What’s on the horizon for Japan’s Lost Generation?

In the coming months, you are going to notice that a lot of the topics on this blog gravitate towards the issue of hikikomori. It’s because I’m writing, or rather attempting to write, my Master’s thesis on the topic in a frantic effort to graduate and start into a Sociology PhD next year in 2005.

That won’t always be the case though (the topic, not the frantic part). When I start my PhD Program, I’m going to take serious look into other youth social problems in contemporary Japan, at least those getting wide reportage in the Japanese Media, as I think I’ve found my calling. After my core courses of five semesters are out of the way, I’ll be going back to Japan again to do about a year and half to two years of field research. That’s the idea anyway…

Other ‘problems’ I plan to discuss here are ‘freeter’, Japanese young people who reject the salaryman life for dead end part jobs that barely pay the bills. Then there are the ‘parasite singles’, young adults, mostly women, who stay at home and live off their parents, sometimes as old as their 40’s or 50’s, rather than live on their own. There is also a rising number of young homeless out on the streets in Japan as well. Not to mention that bit in the news a few weeks ago about a suicide pact made over the Internet by some Japanese twenty-something’s. And I was just introduced to a new group called NEET (when I have more on them I’ll let you know).