Japan is a preview of what's coming to many developed western economies.
I found this paragraph from the article disturbingly similar to the situation here in the states:
"The rise in those shunning marriage, experts say, is due not only to more diverse life-styles but to an increase in low-paying, unstable jobs. Part-timers, temps or contract workers now account for nearly 40 percent of the workforce compared to about 20 percent in the 1980s."
I imagine this will only be accelerated with the rise of AI and increasing job automation. Already, we're seeing the average age when people get married and have kids rise with each generation. I think alot of this is due to job instability, depressed wages, rise of the 1099 worker with no benefits, etc. Reminds me of the situation in China, where unless you have a house and a car, you're basically persona-non-grata.
So if you're a young person in the US, you're doubly screwed. All your friends and potential dating partners are concentrated in the big cities, but those are also the places with the highest costs of living, highest costs to own a home, to raise a kid, etc.
If you're mid 20s / early 30s person in San Fran and you're not working for GOOG/FB/APPL etc. you're basically screwed.
This is a rather narrow perspective. Lotta cheap big cities with lots of jobs if you're not on the coast.
The people really screwed aren't the ones in Dallas, Atlanta, or Charlotte - where an average home is something like 200K and jobs can be found - they're the ones in dying small towns that have been left by businesses, or in the expensive coastal cities where they're caught up in the housing madness but without the high income or established wealth driving those prices.
They'd be better off moving to, say, the Dallas area, but that's not an option for everyone. And "you have to pick up your life and say goodbye to everyone you know because the market says so" is hardly an outcome we should be promoting.
(I'd also make the argument that we'd be better off getting more diverse perspectives into those cities, vs our current CA/NY/OR/WA-vs-the-rest-of-the-US silos, but that's another discussion, and a perfect example of "if you really believed that so deeply, why don't you move yourself?")
> Reminds me of the situation in China, where unless you have a house and a car, you're basically persona-non-grata.
That's vast exageration and it's sad people believe this common myth about China, lived there plenty of years and yes, it's common phenomenom, but so it's marriage out of love. I knew plenty of mixed couples and also plenty of local couples who contradict this claim. Pretty much none of my foreign coworkers had house or car and married if they wanted (yes, some traditional parents were not happy about it, but it was usually more about being foreigner than wealth) and so did Chinese couples doing naked wedding. I really recommend to you explore term "naked wedding" (it means without house/car) which is more and more common since properties in China are more expensive every week.
I find personally this selfpity about how you are screwed if you are not making tons of moeny and havin great car and house a lame excuse, as if all girls living would be gold diggers, but I guess in this website where is maybe 98% readers men it sounds plausible in this echo chamber.
it may take time of adjustment, but free minimum wage or something similar to that will come. as there are couple of side effect of automation. one, it will reduce the price, so you can still buy same thing for lower money. second, if people do not have job, they do not have money, they can not afford higher price good, so goods price needs to be reduce. ideally, for any consumption of any kind, economy will balance out eventually. ( i.e. sum of all people consuming all of goods, energy or other resource = all goods, energy other resource produce. ) kind of second law of therm. for economics. so because low wage people spending less money = no point of producing tons of automatically manufactured goods for which nobody going to pay. )
I don't see the "illusions". It isn't as if these people are daily choosing their life. There aren't huge numbers of well-paid jobs out there for them or anyone else. Just because someone isn't successful doesn't mean they are under some sort of illusion. The word "parasite" also implies that these people should somehow stop living, that they are such a drain that the parasite should just let got and die rather than continue the only life available to them.
They may have made some mistakes, but in previous generations a few mistakes now and again was not a life sentence. A few years off the books wasn't a big deal in the 80s or 90s. Now any gap in your linkedin profile is interrogated. In Japan and elsewhere, anyone with a blot on their employment record is doomed. And heaven help those with any criminal convictions. Our societies today deliberately push away so many people. It is improper of us to then say that it is entirely their fault or that they suffer illusions. The illusion is ours, that by shunning and dispossessing people for slight imperfections we only amplify them.
