A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (78 page)

The changes in lifetime employment practices, in combination with the widespread belief that workers had not been properly rewarded anyway, necessarily brought changes in expectations and attitudes among employees or potential employees. In some cases this meant a lessening of loyalty to their company, and in other cases it meant questioning the whole idea of work. For example, according to a concerned government white paper on labour released in 2000, the 1990s saw the growth of ‘freeters’ in the young adult population. ‘Freeter’ is a hybrid term coined in the late 1980s combining the English word ‘free’ and the German word ‘Arbeiter’ (‘worker’) to indicate a freely moving casual or part-time employee, not interested in joining a company for life even if this were possible. The term is generally applied to those in the age group between late teens and mid thirties, and it excludes students and housewives. They were estimated to have more than tripled between the late 1980s and the end of the millennium, with around two million by 2000.
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In addition, a decidedly more work-shy group were identified by an acronym borrowed directly from England, NEETs, meaning ‘
n
ot in
e
ducation,
e
mployment, or
t
raining’, though it has been tougher for them to maintain their ‘neetness’ than in England, since the Japanese unemployment benefit is harder to obtain and is shorter in duration (typically three to six months). The 1990s also saw an increase in
fur
sha
(literally ‘drifters’), who comprise mostly day labourers, and who may or may not have a home – those who are homeless being called
toj
seikatsusha
(literally ‘those who live on the street’). Their ranks were swelled considerably by dismissed workers, including women.
¹¹

After more than a decade of economic sluggishness, the economy finally recovered in 2003. In fact, through the years 2003 to 2007 Japan’s economy maintained a reasonable growth rate of just over 2 per cent. Then, like all countries, it was hit by the recent worldwide economic
slump in 2008–09, experiencing shrinkage of 1.2 per cent in 2008 and a significant 5.0 per cent in 2009. But once again, it recovered, with GDP growing more than 3 per cent in 2010 (more than the growth of Germany or the USA). It still ranks as the third biggest economy in the world after the USA and China, though it does have a large public debt.

The economic recovery seems to have brought improvements in some areas, such as the crime rate. This dropped from 1,925 crimes per 100,000 persons in 2000 to 1,335 in 2008.
¹²
Unfortunately the suicide figures have not fallen in the same fashion, and were still over 30,000 in 2009. The suicide rate expressed in terms of 100,000 persons in 2009 was 26, three times the rate in Britain and 2.5 times the rate in the USA. This has prompted the government to spend considerable funds on counselling services.

Despite the recovery from 2003 on, a 14-nation Gallup Poll survey conducted in March 2005, and published on 13 May that same year by the
Asahi Newspaper
, revealed Japanese workers to have the lowest degree of ‘loyalty towards workplace and enthusiasm for work’. Though taxonomically the item should surely be divided into two, one on company loyalty and one on general enthusiasm, it nonetheless indicates how low work-place morale was at that point. Only 9 per cent of the Japanese surveyed answered that they had strong loyalty, while 24 per cent stated they had no loyalty at all. Interestingly, a Japan-specific survey conducted in August–September 2004 by the Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training, published in the
Asahi
on 11 April 2005, centring on support or otherwise for the idea of lifetime employment, indicated that 78 per cent supported lifetime employment. When considered together, these two surveys – taken at more or less around the same point in time – appear to show a wish for the security of lifetime employment (exaggerated though it may have been), and frustration over the decline of it. One also perhaps senses a certain confusion, and of becoming negative when wishes are thwarted.

On the other hand, the growth of freeters and NEETs appears to have settled down somewhat. There are greatly differing estimates as to the number of freeters at present, and there are claims that they have increased significantly during the period 2000 (when they were said to be around 2 million) to 2009, but the official government figure for 2009 – which one might perhaps feel to be rather conservative – was 1.78 million.
¹³
Moreover, this was up 80,000 over the previous year, representing the first year-on-year increase in six years. This is consistent with a levelling-off of freeter numbers for six years from 2003, with the latest increase being due to the world economic slump in 2008. Official figures for NEETs in 2009 were given as 640,000,
¹⁴
though figures for earlier years are not clear.

It has to be borne in mind that while freeters and NEETs have an impact on economic activity and the economy as a whole, they are also making a comment about life in Japan and its society and culture, which will be discussed in a subsequent section.

