Japan's fall from grace and a sign of its disturbing future. This is the dark side of Japan, the lost generation. While this is now mostly forgotten, in the 1980s, Japan was seen as the next economic superpower that was going to replace the United States and completely take over the global economy. In a similar way, we might see China today. It seems so certain that there was a serious anxiety about Japan in the US, with articles like this one, talking about an economic harbor and how Japan is going to buy the entire United States, and with movies like Die Hard,

日本の凋落、そして不穏な未来の兆し。これが日本の暗黒面であり、失われた世代である。今ではほとんど忘れ去られてしまったが、1980年代、日本はアメリカに代わる次の経済大国として、世界経済を完全に掌握すると見られていた。同じように、私たちは今日の中国を見るかもしれない。このような記事で、経済的な港について語ったり、日本がアメリカ全体を買い取ろうとしていると語ったり、『ダイ・ハード』のような映画で語ったりして、アメリカでは日本に対する深刻な不安があったことは確かなようだ、

Rising Sun and Blade Runner all featuring the trope of Japanese corporations taking over America and the world. This anxiety was the result of the Japanese miracle, three decades of enormous consecutive economic growth, made possible by the unique Japanese economic system that was, at the time, seen as superior to the western model. Basically, it was based on cooperation between gigantic corporate cartels and the Japanese government. These cartels, called Keiretsu, were basically alliances of the biggest Japanese corporations, owning shares in each other and, while formally independent, working together to back each other up. And the biggest Keiretsu were given unfair support from the government in the form of enormous loans distributed by the state-owned National Bank of Japan. This basically meant that these alliances had access to an infinite stream of cash to finance their aggressive expansion abroad, while at the same time, the government would block foreign companies from expanding into the Japanese market. It wasn't a healthy system or a fair one, but it was working.

ライジング・サン』も『ブレードランナー』も、日本企業がアメリカや世界を征服するという構図を描いている。この不安は日本の奇跡の結果であり、当時は西洋のモデルよりも優れていると考えられていた日本独自の経済システムによって可能となった、30年間連続した巨大な経済成長であった。基本的には、巨大企業カルテルと日本政府の協力に基づいていた。これらのカルテルは「系列」と呼ばれ、基本的に日本の大企業の連合体であり、互いに株式を所有し、形式的には独立していたが、互いにバックアップし合うために協力し合っていた。そして最大手の

The Japanese stock market was booming, Japanese products were conquering one market after another, and regular people knew that if they worked hard and got a university degree, they would get a solid job at a large corporation. That would mean the guarantee of a lifetime employment.

日本の株式市場は活況を呈し、日本製品は次から次へと市場を席巻していた。そして普通の人々は、一生懸命働いて大学の学位を取得すれば、大企業で堅実な仕事に就けることを知っていた。それは終身雇用の保証を意味する。

Japan was unstoppable and everything was going great, until it wasn't.

日本は止められず、すべてがうまくいっていた。

By 1991, Japan had been growing extremely fast for three consecutive decades, and it became the second biggest economy after the United States. As the economy was growing, prices of real estate and values of companies listed on the stock market were growing as well. But by the end of the 1980s, this growth went into an overdrive and turned into a speculative mania. Basically, everyone thought that the economic boom and the growth of assets will continue forever, and the more you invest, the more money you will make. And meanwhile, the National Bank of Japan continued to print out and lend money to basically anyone who asked, regardless of what the money was or how trustworthy the creditors were. And then one day, the bubble popped.

1991年までに、日本は30年連続で超高成長を遂げ、米国に次ぐ経済大国となった。経済成長に伴い、不動産価格や株式市場に上場する企業の価値も上昇していた。しかし、1980年代末になると、この成長は行き過ぎ、投機マニアと化した。基本的に、好景気と資産増加は永遠に続く、投資すればするほど儲かる、と誰もが考えていた。そしてその一方で、国立銀行はお金の内容や債権者の信用度に関係なく、基本的に誰にでもお金を印刷して貸し続けた。そしてある日、バブルが弾けた。

Throughout the year 1990, the stock market fell by 43%, and real estate prices followed. The bursting of the bubble meant that regular people had much less money to spend, and that no one was willing to invest in Japanese companies anymore, leading to an end of the economic boom. On top of that, in the years after the burst of bubble, cracks in the Japanese system quickly began to show.

1990年を通じて株式市場は43％下落し、不動産価格もそれに続いた。バブル崩壊は、一般庶民の消費資金が大幅に減少し、日本企業に投資する人がいなくなったことを意味し、好景気の終焉につながった。その上、バブル崩壊後の数年間で、日本のシステムには急速に亀裂が入り始めた。

It was revealed that corruption was widespread and common in Japanese business and government, from insider trading to stock manipulation and fraud and bribery, and that the practically unlimited supply of loans created hundreds of zombie companies, businesses that would have gone bankrupt years ago, but that kept surviving on never-ending supply of cheap money borrowed from the state. In one decade, Japan went from being called an economic tiger riding the Japanese miracle to being called the sick man of Asia. But while this was a drastic downfall, it wasn't that unique. Economies of different countries go up and down, and that's part of life. But in Japan, it was different. Unlike in other countries, the economic downturn in Japan had devastating effects for a whole generation, effects that millions of people have never recovered from.

