|
Japan: Divorces and parasites upset the balance Financial Review February 21, 2000 Divorces and parasites upset the balance Tokyo Observed, By Andrew Cornell One of the enduring images of Japan, even in these recessionary days, is of perfectly good consumer goods left out on the street for the garbage collector. Opportunistic foreigners tell tales of equipping their digs with televisions, stereos, fridges and washing machines dug from the dump. In Japan, while combustible, non-combustible and recyclable discards are free, large rubbish must be paid for and put outside with a receipt attached. Such large items are called "sodai gomi", inconvenient rubbish, which is also the nickname given to retired salarymen. Equally unkind, but colourful, is "nureochiba" - dead wet leaves that stick to the leg - as the retired husband, deprived of work and work functions, hangs about sticking to the wife. As Japan struggles to restructure its economy, the social cost is increasingly evident in rising unemployment, irrationally high savings due to fears about the future, and growing numbers of homeless. Other, more subtle social changes are also occurring. Seiji Kohno is a successful, 50-something businessman who is well respected in his electronics company. But he has also been divorced twice and, now married for the third time, he has been anxious that a third divorce could see him without a job. It is not an idle anxiety in the rigidly codified world of corporate Japan. At his third marriage, senior company officials made it clear that another divorce would simply be unacceptable. But Kohno has a deeper anxiety, "teinnen rikon", divorce after retirement. Increasing numbers of women, fed up with the personal cost of their "inconvenient large rubbish", are divorcing soon after the husband retires. Such things never used to happen in corporate Japan but now women are becoming more independent, more confident and, frankly, fed up with feeding, cleaning and rearing for some of the world's most institutionalised chauvinists. "It is not easy for a husband to try and spend time only with his wife after retirement, he usually has not worked on their relationships," says retirement counsellor Hiromi Ikuta. "The husband has devoted himself to the company, his wife has devoted herself to the family, they have had a completely different life." A recent survey by the Japan Association of Travel Agents showed 62 per cent of men in their 50s wanted to travel with their wives for the new millennium but only 47 per cent of women in the same age group wanted the same thing. For couples in their 60s - prime retirement age - 75 per cent of men wanted to travel with their spouses but only 53 per cent of women. Another survey showed divorces among couples who had been together more than 35 years increased 28 percentage points in 1998. Commonly, the women say "it is no use feeling suddenly close after having left me alone for so long". Now a growing trend is for men to maintain a secret stash of savings in case of divorce as traditionally all household finances were controlled by the wife. Under Japanese law, a divorced wife is entitled to 30 to 50 per cent of her husband's salary as alimony. The weekly magazine Shukan Hoseki recently explored the "divorce savings plans" and found that €20,000 to €30,000 ($285 to $425) a month is common, and men go to extraordinary lengths to conceal the plans, such as forging pay statements. Another major structural shift taking place in Japanese life, thanks in part to the declining birth rate, in part to dissatisfaction with the traditional life cycle of school, marriage and children, is the emergence of "parasaito shinguru" - parasite singles. These, typically, are women who don't fancy the prospect of giving up independence and a career to marry a salaryman and elect to stay with their parents where they pay cheap board, if any, have few household chores and get to spend all their money. While such spendthrifts might be beneficial for Japan's weak consumption, they have raised the ire of many social commentators, and Tokyo Gakugei University professor Masahiro Yamada has written a book about them. "Parasite singles are a phenomenon peculiar to Japan," he says. "In the US people think it is shameful to depend on their parents and they can't attract the opposite sex." As more and more Japanese are only children, they are becoming more doted upon and Yamada says parents allow them to stay home while the mother provides care and the father money. The parasites themselves are unrepentant. They point out that if they marry they must give up their lifestyle while, with discrimination still entrenched in the Japanese workforce, career prospects for a woman are not good. "It rings true to me," says one 26-year-old female office worker. "I don't do any housekeeping chores and my parents do everything. I pay some money to my parents every month but I know they save it for me. On the one hand I don't think this is what an adult should do, on the other hand I don't think I have to change." Such attitudes incense Yamada, who has proposed a parent-child co-habitant tax to force the parasites out into the real world. For such a reactionary, this social phenomenon is threatening the economic recovery because parasites don't buy large consumer goods and don't produce children. |
