I always seem to pull experiences from my life that contradict these types of articles, but I've noticed a LOT of marriages and births in my area. As a matter of fact, the number of students per classroom has started to increase a little bit. Given there are some areas that are still kind of spiraling downward population wise in the prefecture, in my general area people seem to be quite healthy- in that sense.
My wife attributed it to the fact that we live in the inaka, so there isn't much to do entertainment wise... and plus the economy isn't too good. I'm sure you can figure what the equation consists of, but what it equates to is more kids
.
To be honest though, I find that article hard to believe in the sense that I don't think that kind of thing happens too often at all. Men are men pretty much no matter what nationality they are, so I think that most guys wouldn't end up in the situation that was written about.
As a side note, how would the article account for all the "love hotels" around Japan? (which there are quite a few of). I know it's been a few years since that articles been written, but I think now-a-days what you're seeing a lot of is the 出来ちゃった結婚 (which means that the girl got pregnant so there's gonna be a marriage for that reason).