Inspired from the tweet by 5by50: Pets outnumbered kids since 2003 in Japan. By 2009, total of 23.2 million cats and dogs. While the number of kids remain six million.
What can be the reason behind? For one explanation, you can look at another data, which describes the daycare capacity of the nation. As Japan has been hit by the recent economy crisis, many housewives are trying to be back to work to compensate the decreasing household incomes. However, because of a severe delay in Japanese government to be prepared for the situation; Japanese daycare can only hold 2.13 million and there are 46,000 children waiting to be served.