The article misses something important in all of its "Japan is doomed because of the loss of the children" predictions.
Its easy to make more kids.
As the country becomes more empty, it will be more desirable to have kids. (Perhaps living in an apartment the size of a closet puts a damper on ones desire to have rugrats in there with you?) The Japanese population may simply be correcting for the space and resources available, not vanishing in an x-files-esqe mystery as the over-sensationalized article suggests.
This Washington Post article is pretty thin, looks like the editors cut it down a ton before it was published ... the Wikipedia article on Japan's demographic changes is far more informative, IMHO:
Amazing how the media has gone from "zomg overpopulation bomb" to "zomg underpopulation catastrophe" so smoothly. Especially with Japan, for crying out loud, which nobody has criticized as having too much elbow room. Does everything need to be a disaster?
I would have to think that if under-population continues to be an economic problem in Japan, they will relax their strict immigration laws. This is what is happening in many other developed nations where the increase in population is attributable entirely to immigration.
Yes, there are strong cultural reason for those laws, but one would think that at some point the economic consequences would force a change.
Seems OK to me: as productivity rises, you don't need as many workers as you used to. Back in the day we used to rely on our kids to survive, this is why 5-7 children used to be the norm, but now it looks disgusting: we're humans, not rats.
In my experience, this is more of a social issue not tied to economics. Consider certain subcultures (religious Jews in the US, for example), where having lots of kids the social norm, without any obvious economic reason.
Personally, most of my childhood I was a single child (and not too social), and I think having a big family would have been a lot more fun.
Its easy to make more kids.
As the country becomes more empty, it will be more desirable to have kids. (Perhaps living in an apartment the size of a closet puts a damper on ones desire to have rugrats in there with you?) The Japanese population may simply be correcting for the space and resources available, not vanishing in an x-files-esqe mystery as the over-sensationalized article suggests.