This past week, I've been listening to a lot of the BBC's online radio programmes(as they spell it in British English), and I've come upon a few gems. The next few posts are on some of the ones I found thought provoking over the week.
Your World, a more human-interest show, is the first I found. The particular show that caught my eye was It's A Dog Life, about the expanding dog culture in Japan. (Warning: if you listen to it, it has one or two spots that might be uncomfortable for some listeners. I don't agree with all the content, but I find it interesting enough to post it anyway)
The correspondent thought about reporting on this topic after he found more dog clothing stores in Japan than children's clothing stores near his neighborhood. Incredibly, that trend was not only near where he lived, but evidenced a sort of dogs-as-replacement-children culture that's grown up in Japan in recent years. Dogs are really being treated as children: dog spas, clothes, and even restaurants where you can eat the same food as your dog.
Why on earth would this happen? Apparently, among other issues, Japanese young people don't put getting married and having a family as a high priority. One of the reasons is that women want to pursue their careers as in other developed countries. The difference in Japan is that after having children, many companies will not take them back, or alternatively their husbands will want them to stay at home. The program treats a few other issues as well.
The fertility rate is somewhere around 1.3 children per woman, which means that there will be less Japanese in 2050 than now, a reverse-trend. There are now actually more dog pets than children in Japan(although I wonder about that number- need to see a comparison to see what's normal). Couple together low fertility rate with a longer life span, this means that the labor force will have an extreme shortage in only a few decades. This is a really scary thought as well for those people who will be past retirement age at that point. Will they even be able to retire at all? Who will replace them? I had to write a long report on different future scenarios for Japan in the next 30 years and I can say that from what I could gather, even in the best case scenario, the problem doesn't go away.
Anyway, the BBC takes a somewhat lighter approach, coming at it from the angle of the dog culture. But I wonder what that trend really means for Japan's future.
Your World, a more human-interest show, is the first I found. The particular show that caught my eye was It's A Dog Life, about the expanding dog culture in Japan. (Warning: if you listen to it, it has one or two spots that might be uncomfortable for some listeners. I don't agree with all the content, but I find it interesting enough to post it anyway)
The correspondent thought about reporting on this topic after he found more dog clothing stores in Japan than children's clothing stores near his neighborhood. Incredibly, that trend was not only near where he lived, but evidenced a sort of dogs-as-replacement-children culture that's grown up in Japan in recent years. Dogs are really being treated as children: dog spas, clothes, and even restaurants where you can eat the same food as your dog.Why on earth would this happen? Apparently, among other issues, Japanese young people don't put getting married and having a family as a high priority. One of the reasons is that women want to pursue their careers as in other developed countries. The difference in Japan is that after having children, many companies will not take them back, or alternatively their husbands will want them to stay at home. The program treats a few other issues as well.
The fertility rate is somewhere around 1.3 children per woman, which means that there will be less Japanese in 2050 than now, a reverse-trend. There are now actually more dog pets than children in Japan(although I wonder about that number- need to see a comparison to see what's normal). Couple together low fertility rate with a longer life span, this means that the labor force will have an extreme shortage in only a few decades. This is a really scary thought as well for those people who will be past retirement age at that point. Will they even be able to retire at all? Who will replace them? I had to write a long report on different future scenarios for Japan in the next 30 years and I can say that from what I could gather, even in the best case scenario, the problem doesn't go away.
Anyway, the BBC takes a somewhat lighter approach, coming at it from the angle of the dog culture. But I wonder what that trend really means for Japan's future.
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