Tokyo, Japan’s capital, has come up with a baby-friendly solution to the country’s declining birth rate: work less and make more babies!
Governor Yuriko Koike announced that starting next April, employees of the metropolitan government will only need to work four days a week. “We’re rethinking work so that people don’t have to choose between their career and crucial life events, like having kids or raising them,” she said. So, now there’s more time to, well, make babies.
This clever strategy aims to tackle Japan’s alarmingly low birth rate, which stood at just 1.2 last year—way below the 2.1 needed for population stability. To put it into perspective, Japan only welcomed 727,277 babies last year—proof that it’s time for a change.
The country’s famous work culture, where long hours in the office leave little room for anything else, has often forced women to choose between climbing the career ladder and starting a family. But with extra time off, who knows? Maybe those office hours will be replaced with baby showers!