Japan’s Home Ec classes are a tad more modern than ours. Instead of egg babies, they have robot babies.
These are especially popular now, as Japan is trying to encourage it’s females to have babies. You see, the once booming Japan is suffering dire economic consequences because their population is at an all time low, with a birthrate at 1.37%. Compare that to 2.12% in the U.S. Put simply, people are not having babies. This is causing severe economic problems for the country, which doesn’t allow immigrants.
They are especially feeling the pinch in the 15-65 age group. These are the producers, the earners. They are losing the money-makers, while the more dependent elders seem to be on the rise.
According to a ministry of labor and welfare report, Japan expects over a quarter of its citizens to be aged over 65 by 2015.
In an effort to encourage procreation, and ultimately, industry, the students of the Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences at The University of Tsukuba, created a robo-baby last year, called Yotara.
Yotara is very lifelike. He actually has facial features which are projected onto his little warm silicon balloon face.
He has very lifelike baby reactions. He actually giggles and “wakes up” when a rattle is shaken. He sulks and dozes off like a real baby and smiles when his stomach is rubbed. He can also sneeze and have a runny nose, thanks to a heated water pump system.
Project leader Hiroki Kunimura, says,
“Through this experience, it would be great if some people started feeling that they wanted to have their own baby, if they started feeling that working is not everything.”
Japan’s population is expected to shrink by a third within 50 years if the birth rate does not increase. I guess if worse came to worse, they could always repopulate with the baby robots.
c. 2010
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