Once upon a time there was a net of reasonable jobs that didn't pay well but allowed people a life, low-level government jobs that took anyone willing to work hard. But has anyone here looked at how hard it is to become a postal worker or to join the army? Ability and willingness is no longer enough. (I have relatives in the Canadian Armed Forces. The application process takes at least one and sometimes many years.)
"I got used to living in an unstable situation and figured somehow it would work out"
That last bit is illusory thinking.
Also, I'd beg to differ on your suggestion that these people aren't choosing their life every single day. I'd suggest the opposite is true for most of us (leaving aside those who through incapacity have diminished options). Every single day you don't make an effort to look for work, don't volunteer for something, don't organise an activity, don't spend some time learning something, don't go somewhere to meet people, don't go on a date - you are making a choice. Living with your parents and (more importantly) living off your parents well into your fifties is not an accident. You can't accidentally do that. That is directly the result of daily choices and illusory thinking.
And while we can agreee that the term "parasite" is pejorative, I find it is deserved- at least from the perspective of the parent (who in this case is probably as much to blame for this situation).
My daughters are 20 and 18 and the expectation has long been set in our family that they will be moving out once they're in stable employment (and by that I mean any job that can pay their bills, not their dream job). When both kids are out of the house, we'll downsize and share some of the cashed out equity to help them get started on the property ladder. Then they're on their own. In our family we refer to this as "The Plan". They've been hearing about the Plan (and been onboard) since their early teens.
I think the "illusion" referenced in the article is the sentiment that "things will just work out."
Frankly I see this sentiment alot with today's millennial generation (really anyone from early 20s to mid/late 30s). Everyone thinks they'll have that dream job, life, marriage, kds, etc.... even the uber drivers and starbucks baristas. The "oh things will work out" attitude is especially prevalent given the popular parenting slogans of the past few decades: everyone's a winner; every child is special; you can do whatever you want if you put your mind to; etc.
> Once upon a time there was a net of reasonable jobs that didn't pay well but allowed people a life, low-level government jobs that took anyone willing to work hard. But has anyone here looked at how hard it is to become a postal worker or to join the army? Ability and willingness isn't enough any more.
This is all about Neoliberalism then isn't it. Privatize everything and then the privatized companies are highly competitive and only want the best and couldn't care less about the middle or the bottom. It's not about jobs, it's really never been about the jobs that's just rhetoric. It's about profits. And profits are stuck in large consolidated corporations that pay as little as possible to the middle and the bottom, preferably on contract or the "sharing" economy of contractors. For full-time employees with benefits they just want the top which is often overworked. I mean the economy was engineered to be like this specifically for the benefit of those with money.
I agree that saying they "suffer from illusions" is silly. But the rest of your analysis here seems off.
There's no reason to lionize these people and act like "society rejected them." It's just (comparatively) easy to not work in the modern world, in first world countries, and these people didn't.
well, of course the media is going to depict these people negatively--the media lives off of corporate profits which are spent in part on media advertising...these stay-at-home people are just living a lovely life...but they are not working and are not consuming...and thus not helping to increase corporate profits much and thus not feeding the media...work work work...consume consume consume....rinse and repeat...
The second example was not a "parasite single," he was someone who tragically got Parkinson's disease after already having a career. The fact that the journalist couldn't find two legitimate anecdotes makes me question whether this is an actual trend in Japan.
Even the first one doesn't really count in my books because the partner had died. Find me an example of a Japanese nuclear family where both parents are still alive and the kid lives at home.
I think it's hard for some non-US Citizens to understand how rather backwards and unwelcome the thought is for Grown Children as Adults to be living at home with their Parents. The cultural fabric of the US mentality is to grow up and achieve "Independence" as a general concept. That usually means living away from family, and having the means to do so.
Culturally, living with one's Parents in the United States, as a grown Adult, with or without a Spouse, is going to be predominately portrayed as a negative lifestyle indicator. As in, the Individual doesn't have the choice of Independence, at least not the basic financial / living arrangements type.
