Go Home Early and Multiply, Japanese Told

Japan's workers are being urged to switch off their laptops, go home early and use what little energy they have left on procreation, in an attempt to avert demographic disaster.

The drive to persuade employers that their staff would be better off at home than staying late at the office comes amid warnings from health experts that many couples are simply too tired to have sex.

A survey of married couples under 50 found that more than a third had not had sex in the previous month. Many couples said they didn't have the energy. A study by Durex found that the average couple has sex 45 times a year, less than half the global average of 103 times.

"It's a question of work-life balance," Kunio Kitamura, head of the Japan Family Planning Association, told Reuters. "The people who run companies need to do something about it."

Japan's birth rate of 1.34 is among the lowest in the world and falls well short of the 2.07 children needed to keep the population stable. If it persists, demographers say the population will drop to 95 million by 2050 from its 2006 peak of 127.7 million.

This month Keidanren, Japan's biggest business organization, implored its 1,600 member companies to allow married employees to spend more time at home. Several firms have organized "family weeks" during which employees must get permission to work past 7pm, but most continue to squeeze every last drop of productivity from their staff.

In response, the labor ministry plans to submit a bill exempting employees with children under three from overtime and limiting them to six-hour days.