Make babies your work, Japan says

Japan's royal family are setting by example

TOKYO, Japan -- Japan's government is urging young twenty and thirty-somethings in the world's second largest economy to make babies their work.

Alarmed by figures that show the country risks a demographic disaster that threatens to undercut a sagging economy, the government has released a report urging a "structural reform in lifestyle."

The nation's plunging birthrate is the root of the trouble. As the number of workers shrinks, covering the health and retirement costs of the greying population is one of the government's biggest challenges.

Tuesday's "Lifestyle White Paper," commissioned by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's office, explored ways of boosting the birth rate by making married life with children more attractive to a younger generation.

Marriage and child-rearing were shunned as unfulfilling by about 52 percent of the country's young women and 40 percent of its young men, the report found.

It proposed tackling such attitudes with restructuring lifestyles, a nod to the structural overhaul Koizumi also is proposing to rescue Japan's economy.

The goal would be to free people from Japan's corporate grind of 18-hour work days and mandatory drinks with the boss so they can better balance family and career.

'Limiting their freedom'

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"Wrestling with this is an important part of dealing with the serious problem of stagnating childbirth," the report said.

Reduced working hours, more free time for family and better access to child care were all put forward by the report.

The high cost of raising and educating children, job demands and climbing divorce rates are just some of the reasons young people see matrimony as "limiting their freedom" and children as "a burden," the study concluded.

While many derive satisfaction from their work, others hold down jobs simply to make ends meet as Japan slogs through its third recession in a decade.

Having babies is seen as key in helping cover the costs of the elderly

The percentage of full-time housewives fell to 26 percent in 2000, from 37 percent in 1980 during Japan's economic boom, as more women took jobs for extra income.

The report also urged companies to come up with ways of enabling male employees to help in child rearing, and said that mobile phones and the Internet could be used more effectively in the future to reinforce family ties.

Japan's sagging birthrate, only 1.35 births per woman, is a major worry. Demographers expect the population to peak as early as 2005, raising doubts about how future generations will support the swelling ranks of elderly.

About 17.7 percent of Japanese are 65 or older, compared with 12.6 percent in the United States, a factor driving health insurance and pension plans to the brink of failure.