Interesting Facts! #5

5. Japan has more than 50,000 People who are over 100 years old.

(reasons for this)

-The Japanese birthrate is so low that ADULT DIAPERS are sold more than baby diapers.The Japanese now have one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, and at the same time, one of the highest longevity rates. The population is dropping rapidly, and becoming increasingly weighted toward older people. By 2060, the government estimates, there will be just 87 million people in Japan; nearly half of them will be over 65.

-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' bosses. Left to their own devices, Japanese men aren't sure how to find wives — and many are shying away from the hunt, because they simply can't 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't be working. Japanese husbands aren't 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 U.S. and Western Europe.

-In Japan, marriage usually ends a woman's 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't hire them. Child care is scarce and expensive, while Japan's brutal work culture often demands that employees work more than 50 hours a week.

-For years, they hid from the world, playing video games all night and sleeping all day, eating from a tray their mothers left outside their rooms. They are 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's status and reputation are paramount and hard to change. Parents, and especially mothers, often enable the withdrawal.

                                                                                  -The more you know~