The "Sandwich Generation" label scares the ever loving spirit of freedom out of most US people who might find themselves caught between providing for both Kids AND Parents.
Assimilation into values such as this US type of Independence are, understandably, quite foreign to several other Large Cultures elsewhere in the World. However, on this turf, it is the prevailing attitude. No amount of "Well in other countries it's perfectly normal" will turn the tide regarding this component of the US life experience, and, at least here, it's an indicator of a need to further assimilate or, unfortunately, deal with cultural push back.
To be fair to the US, this happens when US people try to ascribe their values to other cultures as well. I get it. Two way street.
The problem is that in other cultures it is not only normal, but going far away is bad! I am talking about moving from cities, not actually living with your parents.
In Spain this happens mainly in smaller cities and towns and with somewhat more traditional thinking families. In many of these cases* you are expected to stay close so the family takes care of each other in both ways.
Even the next big city might be a reason for relatives to feel bad for your family. The person moving away is categorized normally into:
- Needs it for $: financially unstable OR greedy, while other cultures would see this as a positive career improvement. If these people are already at the top of their career path, then they should help improve the country!
- Troublesome: someone who doesn't care for the family, while other cultures would see this as independent. These are expected to end up like those non-fancy-titled people who are flipping bugers or receiving you in a hostal in UK or Germany.
- Temporary to grow: it is okay to go abroad as long as you come back later on. Normally it is expected that they tell a lot of stories about how crappy the other country was and all the trouble they had.
Luckily I am from a bigger city and my family knows (even though they won't verbally admit it) how bad this country is for what my sister and I like doing. They try to show support us working abroad even though it's clear they are unhappy when we go away.
*Yes, there are many situations where this is not the case! Normally with people who speak N languages and has a degree (like me) are not like this. I am talking about my experiences from smaller cities.
You make it sound like the non-US countries have "living with your parents" as a cultural phenomena but this is barely true.
It became a "culture" (if even that) due to economical pressures. Buying a flat or, gods forbid, a house in Bulgaria's capital (Sofia) is honestly a nightmare. The mortgages might as well be called slavery agreements (so don't give me the argument of "if you're 25 and have 3-4 years in one organization the bank will give you a mortgage") and well-paid jobs on the local market are as rare as unicorns. Thank all the gods for remote work or I'd probably be flipping burgers, my programmer skills be damned.
In these conditions people try to optimize and make do with what they have. Bacterias adapt their behaviour depending on the environment, chickens do it, fish do it, everyone is doing it -- humans as well.
Other posters here comment that obtaining homes in USA is becoming harder. I have no idea if that's true but if it is, expect more living with the parents in USA in the future as well.
it's really not that on-topic here since the article is about children dependence on parents, but... I hope to eventually have the wherewithal to allow my parents to move into my home, which will have to be big enough to also house my wife and children with sufficient privacy for all, so that I (and my siblings) are right there with them to take care of them into their old age.
guess you can call that "living with parents". it's such a broad definition of situations that I can't imagine that just the label alone is useful for judging much.
so in US they don't sell 2-generation houses? it's pretty common in Europe where I am from, not that common as it used to be in past, but they are still in market and especially in small towns/villages it's nothing uncommon that more generations are sharing same house or at least land, neighbors of my grandma from both sides are living this way, they are sharing their land but both generations have their own houses next to each other
Not a very informative article, unfortunately. No discussion of what caused the issue, what is being done to help these folks, or if anything can be done. A few of these folks are profiled, but one of them was diagnosed with a disease in his 40s and would have issues whether or not he lived with his parents.
The bigger issue is the tremendous waste of human capital at a time when Japan needs employees more and more. (Of course, it is the right of these individuals to live their lives as they see fit, but society would benefit if they were more productive.)
Maybe the employers need to change? Maybe the social net needs to be modified to encourage work? Not sure how to change incentives, but it certainly seems a large subset of that generation isn't headed anywhere good.
