Older Japanese Go Online to Find Love

TOKYO, May 2, 2008 — -- You're never too old to fall in love.

That's what Yoji Kawamura figured after retiring at the age of 62 and deciding that part-time work and his new hobbies of photography and computers weren't enough to fill his days.

Like a small but growing number of older Japanese singles, Kawamura has turned to an online matchmaking service in search of someone to share his "second life".

"When you reach my age, the scope of your activities shrinks and you can only meet people within a narrow circle,"said Kawamura, sipping coffee in a cafe in Tokyo. "If you want to go outside that circle, you don't know how."

A former taxi driver who divorced 26 years ago and is now 65, Kawamura signed up with U.S.-based online dating service Match.com, part of Internet conglomerate IAC/InterActiveCorp. last July.

"My horizons have widened and my life is richer because I can make friends," said the goateed Kawamura, who is now dating three women, two of whom are nine years his junior and one who is 62.

Launched in Japan in 2004 and now boasting about 840,000 members, Match.com began targeting the mature market after seeing the fastest growth in membership among the over-50 set, an age group once thought over the hill when it came to romance.

Although nearly half of Match.com members in Japan are aged 30-39, another 9 percent are aged 50 and over.

"It used to be considered that people aged 50 and over didn't talk about love. People would say, 'No way, you're tooold'," said Match.com Japan President Katsuki Kuwano.

"These days, it's become acceptable for people in that age group to talk about marriage and love."

CULTURAL CHANGE

The growth of Japan's greying population is partly behind such changing views. Already one in five Japanese are aged 65 or older and the percentage is expected to double by mid-century.

Older Japanese have become more at ease with the Internet, while the numbers of people who have never married or who divorce, often after decades of marriage, is on the rise.

"With an increase in the divorce rate and more and more people accepting second marriages, that has definitelychanged," said James Farrer, a sociology professor at Sophia University in Tokyo.