Kofu City official gives speech telling new employees to 'play around' to fix birth rate issue

This is so Japanese. Always they try with strange methods to increase birth rate instead solving the main issue for the birth decline.

There were already have been comments in the pass such as woman are baby making machines.

I guess Japan has a long way to go to solve this issue.

Most women who get pregnant have to leave the company because often the women has to take care of the child. The payment is lower than men. Just playing around is not a solution.

First day at work.

How was your day?

I was told to play around and make babies.

There is no respect from this company.

Idiot, has no clue. Maybe he can pay and care for all the children born out of wedlock. Or maybe he's going to enact laws to protect these babies? Idiot.

It was a poor attempt at humor, the guy should stick to his day job.

... childish thinking, disconnected from reality ;

... guy ,s a pervert. Like many other Japanese middle aged men.

... not a surprise.

... what’s worrying is that these people are in charge of this country ...

I can imagine a bunch of sexual harassment cases coming out of this as the male employees might think they are been given the green light to harass female employees for sex. But if we entertain his comment seriously, I am sure they will not pay their employees more, reduce working hours, or enable them to take leave if they get pregnant which would better enable them to start families...

Yuck. Before any of that, give people shorter work hours, or easier daycare.”

“And who’s going to care for these kids we get from ‘playing around’ huh?”

“People who say this only care about births. After that, they don’t care.”

“If you want more kids then raise our wages, increase societal welfare, and then leave us alone.”

This sums it all up here. Obviously this jokester/buffoon/fool has no clue about the responsibilities and challenges that come with parenthood. And 'pro-birth' isn't necessarily 'pro-life' if you can't maintain a good quality of life for your kids. Somebody bang his head with a frying pan.

How about increasing the wages, shortening the hours and granting parental leave?

Euro DudeToday 09:51 am JST

How come a country like Japan became so developed with this infantile thinking and mentalities, it's one of the world's misteries...

You can thank the manufacturing boost provided by supplying US forces in the Korean War, massive transfer of US capital, technologies and industrial knowledge, protected domestic market and near free access to Western consumer markets, and a docile population that could be exploited and put to work on slavish, repetitive manufacturing tasks. No mystery.

Or leaving Japan ?

I have Japanese nieces and nephews in Japan, some with nothing to worry about wether it is about finance or job choice. Still not making babies.

On the other side, I have an English niece in UK, got her 3rd child when 23. No job choice nor wealthy.

It proves what I always have been thinking (I could get more examples to support this assertion) : educated and/or material women will make far less (not enough) babies if given liberty to decide.

In my engineering class, there were 9 women. None of them had more than 2 and most to my knowledge had 1 or 0 (and now no more possibilities with age). I could replicate that to most groups.

So in Japan, nothing to be surprised about. And problem will never be solved (fertility rate to reach over 2) if women are given the choice. Fact. Not a personal opinion please.

Japan (and nearly if not all developed countries) is freedom for ladies.

Nothing to be surprised about about dropping fertility rate. It will happen.

Good motivation I support him, also need to pay attention to 1/10 haters and highlight it like majority. Masgomi

Let's see:

Shotgun weddings

Miserable marriages

Broken homes

Women unable to work

Empty wallets due to payments for education

Divorce

Yeah, what could possibly go wrong with this line of thinking?

Well, that's one way to edit a picture, I suppose.

An utterly crass attempt at a joke.

What a complete idiot... nothing else you can say really.

Better than most of the boring welcome speeches out there. Lighten up.

I played around and got 4 kids, and the city office paid us 10,000 jpy / a child which is not enough to even pay for their diapers, so before saying "Play around" how about Paying more so couples can play around!!!!!!?

Pretty imbecilic message...

Typical Japanese "Genius" politician.

Here’s what Japanese netizens had to say:

“Not only is it gross, but it’s clear he doesn’t understand the birth rate problem at all.”

“Yuck. Before any of that, give people shorter work hours, or easier daycare.”

“And who’s going to care for these kids we get from ‘playing around’ huh?”

“People who say this only care about births. After that, they don’t care.”

“If you want more kids then raise our wages, increase societal welfare, and then leave us alone.”

“None of that is any of his business.”

Seems to me your average Japanese Netizen has a better head on their shoulders than the average politician.

For his next trick, Shimura will demonstrate in front of the audience using sock puppets.

which are about as smart as he is