I wonder if the west will see a similar effect from the outta control property prices. Historically when people retire they have their house paid off and they can live on a low budget for the retirement years. This is likely not going to be the case for a large number of people in ~35 off years.
As far as affecting retirement, I am less worried about rising property prices and more concerned about how easy it is to access home equity. That ease makes it very tempting to dip into your nest egg when you should be paying down your mortgage. And there's always some reason to borrow.
Of course, that is only an issue for folks who've been able to buy property, but as another comment mentions, if you leave certain metro areas property becomes very affordable very quick.
I dunno if there have been studies which account for where all that wealth is going from the increased housing prices. My guess would be the banks and the 1%.
Perhaps some of these people chose to live in a close family unit with their relatives through choice. This is how millions of people live in other cultures worldwide, caring for each other. No shame in that at all. This article appears to be pro rat race or be shamed...
That is common here, I'm an Aussie with a Japanese wife, I just invited her grandparents to live with us. (Grab spa is old and grandma has to look after him, this way we can help, and grandma can help my wife when we have a child)
I'm calling BS on this one. In as much as they chose to live in a close family unit, they should also pro-actively contribute financially to said close family unit, not lazy about with guitars and stupid songs.
The whole concept of living "with your parents" is modern. Across many societies, and thousands of years, it's been normal for relatives to share the same houses and pass them down through generations.
Recently I heard senator Warren speak of what she essentially described as the selling out of the middle class starting with Reagan and with the tacit support of democrats.
When you see the effects of the maturation of an economy plus globalization, it's apparent it's not as simple as saying that beginning in the '80s the establishment sold out the middle class in favor of the elite. There is more at play. Japan has been suffering from the same issues, but somewhat differently due to some structural rigidity.
Japan is, as they say, complicated. Work culture (at the extreme death from over work, but commonly getting home very late due to social obligations at work), gender roles (still difficult for women to achieve success on par with men), cost of living, hiring practices (must be hired before graduation) hyperactive brand awareness (the new cool thing minted by thirteen year olds must be had by virtually 50% of the pop) and to some degree idealization of a bohemian way of life and repudiation of their previous generations' attitudes toward work. All these things come together and result in a ~30year intractable malaise.
If they could just get themselves to address the biggest issue, make it easier for women to work and succeed (opportunities, responsibilities, salaries, time off for family and bigly social expectations) they just might have a chance at improving things, but I'm not holding my breath.
Your comment made sense up until the last paragraph. I honestly see no connection between giving things to women and solving any of the problems we're discussing here. In fact it could make things worse by further saturating the job market, increasing living costs (e.g. restaurants replace home-cooked meals), and so on.
Japan's biggest issue is simple demographics and capital saturation, not conservative views on women in the workplace. In the past, when the economy was roaring, their views on women were even more conservative than now, and it clear didn't hold them back at that time.
Given the way that problems in Japan have effected the population -- many men as well as women are out of work; the phenomenon of hikkikomori affects predominately men; death by overwork affects men as well as women -- why do you think the "biggest issue" is making it "easier for women to work and succeed"?
To be fair, it's difficult for women to achieve the same station as men even in most forward thinking countries. Japan is far behind this for a variety of reasons, and I think the parent comment undersells how much of a problem this is for Japanese women.
I missed in the article what is the percentage in other countries making Japan special with 20%.
Btw. is there something wrong with it, if parents and the men are fine with that, what's the problem here? At least parents will have someone to take care of them, my wife's uncle is in similar position and I don't see it as anything bad, at least other children with better jobs no need to take care of them. Or the preffered option is to dump own parents to retirement home and stay in your own apartment, if someone has no problem with the other option?
premiss is way off. it's not because they're single, but because they did not work they are in trouble... this article feels like social engineering - well juppies marry marry marry
Nobody likes killjoys, and I see so much denial in these comments, yes, you will get old and the desitions you make today matter for your future even if you choose to ignore that fact and "live for the moment".