インサイダー取引から株価操作、詐欺、賄賂に至るまで、日本の企業や政府には腐敗が蔓延し、一般的なものであったこと、また、実質的に無制限に融資が受けられるため、何百ものゾンビ企業が生み出されたことが明らかになった。この10年間で、日本は日本の奇跡に乗った経済の虎と呼ばれた時代から、アジアの病人と呼ばれるようになった。しかし、これは劇的な没落ではあったが、それほど特殊なことではなかった。さまざまな国の経済が上下するのは人生の一部だ。しかし、日本の場合は違った。他の国とは異なり、日本の景気後退は全世代に壊滅的な影

So why was that? Well, in order to answer that, we need to understand the Japanese work and hiring culture, which is, to put it mildly, very intense. And it has several unique aspects that make it quite different from any other job market in the world. A corporate career in Japan starts with shushoku katsudo, a unique Japanese job-hunting ritual that university graduates go through at the end of their studies. Many companies, including the biggest Keiretsu, hire only fresh graduates, and only once a year, but in mass, loads of people at once.

では、なぜそうなったのか？それに答えるには、日本の仕事と雇用の文化を理解する必要がある。それは控えめに言っても、非常に激しいものだ。そして、世界の他のどの雇用市場ともまったく異なる、いくつかのユニークな側面を持っている。日本での企業キャリアは、大卒者が学業終了時に経験する日本独特の就職活動の儀式である「就職活動」から始まる。大企業を含む多くの企業は、新卒者だけを、しかも年に一度だけ、一度に大量に採用する。

The fresh graduates pass the job-hunting ritual, filled with group interviews and seminars that thousands of people dressed in identical black and white suits have to go through, and at the end of it, they get a job. And they keep that job for decades until retirement, in line with another common policy known as shushinkoyo, or lifetime employment. And their company will then only promote from within, a policy known as shaneshoshin, grooming and cultivating their employees throughout their career to become future executives one day.

新卒者は、同じ白黒のスーツに身を包んだ何千人もの人々が受けなければならない、集団面接やセミナーに満ちた就職活動の儀式を通過し、その最後に就職する。そして、「終身雇用」と呼ばれる一般的な政策に沿って、定年まで何十年もその仕事を続ける。そして、彼らの会社は社内からのみ昇進させる。これは「シャネーショシン」として知られる方針で、将来の幹部候補となる社員をキャリアを通じて育て、育成する。

These practices, which were basically the universal standard in the 1990s, and are still very common in Japan to this day, bring stability, but they also create an incredibly rigid job market.

1990年代には基本的に世界標準であり、現在でも日本ではごく一般的なこうした慣行は、安定をもたらす一方で、信じられないほど硬直した雇用市場を生み出している。

If you want to get a good job, you have one shot after university, and once you are hired, you stick with a company for the rest of your career. But if you fail to do that, you are left out in the cold, and the doors of most companies will remain closed to you forever.

良い仕事に就こうと思えば、大学卒業後に一度だけチャンスがあり、一度採用されれば、残りのキャリアをその会社で過ごすことになる。しかし、それを怠れば、冷遇され、ほとんどの企業の門戸は永遠に閉ざされたままとなる。

But the point is that when the economic bubble burst, and the economic boom ended, this ritual was broken. While during the boom, it was not that hard to get at least some corporate job, after 1990, most companies froze their hiring entirely, for almost the entire decade, and they were not hiring any graduates at all. In order to keep all of their lifelong employees during the economic crisis, they eventually resumed their hiring in the new century, although finding a job became much harder ever since. But for a whole generation of people who graduated in the 1990s, it was too late. They were not graduates anymore by then, and so the companies would not hire them, as they were hiring fresh graduates instead.

しかし重要なのは、バブルが崩壊し好景気が終わると、この儀式が壊れてしまったということだ。好景気の間は、少なくともある程度の企業に就職することはそれほど難しくなかったが、1990年以降、ほとんどの企業は、ほぼ10年間、新卒採用を完全に凍結した。経済危機の間、終身雇用を維持するために、結局は新世紀になってから採用を再開したが、それ以来、就職はずっと難しくなった。しかし、1990年代に卒業した世代にとっては、遅すぎた。その頃にはもう新卒ではなかったのだから、企業は新卒を採用する代わりに彼らを雇おうとはしなかった

Those people, whose only fault was being born at the wrong time, missed their shot, and fell through the cracks of the system. And a whole generation, millions of people, were left behind, destined to spend the rest of their lives on temporary, part-time, low-paid jobs. This period became known as the Employment Ice Age, and people who graduated during that time as the lost generation. And since the Japanese economy never fully recovered, more young people, graduating in the 2000s and then 2010s, joined their ranks. And the period of the last 30 years, became collectively known as the Lost Decades. This is obviously tragic for those who are part of the lost generation, but it doesn't affect just them. Instead, their sad fate negatively affects the entire Japanese society, and it casts a dark shadow over Japan's future.

