Middle-aged singles live with their parents in Japan 0
Hitomi Tanaka, 54, is living hard on her mother’s pension and teaching singing at home.
According to a researcher at the Institute of Statistical Training and Research, in 2016, about 4.5 million Japanese people, aged 35 to 54, still lived with their parents.
This phenomenon arose about two decades ago when public opinion began to pay attention to young single people who depend on their parents to lead a carefree life without the burden of responsibility.
But now, when youth has passed, they have become middle-aged grandparents with no pension, no savings and no job.
These people put more pressure on Japan’s social security system, which is already buckling under pressure from an aging population and a shrinking workforce.
Ms. Hiromi Tanaka, who used to sing backup for a pop group, is still optimistic.
`I’m used to this precarious living situation and somehow I still live well,` Ms. Tanaka told Reuters news agency as she sat at the piano in a small room inside an old house connected to the house.
Now 54 years old, she barely survives on her mother’s pension and teaching theater at home to an increasingly small number of students.
`After my father passed away last year, the pension was reduced by half,` she said.
Ms. Tanaka is a typical example of a generation of `lifelong singles` in the land of the rising sun.
`During the bubble economy until the mid-90s of the last century, young people in their 20s were happy with their lives. They thought they would get married when they were over 30,` said the socialist.
`But a third of them, now in their 50s, never get married,` Yamada continued.
This phenomenon not only contributes to a declining population and low birth rate in Japan, but also affects society’s consumption of goods when young families are an important factor driving fish consumption.
About 20% of middle-aged people in Japan are single, unemployed at home and dependent on their parents, putting a strain on the social security system.
`When they spend all their inheritance and savings and have nothing left, they will live on government unemployment benefits,` Yamada said.
According to experts, the number of people avoiding marriage has increased partly due to modern lifestyles, partly due to increasingly unstable jobs with low salaries.
The number of people working part-time, seasonal and contract jobs accounts for nearly 40% of the total workforce.
`The reality is that more and more people want to get married but cannot due to economic reasons,` said economist Katsuhiko Fujimori working at Mizuho Research and Information Institute.
Some people used to have stable jobs, but because of illness or restructuring of their old company, they fell into unemployment.
`Once you’ve been kicked out of the labor market, it’s hard to get back in,` said Hirotoshi Moriyama, an employee of a nonprofit organization that helps middle-aged people find jobs.
Mr. Akihiro Karube lives with his 84-year-old father in a social housing complex on the outskirts of Tokyo.
Akihiro Karube, 53 years old, worked for an advertising company after graduating and when he entered his 30s, his income at this company was sky-high.
He moved back to live with his parents after his marriage broke up.
Mr. Karube tried but failed to find a job assisting the elderly.
`I just wish I had a stable income. That’s what’s important,` he said.
Single middle-aged people not only live in isolation from their parents, but they also rarely go out, almost seclude themselves, and have little contact with the outside world.
Fuminobu Ohashi used to live like that, but now he works for a support group that has begun organizing discussions for parents worried about the future of children like him.
`The problem is what will they do when their parents die. It’s like a ticking time bomb,` Ohashi said.