[+] [-] ithinkinstereo|9 years ago|reply
I found this paragraph from the article disturbingly similar to the situation here in the states:
"The rise in those shunning marriage, experts say, is due not only to more diverse life-styles but to an increase in low-paying, unstable jobs. Part-timers, temps or contract workers now account for nearly 40 percent of the workforce compared to about 20 percent in the 1980s."
I imagine this will only be accelerated with the rise of AI and increasing job automation. Already, we're seeing the average age when people get married and have kids rise with each generation. I think alot of this is due to job instability, depressed wages, rise of the 1099 worker with no benefits, etc. Reminds me of the situation in China, where unless you have a house and a car, you're basically persona-non-grata.
So if you're a young person in the US, you're doubly screwed. All your friends and potential dating partners are concentrated in the big cities, but those are also the places with the highest costs of living, highest costs to own a home, to raise a kid, etc.
If you're mid 20s / early 30s person in San Fran and you're not working for GOOG/FB/APPL etc. you're basically screwed.
[+] [-] majormajor|9 years ago|reply
The people really screwed aren't the ones in Dallas, Atlanta, or Charlotte - where an average home is something like 200K and jobs can be found - they're the ones in dying small towns that have been left by businesses, or in the expensive coastal cities where they're caught up in the housing madness but without the high income or established wealth driving those prices.
They'd be better off moving to, say, the Dallas area, but that's not an option for everyone. And "you have to pick up your life and say goodbye to everyone you know because the market says so" is hardly an outcome we should be promoting.
(I'd also make the argument that we'd be better off getting more diverse perspectives into those cities, vs our current CA/NY/OR/WA-vs-the-rest-of-the-US silos, but that's another discussion, and a perfect example of "if you really believed that so deeply, why don't you move yourself?")
[+] [-] Markoff|9 years ago|reply
That's vast exageration and it's sad people believe this common myth about China, lived there plenty of years and yes, it's common phenomenom, but so it's marriage out of love. I knew plenty of mixed couples and also plenty of local couples who contradict this claim. Pretty much none of my foreign coworkers had house or car and married if they wanted (yes, some traditional parents were not happy about it, but it was usually more about being foreigner than wealth) and so did Chinese couples doing naked wedding. I really recommend to you explore term "naked wedding" (it means without house/car) which is more and more common since properties in China are more expensive every week.
I find personally this selfpity about how you are screwed if you are not making tons of moeny and havin great car and house a lame excuse, as if all girls living would be gold diggers, but I guess in this website where is maybe 98% readers men it sounds plausible in this echo chamber.
[+] [-] pc86|9 years ago|reply
This is comparable to saying "all the young people live in cities" which is demonstrably false.
[+] [-] iamgopal|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perseusprime11|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sandworm101|9 years ago|reply
They may have made some mistakes, but in previous generations a few mistakes now and again was not a life sentence. A few years off the books wasn't a big deal in the 80s or 90s. Now any gap in your linkedin profile is interrogated. In Japan and elsewhere, anyone with a blot on their employment record is doomed. And heaven help those with any criminal convictions. Our societies today deliberately push away so many people. It is improper of us to then say that it is entirely their fault or that they suffer illusions. The illusion is ours, that by shunning and dispossessing people for slight imperfections we only amplify them.
Once upon a time there was a net of reasonable jobs that didn't pay well but allowed people a life, low-level government jobs that took anyone willing to work hard. But has anyone here looked at how hard it is to become a postal worker or to join the army? Ability and willingness is no longer enough. (I have relatives in the Canadian Armed Forces. The application process takes at least one and sometimes many years.)
[+] [-] phs318u|9 years ago|reply
"I got used to living in an unstable situation and figured somehow it would work out"
That last bit is illusory thinking.
Also, I'd beg to differ on your suggestion that these people aren't choosing their life every single day. I'd suggest the opposite is true for most of us (leaving aside those who through incapacity have diminished options). Every single day you don't make an effort to look for work, don't volunteer for something, don't organise an activity, don't spend some time learning something, don't go somewhere to meet people, don't go on a date - you are making a choice. Living with your parents and (more importantly) living off your parents well into your fifties is not an accident. You can't accidentally do that. That is directly the result of daily choices and illusory thinking.
