20-year-olds contemplate an uncertain future shaped by the coronavirus pandemic and Japan’s skewed demographics
n the second Monday in January every year, Japan’s 20-year-olds put on their best kimono and suits, brave the winter chill and congregate at event halls across the country to celebrate their official passage into adulthood.
But for the latest cohort of Japanese men and women who have turned 20 in the past eight months – or will do so by 1 April – this year’s festivities will be tinged with anxiety, as they contemplate a future filled with uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic and Japan’sMao Kato, who celebrated her 20th birthday last month, will be among those marking the occasion the traditional way, in a colourful, or coming-of-age ceremony.
Kato, who graduates in two years’ time, will enter a job market very different from the one experienced by her parents’ and grandparents’ generation. Japan’s “lost” two decades of low or no growth and the rise of low-paid, non-regular workers have created a generation that can no longer look forward to the postwar guarantees of lifetime employment, seniority-based pay rises and a comfortable pension.
A record low number of 1.2 million people in Japan greeted the Year of the Tiger as new adults, according to the internal affairs ministry, 40,000 fewer than the previous year and an all-time low since the government began keeping records in 1968. Twenty-year-olds now account for just 0.96% of Japan’s 125 million people.