> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> >Naoshiro Ogawa says that the Japanese have developed a unique
> >lifestyle of being sexually active without marrying or cohabiting or
> >having children:
>
> Then there's this trend (though it does seem like the actual
> numbers are smaller than the headline)...
>
> Generation Gap
>
> In Aging Japan, Young Slackers Stir Up Concerns
>
> Changing Attitudes Prompt People to Quit Job Search; A Demographic
> Time Bomb
>
> Mr. Isozaki's Lack of Urgency
>
> By GINNY PARKER WOODS
> Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
<snip>
> To be sure, the total number of NEETs in Japan is still relatively
> small. Last year's NEET population made up only about 2% of Japan's
> 33 million 15-to-34-year-olds. There are 63 million people in the
> work force, while the country's overall population is nearly 128
> million.
>
> The U.S. doesn't track NEETs, but in the closest equivalent, nearly
> 9% of people in the U.S. ages 16 to 24 were not in school, not
> working and not looking for a job. Japan's numbers include only
> unmarried people, while the U.S. group includes both married and
> unmarried. The U.S. number has remained relatively steady over the
> past several years and this group isn't viewed as much of a social
> threat.
Here's what Makoto Itoh says:
<blockquote>At the same time, so-called NEET persons (not in education, employment or training) are increasing. They are already graduated from schools, colleges or universities, not married, not engaged in housework or education, and not attempting to seek jobs. According to The White Paper on Labor Economy 2004 by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the number of NEET among the generation between 15 and 34 years old is 520 thousand in 2003 and increased 40 thousand in a year. This largely reflects the severe difficulty of finding proper jobs. The rate of unemployment in the young generation indeed tends to be high. At the end of 2003, the official rate of unemployment of persons 21–24 years old was as high as 9.8 percent. It is estimated that the number of NEET, who are not counted as unemployed, equals about half of the unemployed persons in the same generation. ("The Japanese Economy in Structural Difficulties," April 2005, <http://www.monthlyreview.org/0405itoh.htm>)</blockquote>
One way to look at the increasing NEETs is to see it as a problem of unemployment, as Itoh apparently does (or a problem of potential recruits for gangs, as Wojtek might!). To a certain extent, it is. If there were more well-paid jobs in the labor market, presumably more of the currently NEET would be induced to work.
Another way to look at it is to see it as resistance to wage labor on the part of young proletarians, just as the falling birth rate is an expression of resistance to (social and biological) reproductive labor on the part of women. Why work, when jobs are scarce and available jobs pay low wages or do not fulfill your desire for autonomy and creativity? Why study or train when there are few jobs and jobs that are there suck? Why waste time? Why not appropriate free time, which is the most important form of social wealth in a rich industrial nation?
Neither women's birth strike nor youth withdrawal from the labor market is an organized resistance. They are phenomena that Hardt and Negri might describe as exodus -- exodus from labor, productive, unproductive, and reproductive (though I doubt that Hardt and Negri, Eurocentric, have or will ever examine Japan as an example).
I think that there is a lot of NEET potential in Japan. That is because Japan is paradoxically very modern and very traditional at the same time. Japanese parents (and probably many relatives), as long as they live (which is very long in Japan), support the lifestyles of Japanese children who live without studying, working, getting married, etc., rather than pushing them hard to earn their own living as American parents do.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>