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The lingering tragedy of Japan’s ‘lost generation’
Japan needs to summon the will to confront the problems of its economic underclass.
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Japan’s lost generation is estimated to number as many as 17 million, men and women who came of age during the economic stagnation that the country is still struggling to fully shake off.
PHOTO: AFP
Roland Kelts
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I met Hiroshi S. a few years ago at a support group in Tokyo for socially isolated Japanese. A chain-smoking 43-year-old in a puffy down vest, he was one of an estimated one million or more Japanese known as a “hikikomori”, which roughly translates as “extreme recluse”.
Typically male, between the ages of 30 and 50, jobless or underemployed, they have largely withdrawn from society after Japan’s extended economic malaise since the 1990s prevented them from getting their working lives in order.
