Although a low fertility rate is common among other developed countries, Japan may be the only OECD nation where the number of pets exceeds the number of children.

According to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet > pets outnumber children four to one. The most numerous pet is fish.

Rubbish!!!! This is likely true of any number of European countries. although the proensity to treat pets LIKE children may be greater in Japan.

most of them ended in our home because people kept dumping them.

The most numerous pet is fish.

I share my home/life with a variety of critters - dog, cat, birds, fish, shrimp. I just don't see the watery critters as being in the same category as the other critters: they don't play, don't come when called, don't do tricks, don't show any kind of affinity with their owner. If dogs and cats are family and birds (also hamsters, white mice, gerbils?) are pets, then maybe fish are a hobby? Room decoration? One tank can contain dozens or more fish, especially if they're small and it's a large tank, so saying fish are the most numerous isn't actually the same as saying they're the most popular. One house with one well-stocked tank could hold enough fish to raise the number of pets (if fish are pets) above the number of children over quite a wide area.

Well perhaps they could make pregnancy covered by health care?? Just a thought...

Nonsense. The dog & cat population in the USA alone is figured, by the ASPCA, to be over 150 million, while projected numbers of children 0 -17 for 2013 in the USA, from childstats.gov, is expected to be ~ 77 million. Another false authority just making stuff up...

Dog & cat pet population... not counting fish, hamsters, bunny rabbits, etc.