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When your country’s birth rate is falling off a cliff so steep that it can probably never recover, I guess you tend to get, um, creative:

Hong Kong authorities should combat the city’s record-low birth rate by boosting the birth-giving sentiment among government employees, legislator Bill Tang said at the Subcommittee to Study Population Policy and Initiatives meeting in the legislature on Monday.

The Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions lawmaker suggested that government should promote the idea that “babies are cute” and look like “mini” versions of their parents by showing images of infants around government offices.

Pretty novel solution to the fertility crisis: Just hold up a baby and hope it works!

As with much of Asia, and indeed the rest of the world, the fertility rate in Hong Kong has been below replacement level for years. People have just decided they do not want babies.

I’m not sure how you reverse a trend as deleterious as that, though I would bet $5 it’s not like this:

‘[C]ould the government add more baby photos as decorations for all offices? So that civil servants can see babies when they go to work, which will stop them from wanting to work overtime and instead go home to be with their wives,’ he said in Cantonese.

Guys who work 17-hour days don’t, so far as I know, get inspired to start a family by seeing “baby photos” around the office.

I think the motivation to avoid having babies is much deeper and more pathological than that.

Remember, this isn’t just limited to Hong Kong. Other Asian countries are seeing suicidally low birth rates:

Photos on walls ain’t gonna fix this one.

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