Videogame company Koei Tecmo is doing its bit to combat Japan’s population decline by paying its employees to knock boots and have kids.
Japan’s population is shrinking at an alarming pace. The birth rate is holding steady at about the break-even point but has nonetheless dropped off precipitously over the past half-century, according to statistics published by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, which predicts that the country’s current population of 127 million people will decline to under 100 million by 2050.
The obvious solution is to have more kids but for some reason the Japanese don’t seem particularly interested in bumping uglies in the name of the Emperor. The obvious solution to that? Give them money to do it.
So says Koei Tecmo, the company behind franchises like Dead or Alive, Ninja Gaiden and Dynasty Warriors. It’s offering $1000 to employees who have their first child and $2000 to those having their second, but the real money comes with bundle of joy number three, which will earn the lucky parents a $20,000 payout.
$1000 is not a good enough reason to have a kid. $23,000 sure doesn’t justify having three. But if you already have two kids and then you get a job at Koei Tecmo and they want to fork over 20 large so you’ll have one more, that’s a different situation entirely. Going from two kids to three kids is like jumping from the 50th floor instead of the 40th, so why not? A $20 thousand bonus for some full-contact chesterfield rugby sounds like a good deal to me.
Source: Kotaku, with thanks to reaper_2k9 for the tip
Published: Jun 10, 2009 09:12 pm