ROMNEY WORDSWORTH - A new shocking poll gives some insight into the cause of Japan’s rapidly declining population: Japan’s Millennials aren’t having much sex!
According to Japan’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, a Japanese government survey published last week, 42% of men and 44% of women in Japan aged 18-34 are STILL VIRGINS! That constitutes a Millennial Generation where nearly half of the sexes are completely disengaged from each other. No marriage, no children, no dating, and no sexual intercourse. Japan’s lack of interest in sex has been blamed on everything from a stagnant economy to the Japanese fascination with Manga (pornographic comic books). There is some truth to both of these assertions.
Even more so than in America, men’s sense of self-worth in Japan, culturally, is tied to their professional occupation and their salaries. Men are making about a third to half of what they used to make during Japan’s economic boom years in the 1980s. Japan’s economic downturn has been exacerbated for decades by the Japanese government’s stubborn clinging to Keynesian Economics. Japan has borrowed massive sums of money for “public investment” which produced no real benefits, and high taxes to pay for this borrowing is now acting like a giant anchor weighing down private economic investment and capital formation.
Declining incomes has translated into a cratering in the rates of home ownership in Japan. It’s hard to think about “nesting down” and starting a family when you don’t have a nest to begin with.
At the same time, Japanese family life is much more traditional to how American society was organized in the 1950’s: Men are the breadwinners, and wives are expected to stay home and raise children. So, it’s a two pronged problem: Men are less confident in starting relationships because their sexual marketplace value in the eyes of women has plummeted with their salaries. Women are reluctant to marry a man with poor or inferior economic means in every culture on Earth where they have a say in the matter.
Women in Japan are also making significant inroads into the workplace. With financial independence, many Japanese women are thinking that marriage is simply not worth it.
Then there is the unique Japanese culture of anime and manga. Deep and rich fantasy worlds that many men have retreated into as a safe sexual outlet. It is known as Otaku Culture, and the men who inhabit it have been dubbed “herbivores” by Japanese society. It is meant to be a derogatory term that indicates a man who is no longer a “hunter” on the field of sexual competition. Even in the United States, singles bars have the same connotation, being referred to as “meat markets”. What happens to a society when men start to become Vegans in the sexual sense? Japan provides the answer: A full third of its entire population is over 65 years of age, rural villages are becoming ghost towns, and schools are closing down for lack of students.
Japan is wrestling with an existential crisis. It refuses to allow large scale immigration to replace lost population (like Europe has) in order to preserve its identity and culture. Given the disaster of multi-culturalism in Europe, that decision is looking more and more to have been the correct choice. There are hopes that increased reliance on robotics will pick up the slack, but that only treats a symptom and not the root cause. If I were running Japan I would set up tax free economic zones—No income taxes, no sales taxes, no property taxes, VAT taxes, or inheritance taxes. But you can only move into such a free economic zone provided, of course, that you have to be married with young children! Human nature should take care of the rest.