> What the author does not say is that a lot of those people live with their parents - and their whole income is expendible. I don't know if this phenomeneon started after the bubble economy, but it is quite shocking.

In many cultures, it's customary, even expected to live with one's parents at least until marriage, and possibly longer. Extended families are an important social resource, and the American model of immediate familial alienation upon reaching age 18 followed by a detached nuclear family is in many ways weaker.

I won't argue with your other points, though at the very least, a forum like Hacker News should have skeptical attitudes about such ideas as "permanent employment".

I understand your objection, but perhaps what he is saying will make more sense with a little background. It's not that these youth are people between jobs at startups, which is what this community might have in mind when hearing about someone who lives with their parents. There is an ever increasing number of Japanese youth who choose not to obtain full time employment, who work multiple part time jobs, and who do not amass any savings. It's not necessarily that they are not saving money because they aren't making enough; rather, they are spending all of it on non-essential material goods -- be it clothes or technology or collectible figures or any other such thing.

As far as I understand, this is a "live for now" cultural reaction against the failure of the salaried worker lifestyle that existed prior to the Lost Decade(s). It was once the norm for a Japanese student to graduate college and to then work for one company for the rest of their life. This was known as being a "salaryman". When Japan entered this long recession, many young people saw that their parents had worked so hard for a promise that couldn't be fulfilled. They rejected the salaryman lifestyle for the sake of a less stressful, less structured lifestyle focused more on cultural identity, such as style, music, a hobby, etc.

Sometimes such youth do move out (such as living with a partner -- marriage is becoming increasingly delayed though) but I think that the criticism is that this lifestyle is just the pendulum swung fully the other way: it is too focused on the immediate future and lacks any long term planning. A person in this situation will have a difficult time dealing with a family emergency, whether it is a sick parent or a pregnant girlfriend, for instance.

There's quite a bit of disinformation in your comment.

* that people live with their parents is only "shocking" if you happen to come from a country where that is considered taboo. In many countries it's not considered shameful to live with your parents while you're single. It didn't start after the bubble, it started like 1000 years ago. Yeah, there's a downside to it, but then there's also a downside to getting into debt in order to live by yourself.

* the percentage of car ownership is quite high. Just google it.

* "Japanese health care is a joke" compared to what? Look at life expectancy numbers, doctors per capita, etc.

* Internet banking has been around for years. ATMs are open 24/7 in convenience stores.

* etc

> In many countries it's not considered shameful to live with your parents while you're single.

I can completely understand that you want to live with your parents when you are studing (or a young working adult). But 28years+ is becoming a bit ridiculous. Maybe it is because a lot of people are not getting married anymore. But the point is that many people (and some of my friends) can not afford a really expensive apartment. Tokyo is expensive to live in.

Anyways, the point I wanted to make is the Article's comment about the clothes young people wear - it is quite deceptive to use such a metric.

> * "Japanese health care is a joke" compared to what? Look at life expectancy numbers, doctors per capita, etc.

Life expectancy is higher in Japan partly because of diet (there are not that many overweight people - that is almost the norm in USA and Aus. Even trying to get overweight with the FAtkins diet followed in USA and Australia would be prohibitively expensive in Japan).

The USA's life expectancy is also lower due yo violent crime, excessive deaths due yo traffic accidents, AIDS and other lfestyle diseases).

Yet life expectancy is not the only measure of health care. There are other factors such as quality of life. The simple fact is that dental care in Japan is far behind the west (and I am not talking about the poorest of the poor without proper dental care, but fairly rich upperclass people).

> ATMs are open 24/7 in convenience stores.

That is true, I grant you that. 7-11 ATMs are open, but you will not find your banks ATM open after 19h00 (e.g. JP postbank).

PS: The goal of my post is not for Japan bashing but trying to give an unromanticized balanced view. There are many things wrong with the Japan, just as there are many things wrong with the west.

> Anyways, the point I wanted to make is the Article's comment about the clothes young people wear - it is quite deceptive to use such a metric.