And while we can agreee that the term "parasite" is pejorative, I find it is deserved- at least from the perspective of the parent (who in this case is probably as much to blame for this situation).
My daughters are 20 and 18 and the expectation has long been set in our family that they will be moving out once they're in stable employment (and by that I mean any job that can pay their bills, not their dream job). When both kids are out of the house, we'll downsize and share some of the cashed out equity to help them get started on the property ladder. Then they're on their own. In our family we refer to this as "The Plan". They've been hearing about the Plan (and been onboard) since their early teens.
[+] [-] ithinkinstereo|9 years ago|reply
Frankly I see this sentiment alot with today's millennial generation (really anyone from early 20s to mid/late 30s). Everyone thinks they'll have that dream job, life, marriage, kds, etc.... even the uber drivers and starbucks baristas. The "oh things will work out" attitude is especially prevalent given the popular parenting slogans of the past few decades: everyone's a winner; every child is special; you can do whatever you want if you put your mind to; etc.
[+] [-] devoply|9 years ago|reply
This is all about Neoliberalism then isn't it. Privatize everything and then the privatized companies are highly competitive and only want the best and couldn't care less about the middle or the bottom. It's not about jobs, it's really never been about the jobs that's just rhetoric. It's about profits. And profits are stuck in large consolidated corporations that pay as little as possible to the middle and the bottom, preferably on contract or the "sharing" economy of contractors. For full-time employees with benefits they just want the top which is often overworked. I mean the economy was engineered to be like this specifically for the benefit of those with money.
[+] [-] tps5|9 years ago|reply
There's no reason to lionize these people and act like "society rejected them." It's just (comparatively) easy to not work in the modern world, in first world countries, and these people didn't.
I don't think there's that much more we can say.
[+] [-] red_hairing|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gragas|9 years ago|reply
You don't need a LinkedIn profile to be a
- plumber
- electrician
- nurse
- teacher
- truck driver
The list goes on.
[+] [-] linkregister|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rocky1138|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] labster|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 6stringmerc|9 years ago|reply
Culturally, living with one's Parents in the United States, as a grown Adult, with or without a Spouse, is going to be predominately portrayed as a negative lifestyle indicator. As in, the Individual doesn't have the choice of Independence, at least not the basic financial / living arrangements type.
The "Sandwich Generation" label scares the ever loving spirit of freedom out of most US people who might find themselves caught between providing for both Kids AND Parents.
Assimilation into values such as this US type of Independence are, understandably, quite foreign to several other Large Cultures elsewhere in the World. However, on this turf, it is the prevailing attitude. No amount of "Well in other countries it's perfectly normal" will turn the tide regarding this component of the US life experience, and, at least here, it's an indicator of a need to further assimilate or, unfortunately, deal with cultural push back.
To be fair to the US, this happens when US people try to ascribe their values to other cultures as well. I get it. Two way street.
[+] [-] franciscop|9 years ago|reply
The problem is that in other cultures it is not only normal, but going far away is bad! I am talking about moving from cities, not actually living with your parents.
In Spain this happens mainly in smaller cities and towns and with somewhat more traditional thinking families. In many of these cases* you are expected to stay close so the family takes care of each other in both ways.
Even the next big city might be a reason for relatives to feel bad for your family. The person moving away is categorized normally into:
- Needs it for $: financially unstable OR greedy, while other cultures would see this as a positive career improvement. If these people are already at the top of their career path, then they should help improve the country!
- Troublesome: someone who doesn't care for the family, while other cultures would see this as independent. These are expected to end up like those non-fancy-titled people who are flipping bugers or receiving you in a hostal in UK or Germany.
- Temporary to grow: it is okay to go abroad as long as you come back later on. Normally it is expected that they tell a lot of stories about how crappy the other country was and all the trouble they had.
