You only need to walk the streets of Tokyo, to notice that Japan is changing fast. Almost half of men no longer wear the sarariman uniform: dark suit, white shirt, and tie. And anything goes with women’s clothing styles. This marks a break with the past, when distinguishing oneself from the crowd was regarded as un-Japanese. To be striking and express one’s individuality is a recent social trend. Traditionalists could make the case that this is in fact a sign of deference to authority: Koizumi, then prime minister, invited all Japanese employees to dress according to season, in order to conserve energy: wool sweaters in the winter; short-sleeved shirts in the summer. It seems as if Japan’s traditional social homogeneity is being eroded by economic, demographic and cultural factors.
A certain polarization in individual incomes has emerged in Japanese society: low-income strata with no hope for social advancement are becoming a structural phenomenon. Mostly, it’s young part-time workers having a precarious employment relationship. These come in two kinds: either they are low-skilled youngsters with little education having no alternative other than unemployment (still lived as personal shame in Japan), or they are dissenting middle-class youth rejecting the work ethic and still living with their parents. We are talking about 13 million people, more than a third of the population in the cohort comprised between 20 and 30 years of age.
Demography plays a large role in this: post-war baby-boomers are starting to retire. For 2007, it is estimated that the number of new pensioners will double with respect to 2006. These are people that have worked for four decades and will go on to enjoy high pensions, as well as their generous severance pay. Their consumption lifestyle is different from the younger population: fresh, often imported foods, leisure, hobbies, vacations, cosmetics, household goods, and health services. Japan’s combination of low birth rates and aging population is undermining a national taboo: the country is finally opening to immigration flows. For instance, immigrant care-givers for the elderly now get a three-year residence permit, something that was unheard of until recently. The alternative to immigration could be innovation: humanoid robots currently showcased on global media could serve as an alternative to immigrant service labor. The sustained effort of Japanese industry in this domain could be explained by the desire of leaving the mono ethnic composition of the population unchanged. Are Japanese losing their peculiarities? History tells us the absorption of foreign technology and culture has occurred through adaptation rather than imitation in the Rising Sun. Thus it’s likely that also this time Western lifestyles will be appropriated in ways that respect the traditional tenets of Japanese culture.
by Carlo Filippini,
Full Professor of Economics and Director of ISESAO,
Institute for Socio-Economic Studies on East Asia, Università Bocconi