A lot of people talk about the falling Japanese population, but the staff of J-List is doing something about it. While the world coos over the Royal Baby, J-List has had our own addition, with the birth of a healthy son named Liam to our French web designer and his Japanese wife. Japan, of course, has one of the lowest birthrates of the industrialized world, with just 1.39 children born per woman, and the government has been very proactive about trying to reverse this trend. Our own city gives a bonus of $4200 to any woman who becomes pregnant to help offset medical costs, and all parents receive $150 per child under the age of 15 each month to help encourage more babies. There’s no better place to have a baby than Japan, too: the facilities at maternity hospitals are top-notch, and my wife got to spend five days eating French cuisine (a specialty of the hospital she’d picked to give birth at) while she recuperated and nurses provided training and guidance regarding the newly delivered bundle of joy. Still, the high costs of raising a child through university coupled with the stress of life in crowded Japanese cities keep most couples from having more than one or maybe two children.
J-List is doing our part to raise Japan’s birth rate.
