關(guān)于日本人口危機(jī)你不得不知道的幾件事.

　　關(guān)于日本人口危機(jī)你不得不知道的幾件事

　　Everything you need to know about Japan&aposs population crisis

　　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&aposs 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&apost have enough workers to support its retirees, and will enter a demographic death spiral. Yet the babies aren&apost 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 Jf Kingston toldBloomberg.com." 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 There clearly is a subset of Japanese youth who have withdrawn from dating.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&aposs 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&apos homes. (See below.) But most Japanese young people do have friends and relationships — they&aposre 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&apost 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&apos bosses. Lt to their own devices, Japanese men aren&apost sure how to find wives — and many are shying away from the hunt, because they simply can&apost 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&apost be working.

　　Why make that assumption?

　　In Japan, marriage usually ends a woman&aposs 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&apost hire them. Child care is scarce and expensive, while Japan&aposs brutal work culture often demands that employees work more than 50 hours a week. Japanese husbands aren&apost 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&aposs 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&apost 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 lt 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&aposs 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&apost always work. As one shut-in of 15 years said, "I missed my chance."

　　為什么日本陷入了人口危機(jī)?

　　日本現(xiàn)在是世界上出生率最低的國家，與此同時(shí)，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(yán)重。七年前，日本人口達(dá)到峰值——1.28億，這之后人口數(shù)開始走下坡路，每年減少近100萬。政府預(yù)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(dòng)，那么這個(gè)國家的勞動(dòng)力將無法撫養(yǎng)其已經(jīng)退休的父母，日本的人口死亡曲線將呈現(xiàn)螺旋上升的趨勢，而出生率仍保持較低水平。

　　為什么出生率這么低?

　　英國報(bào)紙《觀察家》近日報(bào)道稱日本青年對(duì)兩性歡愉之事失去了興趣，這一言論引發(fā)了一場國際口水戰(zhàn)。感覺論者得出的結(jié)論多數(shù)基于單一的調(diào)查數(shù)據(jù)：一項(xiàng)調(diào)查發(fā) 現(xiàn)，年齡處于16至24歲的年輕人中，45%的女性和25%的男性稱自己不再對(duì)性愛感興趣。這篇文章同時(shí)提到“sekkusu shinai shokogun”這個(gè)短語，意思是“獨(dú)身主義綜合癥”，這種現(xiàn)象似乎是現(xiàn)在的主要趨勢。實(shí)際上，對(duì)比過去幾十年來說，更多日本單身青年已經(jīng)開始享受性愛了。1990年，未婚人群中，65%的女性和45%的男性沒有性經(jīng)驗(yàn)，而現(xiàn)在，這兩個(gè)數(shù)據(jù)分別降到50%和40%。一位亞洲研究教授杰夫?金士頓(Jf Kingston)對(duì)彭博新聞社稱：“日本人是當(dāng)然是有性生活的，如果情侶酒店的數(shù)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(dú)身主義綜合癥是神話嗎?

　　不完全是?，F(xiàn)今確有一類日本青年不去約會(huì)。取而代之的是，他們專注于網(wǎng)絡(luò)色情和游戲諸如：任天堂的《愛相隨》(Love Plus)，玩家可以與動(dòng)漫女友展開一段戀情。成千上萬的年輕人成為隱蔽青年，長期遁世并在父母的家里玩游戲看動(dòng)漫。(見下文)但是大多數(shù)日本年輕人有朋 友和戀愛關(guān)系——他們只是未安家。結(jié)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歲以下的人群中，只有21%的女性和 49%的男性從未結(jié)婚。截至2005年，這兩個(gè)數(shù)據(jù)分別漲至60%和72%。

　　日本人為什么不結(jié)婚?

　　文化障礙和經(jīng)濟(jì)障礙同時(shí)存在。在日本傳統(tǒng)中，婚姻不僅是浪漫的愛情，更是一種責(zé)任。20世紀(jì)70年代，包辦婚姻是常態(tài)，甚至到了90年代大多數(shù)婚姻亦是通過中間人介紹——通常是新郎的老板。日本男人任由自己自行其是，不知道怎樣找到妻子——并且很多人羞于獵艷，因?yàn)樗麄兒喼敝Ц恫黄稹?0世紀(jì)90年代薪酬就已經(jīng)停滯，然而房價(jià)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(yǎng)妻子和兒女，那么他的生活水準(zhǔn)會(huì)極大地下降——尤其是在妻子待業(yè)這種情況下。

　　為什么會(huì)做出那種假設(shè)?

　　在日本，婚姻通常意味著女性事業(yè)的結(jié)束，即使大多數(shù)女性受過良好的教育。一旦她們有了孩子，女人們因面臨強(qiáng)大的社會(huì)壓力而不得不辭職，并扮演相夫教子的傳統(tǒng)角色。那些想繼續(xù)工作的母親們，往往受到歧視，而且雇主們不愿雇傭她們。保育稀缺且昂貴，但日本殘酷的工作文化卻通常要求雇員們每周工作50小時(shí)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(shí)的育兒和家務(wù)勞動(dòng)，他們平均每天花費(fèi)一小時(shí)幫助育兒以及做家務(wù)。銀行雇員惠理?托米塔(Eri Tomita)對(duì)《觀察家》稱，“成為家庭主婦意味著獨(dú)立經(jīng)濟(jì)來源的結(jié)束，這不是我這種女人的選擇 ?！?/p>

　　這種傳統(tǒng)會(huì)改變嗎?

　　首相安倍晉三想要改變它。今秋，他把經(jīng)濟(jì)計(jì)劃從安倍經(jīng)濟(jì)重命名為女性經(jīng)濟(jì)。他在聯(lián)合國大會(huì)上發(fā)言“為女性創(chuàng)造一種舒適的工作環(huán)境，已不是日本的一種選擇，而是最緊迫的問題?！彼兄Z擴(kuò)大日間護(hù)理服務(wù)，增加靈活的工作安排，為了使日本女性不再在工作和育兒上做抉擇。與此同時(shí)，安倍呼吁企業(yè)提拔女性高管。多數(shù)經(jīng) 濟(jì)學(xué)家認(rèn)為，這種趨勢不會(huì)快到產(chǎn)生一場真正的人口危機(jī)。經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)教授竹中平藏(Heizo Takenaka)稱“日本早晚將面臨必須移民的境況?！?/p>

　　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?zèng)]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?yàn)橐恍├Ь街T如：糟糕的成績或者是失戀。他們避世的時(shí)間越久，在這個(gè)人們地位和名聲至關(guān)重要的社會(huì)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(jīng)?？v容自己孩子這樣做。精神病學(xué)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(guān)系?！彼?0年代第一次發(fā)現(xiàn)了這個(gè)奇怪的現(xiàn)象。一項(xiàng)以“租賃姐妹”著稱的政府計(jì)劃，即為哄騙宅男走出家門而分派婦女做顧問的計(jì)劃，使武石四年后重新認(rèn)識(shí)了社會(huì)。然而這項(xiàng)計(jì)劃并沒有始終奏效，就像一個(gè)避世在家15年的宅男說的那樣：“我錯(cuò)失了機(jī)會(huì)?！?/p>