7/31/2005

Whatta surprise! Japan’s birthrate jumps in areas where husbands work less overtime, according to this report. Japanese wives whose husbands who are never home have fewer children.

Birthrate higher when moms work full-time, dads do less overtime, gov’t paper says
Japan’s birthrate jumps in areas where more mothers have full-time jobs or fathers work less overtime, according to a government paper issued Friday…
In smaller cities such as Yamagata and Toyama in the north and Kochi the south, there are more working mothers with full-time positions but their birthrates were higher than the national average.
Birth rates were lower in larger cities where many women were part-timers or worked long hours, the paper said.
In Tokyo and other big cities where more fathers work over 60 hours per week, their birthrates tended to be low….more…