There are many reasons Japan's population headed for a sharp decline, but one of them is that for working women giving birth usually spells the death of their careers. The country's new center-left government is trying to defuse a ticking demographic timebomb - is working to change laws and mindsets in a bid to boost Japan's birth rate, one of the worlds lowest.
It is up against entrenched attitudes about women in the workplace and motherhood, as one twenty-something mother-to-be experienced when her employer recently handed her a pre-written resignation letter. "The personnel just gave me the letter" she recalled. "I was told to copy it by hand, sign it and date it. When I didn't do it immediately, the supervisor yelled at me. "I finally gave in," said the woman. who worked at a big publishing house and asked not to be named. "In the end, I was almost relieved to stop work, because the atmosphere in the office had just become so stifling."
Such cases are especially frequent for temporary workers such as the Tokyo woman, who said she had received no unemployment benefits since her 'voluntary resignation' when her boss showed her the door several months ago.
Japan's new government, which ended half a century of almost unbroken conservative rule when it took power in September, has embarked on a campaign to make Japan a more equal and family-friendly nation. The problem is existential for Japan, the world's number two economy. Its population of about 127 million, on current trends, is projected to decline to 95 million by 2050. That would leave the country with a ratio of only 1.5 economically active people per retiree by 2050 - compared to about three workers per retiree now.
Japan, famously reluctant to open up its doors to more than a trickle of immigrants, is in part banking on advances in robotics to care for its army of elderly in the future. The fertility rate, the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime, dropped below the population replacement level of 2.07 in the 1970's , setting the island-nation on the path for contraction. It hit bottom at 1.26 in 2005 before creeping up to 1.37 last year.
Be aware, to beat the drum for a new baby boom, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has appointed Mizuho Fukushima, leader of a junior coalition partner, as his State Minister for the Declining Birthrate and Gender Equality.
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