*to Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Κυνόσαργες

Tuesday 21 December 2010

”子供を産む機械” (baby-birthing machines)? Not so much.

"Loco in Yokohama" had a funny post about another misguided government programme here in Japan, that will do nothing to fix their demographic time bomb.  No, not torment by rikishi, but taking babies into the classroom.

Northern Europe and Anglo/French North America have demographic issues: though I remember Canada having 1.7 births/woman, so Japan's 1.25 births/woman is quite a bit more worrying.  You need 2.2 births/woman in an industrialized country to keep things stable.  Of course, Canada and the U.S., and N. Europe have this thing called 'immigration', which for better or worse, does help.

In France they are bribing women to have second and third children.  Doubt it will work, but a few thousand dollars for a future tax-payer is not the worst idea.  Japan is more poorly prepared for real immigration than even N. Europe, so this is an idea worth copying.  You see, having your health-minister call women 'baby-producing machines' doesn't work anymore.  Here's a few more things that don't help:
- that people are too rude to give train seats to mothers
- that housing is crap, and expensive
- a thirty-year recession (won't help immigration much, either)
- that mothers can't get a working wage, job security, or decent maternity leave
- paternal leave?  Ha!
- that families have to pay for delivery
- that men do even less housework here than in N. America
- many men divide their affection between their sempai and prostitutes
Any Japanese woman, even the ones having halfs, should be treated as national heroes.  Same goes for non-Japanese women with Japanese-fathered children.  Hell, add homosexuals, transgendered and all gaijin, so long as any babies get born in Japan.

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