Japanese Companies Address Baby Shortage

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Miyaji Denki Electric, an electric equipment wholesaler in Shikoku district of western Japan, provides a monthly allowance of $500 to employees on leave to raise children for up to a year, and mothers can cut two hours off their daily work schedules until their children enter second grade. Kimiko Umazume, 37, who has two daughters, said she has started thinking about having a third child.

In Fukuoka, the prefectural government has introduced a system to give incentives—such as adding extra points to bids for public work projects and offering loans with lower interest rates—to companies that declare support for employees' child-rearing. Some 2,000 companies, most with less than 50 employees, have registered. "Almost all female employees used to quit after three to five years at the company when they married or got pregnant. But since we publicized our child-support program, many skilled mothers have applied for jobs," says Minoru Funayama, president of gift item retailer Eiko and the Fukuoka representative of an association representing small and midsize enterprises.

Working Mother on Film

Meanwhile, marriage and children have become hot cultural topics. In May, the public broadcaster NHK aired a drama series about kon-katsu, or marriage hunting. Just as shu-katsu (job hunting) is inevitable, people say certain activities are necessary to find a partner for marriage, such as participating in as many matchmaking parties as possible. And in June, a movie about a pregnant career woman was a hit. The film, Baby, Baby, Baby, revolves around a 35-year-old who unexpectedly gets pregnant soon after being promoted to editor-in-chief. "How hard do you think I've worked to reach here?" she shouts in the film.

The editor's frustration "is shared by many women who have worked so hard to build up their career," says Fumiko Oga, the film's producer. While the media frequently report negative news stories about childbirth, such as the shortage of obstetricians and some hospitals' refusals to admit women in labor sent by ambulance, having a baby "should be quite a positive matter and we wanted to inspire women who can't make up their minds about having a baby," she says.

One of the highlights is a scene showing the last 30 minutes of a delivery. "Many women who don't have a child watched this film and said they were happy to be able to experience it," says Oga. She also says she hears from many people saying they want to see the next film, about how the heroine manages to work and bring up her child. "It is very costly to raise children and it's very difficult to keep a job for women," says Oga. "Big companies are introducing systems to support working mothers but most smaller companies are reluctant to do that."

View a slide show of countries with the world's lowest birthrates.

Tashiro is a correspondent for BusinessWeek based in Tokyo.

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