Hikikomori and Other Pathologies: A new approach to understanding Japan's competitiveness challenge

I would like to discuss not only the phenomenon of hikikomori, but also hikikomori as a metaphor. Before doing so, here is a Japanese riddle: When interest rates rise, do stock prices rise or fall? Normally speaking, stock prices are supposed to go down when bond rates go up. When interest rates go up, people can safely invest their money in bonds as they are more advantageous, and they sell off stocks. This is something like an "iron law" of economics across the world, but not in Japan.

The last time the Bank of Japan (BOJ) raised interest rates, stock prices soared. It is strange that, in a country with an interest rate of zero, when the central bank raised interest rates, the stock market should soar. The reason for this was that the when the BOJ raised rates it was signaling that there was real economic recovery after many years of deflation, and this was taken as a sign that it was time to buy into a stock market that was going to improve.

In the West, we say that "time is money and money is time." Therefore, if money is free - as it is at zero interest rates - then time must be infinite. That means for the past 15 years while the Japanese economy has been underperforming, because interest rates were zero, nobody was in enough of a hurry to change things. I do believe that Japan is changing quicker than ever before, but is it changing fast enough? In this context, I would like to look at hikikomori.

MTV Europe carried out a survey among young people around the world in which they asked how the participants felt about themselves, their future, and their country, and whether they were optimistic or pessimistic. Japan came right at the bottom of the list. Only 8% of Japanese aged 16-34, and 13% of Japanese aged 8-15, responded that they were optimistic about the future. This is far below even the second lowest country in this survey, the UK. This is just to illustrate that the mood of the youth in Japan is very pessimistic.

There are a number of phenomena associated with this feeling of what I call "contemporary alienation." The first is "birth collapse": the falling birthrate. I believe this is due to the fact that most taboos no longer exist in Japan, including the now-accepted practice of enjokousai. The one taboo that still exists in Japan is for a woman to have a child outside of marriage; therefore marriage is very important for birthrate. I have discovered, however, that there are two kinds of women in Japan who do not get married.

The first kind are those women who have become known as "parasite singles": they prefer the independence of working and spending their money on designer goods while living with their parents to getting married and being constrained to having to stay at home. The second kind are those women who want to get married but are unable to find men; this is directly related to the collapse of omiai. This all leads to a rapidly aging society.

A second phenomenon associated with this contemporary alienation is hikikomori, which literally means to "pull in" and "retire." I wondered whether an understanding of this uniquely Japanese phenomenon would help in understanding some of the other paralysis I saw in Japanese society. Through my studies of it, I have come to believe that hikikomori is a modern type of distinctively Japanese rebellion.

In the West young people tend to rebel outwardly through independence, whereas in Japan young people rebel inwardly through over-dependence. I believe that the problems of suicide, parasites singles, birth collapse, and hikikomori are all types of rebellion. For me, what is different about hikikomori is that it is an overwhelmingly male (80%), distinctively Japanese phenomenon.

Hikikomori tend to be the sons of powerful or successful people in the bureaucracy or corporations, i.e. from families in which there is a high expectation on the son to succeed. The official definition of hikikomori from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare is those who live as a recluse in their room for six months or longer; have no intimate friendships with people outside their family; are not suffering from psychotic disorders; and are not able to participate in school or work.

Based on my conversations with psychiatrists, clinical studies suggest that hikikomori are very distrustful of other people and are unable to form intimate relationships; they are unwilling or unable to abide by the Japanese social conventions of honne and tatemae, which leads to attachment trauma and dual personalities; and often come from homes in which the mother and father have great difficulty in expressing emotional connection or love to the children.

There are two overarching views of hikikomori in the popular press: one is that they are spoiled brats who want to leech off their parents, and the other is that they are suffering from a mental illness and need help. I have a different view. I believe that they are creative, articulate, sensitive adults who are looking for a way out of a system that will not allow them to be different. Proof of this is that if they leave Japan, many of them end up doing very well. Creating space for these individuals is very difficult. I believe that there are many hikikomori in Japan who would have a huge amount to contribute to society, were they given the chance. This is one problem for Japan's global competitiveness going forward.

There are at least three issues related to hikikomori that I believe retard Japan's ability to compete globally and, unless this is corrected, will end up causing Japan itself to become hikikomori. Just as a hikikomori is dependent on his mother to provide him with food, the Japanese economy is dependent on a small percentage of companies which are very competitive in the export market.

