They are suffering from the stresses of an overbearing culture. Who has time to date when you are worried about getting perfect academic scores just to get a decent job? And then when you do get that job, you work endless hours to keep it for fear of losing it so you have no time to date or meet people. And if you fuck up in anyway people treat you like a social pariah and it could have serious repercussions upon your career even. And after they spend 20 years of doing that, with everybody else around them doing the same thing, it becomes normalized behavior.
Going out for drinks after work isn't relaxation, it is part of the job and the opposite of relaxation. How are you going to meet new people in the first place if you never go out for yourself? Trying to start a relationship with a coworker could result in an even worse potential outcome if things don't work out, potentially ruining both of your careers.
While that makes sense for working people and before high school, it doesn't explain the situation for university students. Time in university is rather stress free for the majority of Japanese students.
Another issue with your assessment is that things have gotten better rather than worse in terms of personal time and freedom. Still worse than in other countries I'm sure, but the trend there does not correspond with the dating trend.
My impression is that people who do have free time in Japan spend an awful lot of it on their hobbies and doing additional part time to fuel them, where hobbies are mostly travelling, media consumption, or going to events (like live concerts).
There' no shortage of consumers who spend time and money on entertainment. Also, I'm not sure the article says anything about dating in general. It talks about both (!) some people not being interested in sex and others being more intetested and earlier. Things are getting more extreme on both ends. I don't think that is explained by stress or work and academic pressure.
I don't have an explanation but maybe it's grounded in the fact that people have more (!) personal freedom then less these days, i.e. that there is less pressure to go along with what everybody does. As far as I know that is not too dissimilar to the situation in the 70s so it kind of makes sense.
I'm not surprised. Some of these poor kids are on a rigid schedule from like 500 to 2200. Activities before school. School. Activities after school. School after school. Homework. Sleep(?)
It's not just a hinderance to developing a sex life; kids need unstructured time to develop their imaginations and cultivate genuine interest in topics. Being passionate about something will carry much further than any textbook knowledge.
I avoided the brunt of it as a Westerner, but it doesn't seem to get any better for adults in the workforce, if the sheer volume of meetings, seminars, and busywork I witnessed is anything to go by.
Elementary school and university seem to be the only relative respites from the grind.
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[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 19.9 ms ] threadGoing out for drinks after work isn't relaxation, it is part of the job and the opposite of relaxation. How are you going to meet new people in the first place if you never go out for yourself? Trying to start a relationship with a coworker could result in an even worse potential outcome if things don't work out, potentially ruining both of your careers.
Another issue with your assessment is that things have gotten better rather than worse in terms of personal time and freedom. Still worse than in other countries I'm sure, but the trend there does not correspond with the dating trend.
My impression is that people who do have free time in Japan spend an awful lot of it on their hobbies and doing additional part time to fuel them, where hobbies are mostly travelling, media consumption, or going to events (like live concerts).
There' no shortage of consumers who spend time and money on entertainment. Also, I'm not sure the article says anything about dating in general. It talks about both (!) some people not being interested in sex and others being more intetested and earlier. Things are getting more extreme on both ends. I don't think that is explained by stress or work and academic pressure.
I don't have an explanation but maybe it's grounded in the fact that people have more (!) personal freedom then less these days, i.e. that there is less pressure to go along with what everybody does. As far as I know that is not too dissimilar to the situation in the 70s so it kind of makes sense.
It's not just a hinderance to developing a sex life; kids need unstructured time to develop their imaginations and cultivate genuine interest in topics. Being passionate about something will carry much further than any textbook knowledge.
I avoided the brunt of it as a Westerner, but it doesn't seem to get any better for adults in the workforce, if the sheer volume of meetings, seminars, and busywork I witnessed is anything to go by.
Elementary school and university seem to be the only relative respites from the grind.