Would you live in a so-called “ghost village” if you only had to pay $500 for a house? Here in the United States, you can barely even get a studio apartment for that price. So why are these akiya ...

Uchiyama Seichi began re-evaluating his life in 2011. In March of that year, the Tohoku Earthquake struck off the northeast coast of Japan and triggered a tsunami that killed more than 20,000 people.

Local authorities are offering people the chance to buy a house in Japan for as little as $500. In some cases, they’re even giving the houses away for free. The only catch? You have to be willing to ...

Get these $500 fixer-uppers — so long as you can read a Japanese construction manual. Japan is riddled with millions of vacant homes, called akiya, that local governments hope will sell for next to ...

Families in the U.S. and around the world are having fewer children as people make profoundly different decisions about their lives. NPR's series Population Shift: How Smaller Families Are Changing ...

Deep in rural Japan stands a traditional post-war villa abandoned in haste — futons unrolled, tea cups left on the table, and family heirlooms still perfectly arranged as if waiting for their owners ...

Akita Prefecture has Japan's most aged population, lowest birthrate and fastest declining population. Rigid gender roles are prompting young women... Rigid gender roles are prompting women to leave ...