In more obviously economic matters, Japan’s labour force in 2009 officially totalled 62,820,000 workers, of which 42 per cent were women. The structure – typical of developed nations – comprised 2,620,000 (4 per cent of total workforce) in primary industry, of which 41 per cent were women; 15,930,000 (25 per cent) in secondary industry, of which 25 per cent were women; and 43,660,000 (70 per cent) in tertiary industry, of which 48 per cent were women. Of that total workforce, 51,020,000 were employees, of whom just over a third (33.7 per cent) were ‘non-regular’, meaning casual and/or part-time. The trend has indeed been towards non-regular work, particularly among women, who account for almost 70 per cent of non-regular workers, but in recent years increasing numbers of males have also been taking on work in a ‘non-regular’ capacity.
¹⁵

Annual work hours (including recorded overtime) during the 1980s were typically 300–400 more than western norms, but they have gradually been reduced and the figures for 2008 show a norm of 1,791 hours, in line with western nations such as Britain and the United States – though the figures for Japan are not necessarily completely accurate as there is an informal practice in some companies of unrecorded overtime.

In 2009 the official unemployment rate was 5.1 percent, and in 2010 it rose slightly to 5.2 percent.
¹⁶

The labour force grew a little in 2005, largely as a result of more elderly people participating in some capacity, but fell again in 2008 through 2010. The long-term prospect is for it to continue to shrink, not so much a reflection of possible growth in numbers of NEETs but as a result of an enduring and serious decline in the birth rate (known as
sh
shika
, meaning literally ‘trend towards fewer children’), in combination with an equally enduring and serious ‘greying’ (
k
reika,
meaning ‘trend towards aging’) resulting in an increase in the number and population percentage of people aged 65 or older. Some in the elderly bracket might continue to be in the workforce – politicians being a good example – or even return to it, but this cannot be relied upon.

Whereas the birth rate (also known as the fertility rate) in 1950 was 3.65 children born per woman, as early as 1960 the rate dropped below
the 2.1 necessary to maintain population growth. By 1990 it had dropped further to 1.54, and by 2005 to a low of 1.26. It has picked up somewhat since then, to 1.37 in 2008, but this is still a worry. Very many ‘developed countries’ have experienced similar trends, some even worse than Japan, but in terms of degree Japan is towards the relatively severe end of the spectrum. Youngsters aged up to and including 14 years comprised 35.4 per cent of the population in 1950, and 30.2 per cent of the population in 1960. By 1990 this had fallen to 18.2 per cent, and by 2005 13.7 per cent. In 2009 it was 13.3 per cent. Reasons for this overall decline include education costs, and particularly later marriage and later first birth. This too has a socio-cultural aspect. Many women want a career and start a family later in life, meaning fewer children, or continue their careers and have few or no children. In 1950 the average age of women marrying for the first time was 23.0 years, in 1990 it was 25.9, in 2005 it was 28.0, and in 2009 28.6 years. That is, relative to 1950, the age of a woman at first marriage has risen 5.6 years. (Men are not quite as pronounced, going from 25.9 years in 1950 to 30.4 in 2009.) The average age of first birth was 25.6 years in 1970, 27.0 in 1990, 29.1 in 2005, and 29.7 in 2009.
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By contrast, the proportion of the population aged 65 or older has grown significantly, largely owing to improvements in health care. They comprised a mere 4.9 per cent in 1950, 5.7 per cent in 1960, 12.0 per cent in 1990, 20.1 per cent in 2005, and 22.7 per cent in 2009. The cross-over point, at which the elderly first outnumbered the young, occurred in 1997.

Japan is in fact known as an aged country, not merely aging. Technically, societies with between 7 and 13 per cent elderly in their population are called ‘aging’, and those with 14 per cent or more ‘aged’. Japan took just 24 years to go from ‘aging’ to ‘aged’, compared with 115 years for France, 71 years for the USA, and 40 years for the UK. In 2009 Japanese females were the longest lived females on the planet, at 86.4 years, and Japanese males were second-ranked in terms of male longevity at 79.6 years (after Switzerland’s 79.7 years).
¹⁸

The economic implications for an aged society are a significant cause for concern. For example, the ratio of supporters to supported becomes problematic. In 1950, the supported – the elderly (4.9 per cent) together with the young (35.4 per cent) – comprised 40.3 per cent of the population, and the supporters (15 years to 64 years inclusive) comprised 59.6 per cent. This gives a ratio of 1.48 supporters for each supported person. In 2009 the supported comprised 22.7 per cent elderly and 13.3 per cent for the young to give 36.0 per cent for those supported, whereas the supporters were 63.9 per cent, giving a ratio of supporters to supported of 1.78. The totals can be deceptive if taken out of context, for it might seem on paper that the ratio of supporters is better in 2009 than in 1950, but in 1950 the bulk of the supported – the youngsters – were soon able to become supporters, whereas the reverse is true for 2009. The prediction for 2050 is 39.6 per cent elderly and 8.6 per cent young, giving a total for the supported of 48.2 per cent, supporters being 51.8 per cent, meaning a ratio of supporters to supported of 1.07. That is, there will be more or less equal numbers of supporters and supported.