生まれてくる時期を間違えたとしか言いようのない人々は、チャンスを逃し、制度の隙間からこぼれ落ちてしまった。そして何百万人という世代全体が取り残され、派遣社員やパートタイマー、低賃金の仕事で一生を終える運命にあった。この時期は「就職氷河期」と呼ばれ、その時期に卒業した人々は「失われた世代」と呼ばれるようになった。そして、日本経済が完全に回復することはなかったため、2000年代、そして2010年代に卒業した若者たちがさらに彼らの仲間入りをした。そして、この30年間を総称して「失われた10年」と呼ぶようになった

There is an entire generation of people, now in their 30s and 40s, who are missing from the job market entirely. They usually live with, and often off, their parents. They were never economically secure enough to start families of their own, and they never had proper jobs and careers.

現在30代から40代にかけて、就職市場から完全に姿を消している世代がいる。彼らはたいてい親と同居しており、しばしば親元を離れている。彼らは自分の家庭を持てるほど経済的に安定しておらず、まともな仕事もキャリアも持っていない。

Around 15% of the population, almost 17 million people, are considered part of the lost generation, and they make up the age group that's the most important for an economy of any country.

人口の約15％、1700万人近くがロストジェネレーション（失われた世代）であり、どの国の経済にとっても最も重要な年齢層を占めている。

It's the people in their 30s and 40s who usually spend the most, on their families, housing, taking mortgages, buying cars, they are those who keep the economic engine going.

家族のため、住宅のため、住宅ローンを組むため、車を買うため、経済エンジンを動かしているのは30代から40代の人々だ。

But in Japan, there's no one to do that now. And economy is not Japan's only problem that's getting worse because of the lost generation. Currently, the country is dealing with what's been called super aging. Japan has the highest percentage of elderly people, almost 30% of the population in the world, and it's aging more rapidly than any other country. And that is partly also because of the millions of children that the lost generation never had.

しかし、今の日本にはそれをする人がいない。そして、ロストジェネレーションによって悪化している日本の問題は経済だけではない。現在、日本は超高齢化と呼ばれる事態に直面している。日本は世界で最も高齢者の割合が高く、人口の30％近くが高齢者である。その理由のひとつは、ロストジェネレーションが生まなかった数百万人の子どもたちの存在である。

By 2050, the ratio between seniors and people in a working age will be 1 to 1.3, meaning that there will be almost as many people over 65 as people between 15 and 64. In any country in the world, the elderly are dependent on the taxes paid by people in what's called productive age. But in

2050年までには、高齢者と生産年齢人口の比率は1対1.3となり、65歳以上の人口は15歳から64歳の人口とほぼ同数になる。世界のどの国でも、高齢者は生産年齢と呼ばれる年齢の人々が納める税金に依存している。しかし

Japan, this will be, at some point, simply no longer sustainable. And on top of that, the lost generation created another social issue that is becoming increasingly damaging to the survival of the Japanese society, the phenomenon of so-called hikikomori. These are Japanese men who have voluntarily decided to completely cut themselves off of society, and they're spending their lives in complete isolation, never leaving their house and not having any social contacts at all, usually being completely financially dependent on their parents. The first hikikomori were members of the original lost generation, men, today in their 30s and 40s, who could not fulfill the requirements expected from them by the Japanese society, get a job, climb the career ladder, start a family and provide for them, and decided to give up entirely instead. But eventually they were joined by others from the younger generations as well, who, although they did have a chance to join the job market, just found it too stressful and competitive. Today, there is almost 1 million of these men in the Japanese society, with many more on the verge of joining them. And the social phenomenon is quickly becoming a very real mainstream problem, affecting the entire society. The Japanese government is aware of the extremely negative impacts that the existence of the lost generation and the growing number of hikikomori are having on the Japanese society and economy, and it has announced that it will try to help the lost generation to get back up on its feet and reintegrate those who have secluded themselves from the society. But so far, it had very little success. The problem is that the Japanese economy is still not doing great, and at the same time, it still has extremely rigid work culture. Not only that people are expected to work extremely long hours and comply with strict hierarchy, but many companies still follow the same pattern of lifelong employment, hiring only once a year and promoting only from within the company, making it impossible for the employees to take breaks, or even to get a second chance if they fail to get their foot in the door. And so millions of people are stuck, and their numbers are constantly growing, as more young people fail to succeed in the ruthless system, and eventually, they just give up.

日本では、このような状況はいつかは維持できなくなるだろう。その上、ロスト・ジェネレーションは、日本社会の存続にますますダメージを与えつつある別の社会問題、いわゆるひきこもり現象を生み出した。ヒキコモリとは、社会から完全に切り離され、家から一歩も出ず、社会との接点もなく、経済的には完全に親に依存し、完全に孤立した生活を送っている日本人男性のことである。最初のひきこもりは、ロストジェネレーションと呼ばれる、現在30代から40代の男性で、日本社会から期待される要件を満たすことができず、就職し、出世の階段を上り、