I agree with that.

Also with unemployment: in Japan, unemployment benefits and welfare in general isn't as nearly as extensive as in the US (let alone Western Europe), women drop out of the workforce earlier, etc, so it's not appropriate to compare the unemployment rate in isolation.

> PS: The goal of my post is not for Japan bashing but trying to give an unromanticized balanced view

Well, you have to admit that "Japanese health care is a joke" does sound like bashing. ;-)

I'm with on most of that, but what do you mean by "FAtkins" diet?

Severe carbohydrate restriction may be to difficult for most people to stick with, and therefore not optimal for keeping the weight off. But there is is irrefutable evidence that carbohydrate restriction will result in weight loss.

I was refering to a diet full of delicious red meat, bacon and carbohydrates. The diet is popular in many countries and I love it too.

But it is a simple fact that such a diet is impossible in Japan. The price of meat, especially red meat is extremely high.

PS: I agree with you that a carbon restricted diet has obvious healt benefits. My point was that following an unhealthy red meat diet in Japan is impossible due to price.

  * Internet banking has been around for years. ATMs are open 24/7 in convenience stores.

Except on public holidays when said ATMs magically cannot process credit card transactions. Japanese banks are most certainly a joke. I know of one large Japanese bank that completed all transactions on paper (they would process it electronically then print it out and hand verify the details) until a few years ago. Think of a vast network of vacuum tubes launching paper around a building storing billions of records. That was their head office.

This was the case until the mid- 2000s (to the point where if you didn't take money out before New Years, you might find yourself penniless for a few days).

Over the last few years 24/7, 365 days/yr ATMs are have become much more common. As have ATMs that accept foreign banking cards. As has a more generalized acceptance of CCs.

It happened to me last year during Golden Week so not that much has changed. I should have known better because I'd seen ATMs turned off during public holidays before. I even had large hotels refuse to accept credit cards but eventually I found accommodation and a restaurant that accepted Visa.

Ironically it happened to me today (which is a holiday in Japan). The ATM at one of the convenience stores wouldn't connect to my bank after 5pm. Luckily the ATM at the convenience store right beside it was working...

ATMs in banks and train stations, sure, but not the ones in 7-11s. (You'll notice nandemo said "in convenience stores").

Some comments:

Dental care is not part of "universal health care" in many first world countries, including the one I'm coming from, Switzerland.

Countries with great public transport, such as Japan, should logically have lower car ownership rates than countries like the US of A. I don't have a driver's license.

> Firstly, yes there are many people with fancy clothes. What the author does not say is that a lot of those people live with their parents - and their whole income is expendible. I don't know if this phenomeneon started after the bubble economy, but it is quite shocking.

Living in larger family units is actually very efficient. The way we do things here in the U.S. is actually shockingly inefficient. Parents buy big houses in the suburbs when they have kids, and don't down size when the kids leave. So you have an older couple using one floor of an oversized house and the kid maintaining a separate household. Then when the kid has kids, they buy another big house in the suburbs, then pay someone thousands of dollars a month to take care of said kids after school. Meanwhile the grandparents sit around their big house bored and lonely.

There are a lot of weird cultural taboos in the U.S. that create this state of affairs, but the end result is vast inefficiency in resource usage compared to societies where bigger households are the norm.

>Living in larger family units is actually very efficient.

Maybe so, but it's not a sign of excess wealth. Japanese young people live with their parents longer than was customary thirty years ago, so it's not a question of culture. They simply can't afford to move out.

All that means is that Japanese young people are getting married later than was customary 30 years ago. For the eldest son, it's still expected in some families that he will never move out, even after getting married (my brother-in-law was roped into this, after having moved away to Kanagawa. He gave up his job and moved back into his parents home because his father more-or-less ordered him to). It's cultural as much as economic.

Which is the chicken and which is the egg? Are they moving out later because they're getting married later, or are they getting married later because they're moving out later?

A lot of these people start renting out the extra space.