Are You A Makeinu?

We’ve been discussing powerful social forces in Japan that are changing their economic landscape. For the first time ever, women are now more economically powerful than men in that country. You can read more about that in my previous two posts. What we’re going to look at today are some brief snapshots from Advertising Age that profile seven groups that are challenging the social status quo with serious economic implications.

• Schoolgirls/teenagers. The true arbiters of cool with wads of disposable cash and a sphere of influence that spans the globe. Obsessed with novelty.

• Makeinu. Single women in their 30s who have opted to forego the traditional marriage-children route in favor of careers and self-indulgence. The word translates to “loser dogs” but these women have taken ownership of the word as they reinvent what it means to be a young woman in Japan.

• Parasite Singles. A subset of Makeinu, these young, single women live at home, have jobs and spend their money on themselves at luxury spas, adventure travel, and other lavish extravagances. Total spending power estimated at $6.5 billion.

• Divorcees. These Boomer Japanese women have shed their husbands who devoted their lifetimes to work and not to their families and personal relationships. Newly empowered, these women are affluent, independent and ready for new experiences that let them flex their new status.

• Freeters. Young men and women who are abandoning their parents’ work ethic, working part-time or starting their own businesses and living at home with their mom and dad to save money. Not wealthy, but trendsetters nonetheless. The rise in young women entrepreneurs will likely have long-lasting repercussions on the expectations of future generations of Japanese girls.

• Otaku. Mostly male anime comic geeks who are deeply involved in the subculture and spend richly on anime-associated products.

• Neets. Stands for “Not in education, employment or training.” These freeloaders are still on mom and dad’s payroll, don’t go to school, don’t work and well, don’t generally contribute much to society as a whole. Estimated at 850,000 and growing. Further evidence of the physics theory that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction – this obviously reacting to the decades-long Japanese obsession with work first and foremost.

It’s getting interesting over there, folks. I’ll be watching with fascination as Japanese society weathers this latest cultural earthquake.

Comments

[luissa]

I'm just adding here but it certainly substantiates these past few entry's and sends my head reeling with questions. This is word-for-word a blurb I pulled from a very insightful book: What Women Really Want; How American Women Are Quietly Erasing Political, Racial, Class and Religious Lines to Change the Way We Live.

____________________________

The Japanese Factor:

If the "liberation" of American women from the marriage market strikes some as not a particularly radical trend, one need only look across the ocean to Japan to conclude that it is significant. Tradition and freedom make strange bedfellows, but in this culturally old-fashioned society, where gender roles are strictly prescribed, the percentage of women staying single is even greater than in the U.S. Over the past decade, the portion of Japanese women aged 25-29 who naver married has surged from 40% to 54%. Among women aged 30 to 34 the never-married group has increased from 14% to 27%. In a recent poll, 73% of single Japanese women said they were happy to remain single.

What is most interesting about this trend is that it seems to be driven by the heavy traditional burden placed on married women. In the 1980's a women unmarried by 25 was dismissed as "Christmas Cake-" thrown out on December 26. She was considered unattractive and outside the mainstream. But many Japanese women complain that men are still stuck with old-fashioned ideas about marriage, and they have befun to resist an institutional structure that often puts an end to their independence, careers and personal growth.

According to Frances Rosenbluth, professor of political science at Yale University, who has studied social trends among Japanese women, "Women are not satisfied with the old way, but they don't have a new way. They're stuck. The way they cope with that is by at least having some career before getting married. They figure once they get married, it's going to be all over."

Adding to the appeal of the single life is the complete absence of expectations for unmarried women. They often live at home, supported by their parents, while they spend their own earnings on leisure activities and travel.

Not too long ago, many Japanese hotels would not even allow women traveling alone to spend the night, fearing they were looking for a place to commit suicide. Now single women have become some of their best customers.

____________________________

[Steve Nordquist]

s.b. romanized (pronounced) Maake-inu, methinks...
Markets Wolves might make sense for a young I'll-be-Investing-For-A-Living-Soon-Thank-You gal...but that's Mononoketai no something.

Hi from the Otaku contingent. Wave, you network administrator people! (Although too... http://www.tformers.com/article.php?sid=5149 ?! Sticking with Anime here.)
Check out _Densha Otoko_ for a funny love story about um...us.

Well, I'm off to buy lots of plaids and suspenders then; destiny's destiny.

[bdiego]

Women in Japan have been more economically powerful than men for over 2000 years. They literally controlled the family money and made all purchases. That was their job as housewives, and why when the family is unexpectedly out of money husbands would traditionally blame their wives.

You're probably trying to make a different point like "Women have more money now than ever", or "Women can spend lots of money how they like". Because unlike the last 2000 years where it was family money, their free spending money has definitely increased.