Young Japanese are surprisingly content - Seventh heaven at 7-Eleven 20/02/2018, 2:18 PM

Seventh heaven at 7-Eleven

Young Japanese are surprisingly
content
They are less so when they think about the future
They are less so when they think about the future

KOJI TANAKA enjoys his work for a tech company in Tokyo. In his free time
he goes for a workout or to receive a form of massage known as shiatsu that
relieves his aching muscles with gentle finger pressure. He likes to eat out
with his friends. “I guess I’d like to have a family at some point, but I am not
ambitious about my career,” he says. “I am happy with my current life.”

Japan’s youth is perking up. Surveys suggest that the country’s young people
are less happy than their peers in other developed countries. Suicide remains
the leading cause of death for those aged 15 to 39. But compared with their
elders in Japan when they were young, a higher proportion of 15- to 29-year-
olds describe themselves as content. That is good news for a country where
the word “youth” tends, with good reason, to conjure up images of gloomy
misfits: hikikomori—people who shun society—and otaku—nerds.

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There are several reasons why satisfaction is rising. Partly because of the cost
of housing, more young people live with their parents. Masahiro Yamada, a
sociologist, calls them “parasite singles”. Not having to pay for
accommodation means they have more disposable income. “It’s great not

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Young Japanese are surprisingly content - Seventh heaven at 7-Eleven 20/02/2018, 2:18 PM

having to cook for myself,” says Kosuke Yamawaki, who works for Japan
Agriculture, a farming co-operative, in the rural town of Shimanto-cho on
Shikoku, the smallest of Japan’s four main islands.

Living with one’s parents well into adulthood may not be ideal. But
relationships between family members appear to be improving. “Family is no
longer about male figures scolding you,” says Masayuki Fujimura, a (greying)
sociologist at Sophia University in Tokyo. “Parents are becoming softer,
especially this lot who were born during the liberal 1960s.”

On easy street

Life is pleasanter in other ways too. On every street corner is a 7-Eleven or

similar convenience store where young people can buy everything from
stationery to ready meals (and heat and eat them on the spot), flick through
manga comics, and buy tickets to baseball matches. Although rapid economic
growth is history, they appreciate that living standards remain high, and that
life (apart from housing) is affordable. They shun designer wear, preferring
clothes from UNIQLO, a Japanese low-cost brand. Their dream is not to own
a BMW or to go skiing but to enjoy a dessert—as long as it is photogenic
enough to post on Instagram. Young people often mention their smartphones
when they talk about what makes them content. “I can look up anything,
whenever, wherever,” says Yuri, an 18-year-old university student.

Japanese youth, like young people the world over, drink less and have less sex
than previous cohorts of their age. They are far less likely to be sexually active
than their American counterparts. Around 40% of Japanese are still virgins at
the age of 34, whereas 90% of men and women in America have had sex
before turning 22.

But few young people in Japan appear to be bothered. Japanese men often
describe having girlfriends as too much trouble, since women expect them to

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pay for everything and engage emotionally. Women say men are unambitious.
Mayu Kase, a 22-year-old single woman, says having a boyfriend “would be a
good thing if it comes along”. But, she adds, “I’m not desperate.” Like
preceding cohorts of their age, young Japanese still talk of being lonely. But
Noritoshi Furuichi, a sociologist, says that friends appear to make young
people more content than partners do.

Japanese society is still bound by elaborate rules and conventions. But these
are becoming more relaxed. For some, this is disorientating. “There is no
clear track for us, because there are so many options,” says Rie Ihara, a 25-
year-old from Shikoku island, who says she aspires to a “stable, ordinary life”.
But few envy the strictures of their parents’ generation. “Men had no choice
but to be economic animals then,” says Saku Yanagawa, a 25-year-old
comedian. Sho Yamazaki, a 28-year-old baker who recently set up his own
catering company in Tokyo, sees creeping individualism in Japan as a good
thing for the young. “We can realise our dreams,” he says.

Yet this silver lining comes with a dark cloud. Mr Furuichi believes that one
reason why young people are becoming more satisfied with their current lives
is precisely because they see little to look forward to. They focus on enjoying
the here and now. According to a survey in 2013, only two-thirds of Japanese
13- to 29-year-olds thought they would be happy when they are 40, compared
with over 80% in six other developed countries.

Japanese youth certainly face greater insecurity than preceding generations.

Jobs are still fairly easy to come by, not least because the population is falling.
But the once-common system of lifelong employment is becoming rarer. A
much greater share of working-age Japanese can expect to toil in part-time or
non-permanent jobs.

They are also likely to struggle to get married and have children, despite the

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vast majority wanting both. (Marriage remains the dominant family structure
in Japan and very few children are born outside wedlock.) The proportion of
people never married by the age of 50 has risen from 5% in 1970 to 19% in
2015.

Young people are all too conscious of the social and economic burdens they
will have to shoulder. Over-65s already account for 28% of the population,
almost double the proportion of 15- to 29-year-olds. By 2065 they are
projected to rise to nearly 40%. The welfare system is struggling to keep up. A
study in 2015 by Dentsu, an advertising company, found that people in their
late 20s worried about life after retirement more than about employment.

Mr Yanagawa, the comedian, frets that his contemporaries are settling for
less than they should. “People just want an average life here; they conform,”
he says. “We need to be more willing to take risks and be messy, especially
when we are young.”

Yohei Harada of the Youth Research Centre at Hakuhodo, an advertising

firm, has a rosier view. He calls today’s young men and women the satori
sedai, or enlightened generation, meaning that Buddha-like, they eschew big
aspirations and seek happiness in simple things. That may indeed be the path
to nirvana.

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the
headline "Seventh heaven at 7-Eleven"

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