Page 11 of the Oct 21 Asahi Shimbun carried an editorial signed “H” in its “Keizai Kishodai” (Economic Observatory) Column..
The piece promotes a solution for the predicted work shortage in Japan: If putting women and the elderly to work isn’t enough, and Japan won’t accept foreign workers to take the good jobs, then they should push women into the work force and import CAREGIVERS and MAIDS to take care of the chores while they are away. Hong Kong and Singapore are already doing this apparently, so why not Japan?
Sounds like a plan! I don’t know why I haven’t seen this argument before. This seems like a very realistic proposition. I mean, caring for the elderly may be a pretty sensitive issue (it’s taboo even for a daughter-in-law to take care of her husband’s parents), but babysitters and housekeepers might be a different story.
The only coverage of this I could find on Literati (CORRECTION: TECHNOrati) was a Japanese-Chinese translation blog… Interesting if you’re studying both languages I suppose…
I am always amazed at your photo-finding abilities.
Also… don’t you mean Technorati? Are you just having a Yahoo Games nostalgia moment here? (For those of you keeping score at home, Adamu and I once played Literati through New Year’s Eve, back in the days when we had nothing better to do…)
Seems like a reasonable solution to me. I’d always assumed this is how it would work out (at least in one stage), but I don’t know if I’d actually read it anywhere or if I just saw it succeed in the fantasy world playing out inside my head.