Goddamn, this is a really sad article. It kind of reminds me of this article that I read in the New Yorker a while ago. It's more about the loneliness of the younger generation of Japanese. So if you're interested in being still more depressed, give it a look.
Some relevant reading: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-33362387. It is astounding just to see how shatteringly lonely people can become in modern Japanese society. It doesn't help that Japanese culture has such an intense focus on the ideals of 'ganbatte' and the like. I do hope that the government starts to see this as a real problem, because I feel like they just aren't doing enough at the moment.
I think Japan is one of the more interesting places at the moment in terms of people, society, human interaction, etc. I don't know if there are other places that are going through similar changes, but I have read so many articles about sex, love, family structure, and differences between generations in Japan. I know China is dealing with some unintended consequences due to the one child policy, but Japan seems to be dealing with such a large number of changes due to internal development, global development, and a gap between generations that puts the US baby boomers to shame. I don't know how effective any government intervention would be, beyond an awareness campaign or two. There are cultural differences that are engrained in the older generation that essentially prohibit them from asking for outside help and a younger generation that is so obsessed with work and technology that they aren't having sex or kids anymore. Here's an interesting podcast that Planet Money did a while back on women and child care that touches on some of the changes in family structure as well gender roles in Japan: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/07/19/203372076/will-robot-nannies-save-japans-economy I dunno. It's all very interesting stuff and the government and whoever else wants to pick up their slack have a lot to deal with.
For the younger generations, I think it's a little more complex than being obsessed with work and tech. For those that grew up in the bubble years, a large number of men seem to be looking for someone to take their mother's role. Someone who will be home when they get back from work, have dinner ready, the house clean, kids in bed and a hot bath ready - the stereotypical 50s housewife in American terms. More and more Japanese women don't want this - they want a career and to be on equal terms with their husbands. They also face little to no financial pressure to marry since a large portion of single Japanese people live rent free with their parents until marriage, so they have a rather large disposable income to do what they would like, either alone or with friends. For the "millennial" Japanese, they have many of the same problems that generation sees in America - a lack of jobs. Japanese companies have moved away from the lifetime employment that used to be the norm, and more and more jobs are contract or part-time work. Especially for young men, there is an enormous amount of pressure to get a full-time company job like their father has, and when they can't meet this expectation there is a tendency to withdraw socially. Combine both of these with the a culture that's still fairly bound in tradition and hasn't really accepted women's rights as a whole, and it's not really that surprising that women aren't just jumping to give up their careers to get married and have kids. With that being said, most Japanese people still want to get married (somewhat older survey, admittedly), and Japanese people are having sex. Japanese people definitely aren't having children, but this is more of a developed country problem than a Japanese problem. If you look at birth rate by country, Japan is one of the lowest, but depending on which data set you look at, Germany is lower, and that's with a much higher immigration rate that should help that figure go up. However, no one seems fixated on the idea that Germans aren't having sex. Look at fertility rate by country. Per the CIA Factbook, South Korea is at 1.25 to Japan's 1.42, but no one seems focused on the end of South Korea as we know it. Wacky Japan sells; panty vending machines, hikikomori, rabbits on leashes - we've built up an image of this weird place that is so different than what we're used to, and it's easy to type up a quick story on a slow news day. The truth is, it's not so different than anywhere else in the west if we weren't allowing a fair amount of immigration.
I think that's what I mean really more than anything - some sort of awareness campaign or a way to really try and shake up cultural mentalities. I mean, even the younger generation is so very caught up in the idea of never showing weakness or cracking that it's taking a huge toll on their psyche. It probably doesn't help that 1. It is such an insular country, with only 1-2% of the population being foreign (or some such) and 2. The economy never really bounced back after 1992.