ECONOMY: Globalisation Threatens Japanese Middle-Class

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Sep 29 2005 (IPS) - Masaru Nishimura, 57, head waiter of a thriving restaurant in this metropolis says he was forced to borrow more than 30,000 US dollars, to pay for his youngest daughter’s university tuition this academic year.

”The restaurant management has cut my pay steadily over the past two years citing lower sales, so I cannot afford to send my youngest child to school, something I did effortlessly for the other two children,” he explains.

Nishimura’s situation, according to social scientists, represents the drastic changes that have occurred in Japanese society in recent years.

While growing unemployment and an aging society have seen a rapid rise in people depending on state welfare allowances, there is now an increasing number of winners who are boasting of salaries that employees like Nishimura have only been able to dream about.

”Japan was much admired as an egalitarian nation of salaried men-white collar workers who were well-paid and had job security-but that is now a notion of the past. Japan’s vast middle-class is at risk,” says Takeshi Miyajima, a sociologist at Rikkyo University.

Indeed, Nishimura, a cheerful and hard worker, says he devoted the past 35 years of his life to the restaurant because he was satisfied to climb the job ladder as he grew older and see his salary increase to match his seniority.

”When I started, my pay was almost negligible, but I stayed because the system was such that my income depended on the length of my commitment to the company. Today, however, I face a totally different situation. I suppose I must be glad I have not been fired to make way for younger and cheaper workers,” he says.

The latest statistics in Japan now confirm Nishimura’s fears for his future. According to the Health, Welfare and Labour Ministry, there are now more than 1.4 million people dependent on welfare handouts, a number that has steadily grown from the 88,000 people recorded ten years ago.

Said an official: ”More people need welfare support because of the growing unemployment and the aged in Japan. We expect the numbers to increase rapidly over the years”.

The worst aspect of the gloomy picture, contend analysts, is that the new social divide in Japan is a process that is here to stay.

”Globalisation has brought fierce competition to Japan, successfully ending the old pillars that nurtured a stable society such as life-time employment and a tax system that favoured the nurturing of a middle class,” says Makoto Matsudaira, a sociologist and expert on social change.

Reforms spearheaded by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who has declared that Japan must change to meet new international demands, are likely, say experts, to increase the divide.

Even the much admired Japanese health system, where 90 percent of the population now carries health insurance that entitles them to cheap medical bills, is at risk, with the government now discussing changes that will increase the financial burden on the patient.

Naturally, the new climate has raised alarm among the public. Opinion polls indicate that more Japanese-90 percent-are worried about the future, especially about social welfare when they grow old.

Social anomie leading to suicides is on the riseùnow averaging 30,000 annually-including those from the ranks of middle-aged men who have lost their jobs, as well as divorcees and those caught in perry crime.

Rengo, Japan’s largest trade union, reports the wage gap is widening between part-timers and regular workers, with both sectors facing lower pay on an average of around 1.7 percent per annum.

”People are hoping that Koizumi’s reforms will also bring better support for the weak and vulnerable sectors in Japanese society, rather than encouraging privatisation that does not take into account better welfare programmes,” explained Matsudaira.

In contrast, Japan is seeing the appearance of a new class of wealthy individuals who earn more than 300,000 dollars annually and live in apartments that cost 20,000 dollars per month to rent.

Most of these people lead lives that are the antithesis of the likes of Nishimura. Take the case of most talked about businessman, Takafumi Horie, 34, who climbed to fame when his Internet company, ‘Livedoor’, bid to take over the richest television company, Nippon Broadcasting System.

Horie lost the bid, but holds almost 50 percent of the shares in the television company. The businessman, who dropped out of the prestigious national Tokyo University because he was “bored”, is extremely popular with the younger generation who admire his boldness to challenge older Japan.

Such a situation, says Matsudaira, is making Japanese society, that has traditionally valued group equality over individual benefits, become more like the United States. Whether the public can take the change remains a difficult question.

”The Japanese are generally hard working and rise to challenges. Let us hope the current social problems are only transitional as the public adjusts to the harsh reality of globalisation,” says Matsudaira.