Thursday, April 06, 2006

Yet more on Japan's population crash

The latest policy to boost the birthrate is to hand out a book - no, not that sort of book (I hear the sigh of a disappointed link-clicker), but a notebook for new parents in which to document the growth of your child. Apparently mothers have been given such a notebook for some time, but it's now being renamed from "Mother and child" to "Parent and child" and given to fathers too.

It's all well and good getting fathers more involved in family life (I've seen a threat to force them to take 6 weeks of paternity leave, too) but targetting existing fathers seems to be rather missing the point as far as population growth goes. I wonder if Japan's traditional fertility festivals might be a more productive focus? (If my reader is disappointed after clicking that link, I don't want to hear about it!)

1 comment:

coby said...

Good grief, where's Jerry Falwell when you really need him!

Maybe they can use some of those floats for the next Superbowl half-time...