The Tragedy of Japan

This is a sad story, but highlights an important social phenomenon in Japan, one of our staunchest allies and a most important trading partner. Here is an excellent report from Business Week that details a national tragedy in the making. Excerpts: These millions of young people face a life that's vastly different from that of their parents. For Japan's postwar baby boomers, jobs provided certainty, spurring them to partner and procreate. Faced with insecurity, many of Japan's twenty- and thirtysomethings are doing neither. The number of marriages fell to 714,000 in 2005 from 1 million-plus in the 1970s. That could exacerbate a drop in Japan's birthrate, already among the lowest in the developed world. "You don't get maternity pay, and you have no job to return to—that makes it hard," says Masako Ikeda, a 30-year-old who works at a video game company in Tokyo but is employed by a job agency. The suffering generation also suffers from more mental illness. Workers in their 30s accounted for 61% of all cases of depression, stress, and work-related mental disabilities last year, up from 42% in 2002, according to a study by the Japan Productivity Center for Socio-Economic Development. "Because of the anxiety stemming from job insecurity, it is quite natural that these people have problems," says Susumu Oda, the psychiatrist in charge of the survey. FULL REPORT...