關於日本人口危機你不得不知道的幾件事

Why is Japan in trouble?

The Japanese now have one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, and at the same time, one of the highest longevity rates. As a result, the population is dropping rapidly, and becoming increasingly weighted toward older people. After peaking seven years ago, at 128 million, Japan's population has been falling — and is on a path to decline by about a million people a year. By 2060, the government estimates, there will be just 87 million people in Japan; nearly half of them will be over 65. Without a dramatic change in either the birthrate or its restrictive immigration policies, Japan simply won't have enough workers to support its retirees, and will enter a demographic death spiral. Yet the babies aren't coming.

Why not?

The British newspaper The Observer recently caused an international stir by reporting that Japanese youth have lost interest in sex. The sensationalist conclusion was mostly based on a single statistic: a survey that found that 45 percent of women and 25 percent of men ages 16 to 24 said they were not looking to have sex. The article also cited the phrase sekkusu shinai shokogun, or "celibacy syndrome," as if it were a major trend. In reality, more Japanese singles are having sex than in past decades. In 1990, 65 percent of unmarried women and 45 percent of unmarried men had never had sex; today, the figures are 50 percent and 40 percent, respectively. "Of course Japanese have sex," Asian studies professor Jeff Kingston ." If the number of love hotels is any barometer, it seems like many are getting plenty of it."

Is celibacy syndrome a myth?

Not entirely. There clearly is a subset of Japanese youth who have withdrawn from dating. Instead, they focus on online porn and games like Nintendo's Love Plus, in which players conduct a relationship with an anime girlfriend. Hundreds of thousands of young men areknown as hikikomori, shut-ins who eschew human contact and spend their days playing video games and reading comics in their parents' homes. (See below.) But most Japanese young people do have friends and relationships — they're just not settling down. The marriage rate has plummeted, and with it the birthrate, since out-of-wedlock births are rare in Japan. In 1975, just 21 percent of women and 49 percent of men under 30 had never been married; by 2005, the figures were 60 percent of women and 72 percent of men.

Why aren't they getting married?

There are both cultural and economic barriers. In Japanese tradition, marriage was more about duty than romantic love. Arranged marriages were the norm well into the 1970s, and even into the 1990s most marriages were facilitated by "go-betweens," often the grooms' bosses. Left to their own devices, Japanese men aren't sure how to find wives — and many are shying away from the hunt, because they simply can't afford it. Wages have stagnated since the 1990s, while housing prices have shot up. A young Japanese man has good reason to believe that his standard of living would drop immensely if he had to house and support a wife and children — especially considering that his wife likely wouldn't be working.

Why make that assumption?

In Japan, marriage usually ends a woman's working career, even though most women are well educated. Once they have a child, women face strong social pressure to quit their jobs and assume very traditional roles, serving both the husband and the child. Mothers who want to keep working are stigmatized and usually find that employers won't hire them. Child care is scarce and expensive, while Japan's brutal work culture often demands that employees work more than 50 hours a week. Japanese husbands aren't much help either — they spend an average of one hour a day helping with the children and household chores, compared with three hours for husbands in the US and Western Europe. "You end up being a housewife with no independent income," bank worker Eri Tomita told The Observer. "It's not an option for women like me."

Could this tradition change?

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants it to. This fall, he renamed his economic plan from Abenomics to Womenomics. "Creating an environment in which women find it comfortable to work," he told the U.N. General Assembly, "is no longer a matter of choice for Japan. It is instead a matter of the greatest urgency." He promised to expand day care offerings and promote flexible work arrangements so that women would no longer have to choose between work and childbearing, and he challenged businesses to promote women to senior management. Most economists, though, think that the trends won't change fast enough to prevent a real demographic crisis. "Sooner or later," said economics professor Heizo Takenaka, "Japan will have to face the necessity of immigration."

An epidemic of shut-ins

For years, Takeshi hid from the world, playing video games all night and sleeping all day, eating from a tray his mother left outside his room. He was a hikikomori, one of an estimated 1 million Japanese teens and young men who have become shut-ins, with virtually no human contact beyond their parents. Some of the hikikomori first withdraw because of some social embarrassment — bad grades, or a romantic rejection. The longer they drop out, the more shame they feel in a society where one's status and reputation are paramount and hard to change. Parents, and especially mothers, often enable the withdrawal. "In Japan, mothers and sons often have a symbiotic, codependent relationship," says psychiatrist Tamaki Saito, who first identified the disorder in the 1990s. Takeshi re-entered society after four years, thanks to a government program that sends female outreach counselors known as "rental sisters" to coax the hikikomoriout of the house. But that program doesn't always work. As one shut-in of 15 years said, "I missed my chance."爲什麼日本陷入了人口危機？

日本現在是世界上出生率最低的國家，與此同時，也是世界上最長壽的國家，因此 日本的人口急劇下降，老齡化趨勢也越來越嚴重。七年前，日本人口達到峯值——1.28億，這之後人口數開始走下坡路，每年減少近100萬。政府預測，至2060年，日本將僅有8700萬人口，其中近一半是超過65歲的老人。如果日本的出生率和限制性的移民政策沒有大的變動，那麼這個國家的勞動力將無法撫養其已經退休的父母，日本的人口死亡曲線將呈現螺旋上升的趨勢，而出生率仍保持較低水平。