Luckily I am from a bigger city and my family knows (even though they won't verbally admit it) how bad this country is for what my sister and I like doing. They try to show support us working abroad even though it's clear they are unhappy when we go away.
*Yes, there are many situations where this is not the case! Normally with people who speak N languages and has a degree (like me) are not like this. I am talking about my experiences from smaller cities.
[+] [-] adventured|9 years ago|reply
http://i.imgur.com/Ps8qQ4A.jpg
[+] [-] pdimitar|9 years ago|reply
It became a "culture" (if even that) due to economical pressures. Buying a flat or, gods forbid, a house in Bulgaria's capital (Sofia) is honestly a nightmare. The mortgages might as well be called slavery agreements (so don't give me the argument of "if you're 25 and have 3-4 years in one organization the bank will give you a mortgage") and well-paid jobs on the local market are as rare as unicorns. Thank all the gods for remote work or I'd probably be flipping burgers, my programmer skills be damned.
In these conditions people try to optimize and make do with what they have. Bacterias adapt their behaviour depending on the environment, chickens do it, fish do it, everyone is doing it -- humans as well.
Other posters here comment that obtaining homes in USA is becoming harder. I have no idea if that's true but if it is, expect more living with the parents in USA in the future as well.
[+] [-] princeb|9 years ago|reply
guess you can call that "living with parents". it's such a broad definition of situations that I can't imagine that just the label alone is useful for judging much.
[+] [-] Markoff|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mooreds|9 years ago|reply
The bigger issue is the tremendous waste of human capital at a time when Japan needs employees more and more. (Of course, it is the right of these individuals to live their lives as they see fit, but society would benefit if they were more productive.)
Maybe the employers need to change? Maybe the social net needs to be modified to encourage work? Not sure how to change incentives, but it certainly seems a large subset of that generation isn't headed anywhere good.
[+] [-] Gustomaximus|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mooreds|9 years ago|reply
Of course, that is only an issue for folks who've been able to buy property, but as another comment mentions, if you leave certain metro areas property becomes very affordable very quick.
[+] [-] devoply|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] averagewall|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Markoff|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] olivermarks|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marak830|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] responde|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] finid|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eeZah7Ux|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adrianlmm|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nihonde|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mc32|9 years ago|reply
When you see the effects of the maturation of an economy plus globalization, it's apparent it's not as simple as saying that beginning in the '80s the establishment sold out the middle class in favor of the elite. There is more at play. Japan has been suffering from the same issues, but somewhat differently due to some structural rigidity.
Japan is, as they say, complicated. Work culture (at the extreme death from over work, but commonly getting home very late due to social obligations at work), gender roles (still difficult for women to achieve success on par with men), cost of living, hiring practices (must be hired before graduation) hyperactive brand awareness (the new cool thing minted by thirteen year olds must be had by virtually 50% of the pop) and to some degree idealization of a bohemian way of life and repudiation of their previous generations' attitudes toward work. All these things come together and result in a ~30year intractable malaise.
If they could just get themselves to address the biggest issue, make it easier for women to work and succeed (opportunities, responsibilities, salaries, time off for family and bigly social expectations) they just might have a chance at improving things, but I'm not holding my breath.
[+] [-] Banthum|9 years ago|reply
Japan's biggest issue is simple demographics and capital saturation, not conservative views on women in the workplace. In the past, when the economy was roaring, their views on women were even more conservative than now, and it clear didn't hold them back at that time.
[+] [-] solidsnack9000|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stuartaxelowen|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hyperion2010|9 years ago|reply
0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7Xm30heHms
[+] [-] Markoff|9 years ago|reply
Btw. is there something wrong with it, if parents and the men are fine with that, what's the problem here? At least parents will have someone to take care of them, my wife's uncle is in similar position and I don't see it as anything bad, at least other children with better jobs no need to take care of them. Or the preffered option is to dump own parents to retirement home and stay in your own apartment, if someone has no problem with the other option?
[+] [-] mm4|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] iphonethrowaway|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] member221|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] member221|9 years ago|reply
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