. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government, for example, takes a hybrid approach that aims to combine the ease of dating apps with the support of marriage agencies.

Residents can register for two years for ¥11,000 and receive AI-powered matching based on compatibility, as well as consultations with specialist staff. The low price is made possible by support from tax revenue. In other words, public money goes to the private marriage agencies cooperating in the initiative.

Is it succeeding? As of November 2025, only 1.57% of the 30,000 registered users had advanced to serious dating with a single partner, while 0.4% had married; here, the percentage refers to those who withdrew from the service stating an intention to marry. Such a low success rate raises doubts about the initiative’s effectiveness as a means of increasing births.

Are You Experienced?

The various methods of konkatsu smooth the way to an initial encounter, but meeting someone is not the only obstacle on the path to marriage.

Many singles may feel hesitant, and not only because of concerns about age, income, or occupation. A lack of romantic and sexual experience can also give rise to self-doubt. A 2022 Cabinet Office survey found that one in three men and one in four women aged 20 to 39 had never been in a relationship.

Similarly, a 2021 survey by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research revealed that nearly 40% of unmarried men and nearly 50% of unmarried women aged 30 to 34 had no sexual experience.

Even with all the different tools for finding a spouse, inexperienced singles struggle to choose someone, or to imagine themselves being chosen. Looking for love also takes both time and money. They may wish to marry, but find it difficult to see a path toward that goal.

In a 2025 survey by the Children and Families Agency, 53.5% of unmarried respondents said they wanted to marry, either as soon as possible or someday. Yet the same agency’s 2024 survey found that even if people wanted to find a marriage partner, 67% had no clear idea how to go about it, and 66% did not think they would be able to. Even when desire is present, the degree of anxiety and resignation is striking.

Parents may worry that there was something wrong with the way they raised their unmarried children. Their efforts to become directly involved in the search for a spouse may have less to do with egotism or their own dreams than with a sense of parental responsibility: the belief that helping children marry is part of a parent’s work.

Faced with the major life transition that marriage represents, singles and their parents are overcome by confusion and emotional turbulence. I would be lying if I said I never worried about my unmarried son; it is not so easy to turn off a sense of parental duty. Even so, if my son does not marry, but still chooses a life in which he finds his own happiness, I want to be able to take pride in that choice.

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