Japan's Economic Stagnation Is Creating a Nation of Lost Youths

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/careers/japans-economic-stagnation-is-creating-a-nation-of-lost-youths/19580780/

by georgecmu • 16 years ago

7 3 16 years ago

patio11• 16 years ago

Lifetime employment has an outsized impact on salarymen and on Western perceptions of Japanese employment, but it is -- and always has been -- a minority of the Japanese employment market. Perhaps a third of private sector laborers were covered by it at the peak of the practice a few decades ago.

It is difficult to say with certainty, because lifetime employment is generally an understanding, not a contractual term. The lines in my employment contract which my employers and I understood meant lifetime employment reads, literally, "This employment contract shall last for three years and be renewable upon mutual agreement."

草食系男子 (grasseating men) is, like metrosexual, a term which sells many books and means rather little. It has about as much relevance to Japanese employment as Twilight does to American unemployment. ("American teenage girls, facing a reality where 50% of prospective suitors are unemployed, have increasingly escaped into a fantasy where fantastically rich hundred year old vampiric pedophiles cater to their every material and romantic need. We go to Keiko Tanaka with the story...")

hga• 16 years ago

Understood and that agrees with my much more distantly acquired picture of Japan.

What I've gathered is that Japan was divided into a low risk/high gain segment (the 1/3 or so who were salarymen or above) and a high risk/low gain segment (pretty much the rest).

If that picture of some decades ago is true, what has and does it mean as that path to the future (for those who could make it) got and continues to get increasingly closed off?

Great economic catastrophes tend to result in changes of social contracts and resulting secondary effects. Surely some, perhaps a lot of that has been happening in the last couple of decades?

(I do like your Twilight analogy. :-)

hitechnomad• 16 years ago

But what I think is interesting about this story is the effects of a shrinking middle class on a society. Could this be a glimpse into what could happen in Western society if unemployment and the gap between rich and poor continues to grow? Do you think that the number of people perceiving this gap as uncrossable and thus giving up on society will increase over time, or is this a short-term phenomenon (or is the whole thing simply a media beat-up)?

Japan's Economic Stagnation Is Creating a Nation of Lost Youths

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