爲什麼出生率這麼低？

英國報紙《觀察家》近日報道稱日本青年對兩性歡愉之事失去了興趣，這一言論引發了一場國際口水戰。感覺論者得出的結論多數基於單一的調查數據：一項調查發 現，年齡處於16至24歲的年輕人中，45%的女性和25%的男性稱自己不再對性愛感興趣。這篇文章同時提到“sekkusu shinai shokogun”這個短語，意思是“獨身主義綜合症”，這種現象似乎是現在的主要趨勢。實際上，對比過去幾十年來說，更多日本單身青年已經開始享受性愛了。1990年，未婚人羣中，65%的女性和45%的男性沒有性經驗，而現在，這兩個數據分別降到50%和40%。一位亞洲研究教授傑夫•金士頓（Jeff Kingston）對彭博新聞社稱：“日本人是當然是有性生活的，如果情侶酒店的數量在某種意義上是一種晴雨表的話，那日本人的性生活還是比較豐富的。”

獨身主義綜合症是神話嗎？

不完全是。現今確有一類日本青年不去約會。取而代之的是，他們專注於網絡色情和遊戲諸如：任天堂的《愛相隨》（Love Plus），玩家可以與動漫女友展開一段戀情。成千上萬的年輕人成爲隱蔽青年，長期遁世並在父母的家裏玩遊戲看動漫。（見下文）但是大多數日本年輕人有朋 友和戀愛關係——他們只是未安家。結婚率暴跌，隨之而來的出生率，以及非婚生育率在日本也很少。1975年，30歲以下的人羣中，只有21%的女性和49%的男性從未結婚。截至2005年，這兩個數據分別漲至60%和72%。

日本人爲什麼不結婚？

文化障礙和經濟障礙同時存在。在日本傳統中，婚姻不僅是浪漫的愛情，更是一種責任。20世紀70年代，包辦婚姻是常態，甚至到了90年代大多數婚姻亦是通過中間人介紹——通常是新郎的老闆。日本男人任由自己自行其是，不知道怎樣找到妻子——並且很多人羞於獵豔，因爲他們簡直支付不起。20世紀90年代薪酬就已經停滯，然而房價卻在狂漲。日本年輕男性有充分的理由相信，如果他必須還房貸以及供養妻子和兒女，那麼他的生活水準會極大地下降——尤其是在妻子待業這種情況下。

爲什麼會做出那種假設？

在日本，婚姻通常意味着女性事業的結束，即使大多數女性受過良好的教育。一旦她們有了孩子，女人們因面臨強大的社會壓力而不得不辭職，並扮演相夫教子的傳統角色。那些想繼續工作的母親們，往往受到歧視，而且僱主們不願僱傭她們。保育稀缺且昂貴，但日本殘酷的工作文化卻通常要求僱員們每週工作50小時以上。日本丈夫們也幫不上忙——比起美國和歐洲丈夫們每天3小時的育兒和家務勞動，他們平均每天花費一小時幫助育兒以及做家務。銀行僱員惠理•托米塔（Eri Tomita）對《觀察家》稱，“成爲家庭主婦意味着獨立經濟來源的結束，這不是我這種女人的選擇 。”

這種傳統會改變嗎？

首相安倍晉三想要改變它。今秋，他把經濟計劃從安倍經濟重命名爲女性經濟。他在聯合國大會上發言“爲女性創造一種舒適的工作環境，已不是日本的一種選擇，而是最緊迫的問題。”他承諾擴大日間護理服務，增加靈活的工作安排，爲了使日本女性不再在工作和育兒上做抉擇。與此同時，安倍呼籲企業提拔女性高管。多數經 濟學家認爲，這種趨勢不會快到產生一場真正的人口危機。經濟學教授竹中平藏（Heizo Takenaka）稱“日本早晚將面臨必須移民的境況。”

遁世的流行

近些年來，武石（Takeshi）十分避世，他通宵打電玩，白天睡覺，吃媽媽放在屋子外面的飯。他就是隱蔽青年，除了父母再沒人接觸他們的百萬青少年中的一 員。一些隱蔽青年起初是因爲一些困窘諸如：糟糕的成績或者是失戀。他們避世的時間越久，在這個人們地位和名聲至關重要的社會中，他們越感卑微，這種情況很 難有所改變。他們的父母，特別是母親，經常縱容自己孩子這樣做。精神病學家玉木宏齊藤（Tamaki Saito）稱：“在日本，母親和兒子通常有一種共棲，共存的關係。”他在90年代第一次發現了這個奇怪的現象。一項以“租賃姐妹”著稱的政府計劃，即爲哄騙宅男走出家門而分派婦女做顧問的計劃，使武石四年後重新認識了社會。然而這項計劃並沒有始終奏效，就像一個避世在家15年的宅男說的那樣：“我錯失了機會。”