The New York Times picks up on the theme of working women in Japan and the many obstacles to equality they still face:

“Birthrates here are declining because of a lack of equality for women,” said Ms. Inoguchi, the former minister. “The population shortage is forcing a change in attitudes.”

That's a great point: That lack of equality in the workplace is keeping the population artificially low. But entrenched ideas about women and sex are slow to die in Japan, as Sumie Kawakami has chronicled beautifully in the pages of Goodbye Madame Butterfly, copies of which are rushing across the Pacific in Seattle-bound containers as I write. She shows how men (and some women) are loathe to give up the status quo, even when that status quo leaves you no room to build your self-esteem. Yes, change is coming to Japan, but it is coming at a snail's pace and at the expense of many intelligent women who would be climbing the corporate ladder and having more children in a more egalitarian, balanced society.