Regarding the Nov. 22 article "Workers urged to knock off early, make babies": Declining birthrates are a good thing. They have been dropping in other developed countries for many years, but those countries have rising populations that are more balanced by age because those countries encourage immigration. "Family days" won't encourage Japanese couples to raise more children in an already crowded country. The low birthrate is the Japanese people's way of telling old, conservative, male lawmakers, bureaucrats and business leaders that they're tired of the old policies.
The Japan Times should be encouraging Japan's government to do as other developed nations are doing and loosen its immigration policies to allow an influx of young, optimistic workers and children from abroad in order to have a more balanced population that can support its senior members. Does Japan think it is so special that what's good for other nations isn't good for Japan? Or is it just that the Japanese are happy to have their families' futures decided by paranoid and xenophobic old men?