Blogs and Articles from Third Way Forum Membrs

・ Western people often have a critical view toward the future of Japan mainly because they see the statical data such as the drastically aging and shrinking demographic trend of Japan and predict that the future of Japan will be a very dark one especially for the younger generations.

・ However, many young Japanese people seem to be unaware of or even apathetical toward their expected future. They may not get the real picture because the Japanese media does not talk about it all the time. Also, they can easily lose themselves in the internet, Netflix and games etc. So they probably never get to know about the inconvenient truth about their own future.

・ Also, we hear all sorts of different scenarios about Japan’s future, some of them are even positive speculations such as Japan would still be raked 4th in GDP in the world in the 2nd half of the 21st century. Some people think it is great that people can now work remotely and rural areas of Japan would have a bright future. Then they decide to move to rural areas out of cities with the families. But the population in rural areas of Japan are expected to drastically decrease and many local governments, infrastructure facilities as well as commercial services will disappear.

・ It is hard to judge what scenarios are the correct ones about the future of Japan, but we should maintain our critical thinking skills and make fact-based decisions.

・ Young people in Japan today have more options in terms of life styles and types of jobs. So they should feel freer and less stressed.

・ Although the situation generally looks better for young Japanese and it might get even better due to the increasing labor shortage, they need to be cautious in a different way, While in past the life long employment system was a guarantee for a good living including retirement, the change of the employment system requires that the young Japanese need to care early and by their own about the time when they are older or not able to work as they do at young age. In particular, the young part-time workers might get in severe financial difficulties in future.

・ However, when it comes to their financial situation, it seems the gap between the rich and the poor is getting bigger among younger generations. While there is a minority of successful youtubers and entrepreneurs, many young people in big white collar companies are facing a very slow moving career prospect due to so many older people blocking their promotions. And their salary is not expected to rise so much for a long time. Also there is a growing number of young people who live in their own cyber world most of the time without participating in the society.

・ IT used to be a white collar profession but since IT has become everybody’s daily life, IT jobs have now become blue collar jobs. So there are as many corporate jobs that are not high paying jobs anymore. It is getting more difficult for young people to make decent money in the corporate world. That’s why so many 20-something y/o Japanese workers in big companies are already doing some side jobs regardless of whether or not their companies allow them . They are doing it for their survival.

・ There is no transparency about the starting salary level and salary raise prospect at many companies. So young people have no idea when they join the company. They can realize only after joining a company that their salary is much lower than others.

・ In the US, there is a resurgence of labor movement. Many political parties in Japan are also emphasizing on the redistribution of wealth although Japan is not getting wealthier at all. We may soon see Communist Manifest to be widely read among young students in the near future.

・ The best advice we could give for young people living in Japan is to be totally responsible for your own future and try to contribute by what you are most good at and passionate about. Then working should not be a pain but a joy regardless of the amount of money you are making. At the end of the day, the best possibility for anybody to succeed is to do what you love to do most. So take your passion seriously and think how you can earn money with it.