By Adam Cathcart has a translation for a French newsweekly on what Japanese women really want:
For various reasons, Japanese women are waiting to get married. Noriko Kamata, 39 and unmarried, describes her attitude: women can take care of their own needs. Besides, she asks, “Who wants to wait at home for a husband who is out passing the night drinking with his colleagues while his food gets cold?”
Recently Noriko has had a boyfriend [une liasion, lit. a connection] but doesn’t let him visit her place and has made nothing official. And she is reluctant to give up her own space.
Akiko Kuraoka is a 30-year old “fashion addict” who frequents the hip Rhythm Café in Tokyo, enjoying music shows there after work.
She doesn’t think at all of marriage, but instead prepares to start her own business. “Independent women like me inspire fear in men,” she says. Asked about having a baby, she responds incredulously: “Here, in Japan, it takes between 150,000 and 225,000 € to properlyeducate a child, from the first diaper [couches-coulottes] to the last meal at the university. One could do practically anything instead with that amount of money! Me, to get a bar like this, I need 75,000 or 150,000 €. Today, that’s my priority.” [Adam Cathcart]
Read the rest and I also recommend bookmarking Adam’s site if you haven’t done so already because he provides some informative postings about Korea, Japan, and China. Plus he is the only linguist I have ever heard of that plays a cello. 
7:57 pm on September 26th, 2009 1
***NOTE: I certainly can't presume to know what goes inside Korean women's heads. ***
There's quite a few similarities between Korean women and Japanese women in this respect. The more successful they are in their careers (and/or the more money they make), the more reluctant they are to give that up for the sake of a child. The same thing's been happening in the US for a long time now.
The point seems clear: women no longer expect the man to take care of them. The old tradition of 'men work, women make babies' seems to be changing to a 'I work to take care of myself', hopefully leaving more archaic cultural traditions behind.
11:02 pm on September 26th, 2009 2
I like Adam's posts on China and North Korea, but this French article wasn't worth translating. Similar content is already available in English. Japanese women delaying or avoiding marriage is old news.