There has recently been a discussion in the Japanese language media about an article that novelist and Nippon Foundation head Ayako Sono wrote for the magazine Shukan Gendai.

Sono, who will turn 82 next week, encouraged working women to quit their jobs after they gave birth, not so much because she believes a mother should devote all her attention to her children, but rather because it is "selfish" for working mothers to place such a burden on the companies they work for by demanding they hire them back at full pay after maternity leave. Women who make such a demand don't understand reality, Sono says. She herself put up with being "poor" when she had her children, relying on her husband's salary only, and thinks women today should do the same.

Regardless of Sono's blinkered view of the reality of married life today, the amount of money that working mothers contribute to the Japanese economy is not chicken feed. It's estimated to be about ¥6 trillion, according to a cover story in the business magazine Toyo Keizai. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications reports that the average disposable income of a double income household is more than ¥4 million a year, while that of a single-income household with a full-time homemaker is about ¥3.6 million.