In Japan there are a number of psychological, social elements that are different to those in the West. Firstly, the notion of selfhood: In Japan, the notion of selfhood is about context, whereas in the U.S. it is about individuality. For example, when introducing yourself in Japan, you must say the name of your workplace first in order to supply the relevant context for yourself. Also, in a test carried out at the University of Michigan and Kyoto University in which students were asked to take a photograph of their best friend, the U.S. students took photographs in which their friend took up the majority picture, whereas the Japanese students took photographs in which the figure of the person was much smaller, in order to show the context. This is because I believe Japanese people are not able to understand who a person is without context. To me, that is the nature of the Japanese construction of identity: group context.

This was also illustrated by the "Michigan Fish" experiment done by Masuda and Nisbett, in which students from the same two universities were asked to look at a picture of a fish tank. This experiment showed that U.S. students tend to look at salient objects in the foreground, whereas Japanese students tend to understand salient objects by looking at the background.

This question of context is one of the challenges facing Japan in the globalizing world. For example, if a foreign person comes from a different context, it is very difficult for a Japanese person to understand or work with that person. This has to do with what I call "social trust." U.S. society is very heterogeneous, therefore we have to learn to live with one another and have in place rules and regulations for transparency to enforce trust if trust cannot be granted.

In a survey taken in the U.S., 70% of respondents said that they felt they could trust a stranger on the street. This is not the case in Japan, despite its incredible homogeneity. This is summed up by the Japanese aphorism "Hito wo mitara dorobou to omoe," which means "The stranger I meet on the street is likely to steal from me." When polled on this, 70% of Japanese respondents said they agreed with that saying.

This is an important problem if we look at it in the context of the network economy as expressed by Kevin Kelly in his book New Rules for the New Economy. Kelly says, "The network economy is founded on technology but can only be built on relationships. It starts with chips and ends with trust..." I believe the question of social trust presents a real challenge for Japan as it tries to globalize in the 21st century.

When looking at investment in innovation abroad, the U.S. and Japan tend to spend a proportionally equal amount in research and development (R&D), but the style of investment is different. U.S. companies that want to open offices abroad usually send one American and one non-resident from the target country who had been working in the firm, and then they hire from the local population. Japanese companies on the other hand tend to just buy innovative foreign companies. I believe that this is also about the challenge of social trust.

The competitive agenda for Japan is about allowing the creative to "come out" and be different, and to allow people to express themselves in new ways. The Japanese system worked very well in the industrial age, and it is because it worked so well at that time that major corporations like Toyota and Canon are continuing to contribute to the trade surplus. The problem is that we no longer live in an industrial age; we live in a post-industrial age where technologies like the Internet have empowered the individual to be creative and be able to create value. Japan has a problem because it does not know how to let the individual come out in an environment which increasingly demands it.

The other part of that challenge is learning how to collaborate with others in the 21st century, whether from the U.S., Europe, or even China. I do not think that China and Japan will necessarily come to blows over the future of Asia. I can see an enormous number of opportunities for Japan and China to work collaboratively in a win-win situation for both countries, but this will require effort. Japan must also recognize that its period of post-bubble deflation will not end without adaptation and change: change to empower the individual; change in the school system; change in the health system; and change to let people feel that there is more to life than just work.

Japan's choice is to either become able to collaborate in an effective way with the world or to withdraw into its "walled garden" supported by its exports while it slowly becomes less competitive and less important in the world. Japan has to choose whether it will go through a decade of restructure, reform, and opening-up - something like Thatcherism or Reaganism - in which there will be significant change and pain but will result in a better feeling afterwards, or Japan can pretend that there are no problems and do nothing so that nobody gets hurt in the short term. Even this is not guaranteed however, as shown by the new phenomenon of young people from the countryside coming to the cities and living in Internet cafes because they cannot afford housing.

My fear is that Japan will slowly erode, shrinking economically, demographically, and in terms of its power in the world. Without raising these issues, that is the course that Japan will take because many in Japan believe that nothing can be done. I do not believe that nothing can be done and I think the young generation does have the power to say that the current system, in which it is very difficult to speak one's mind or be different, must be changed and that people should be given a second chance.

Q: With reference to your ideas about the differences between Western and Japanese ways of thinking, were the psychological tests given to the hikikomori you mentioned Western tests? Are there any differences as to how a Japanese might react to the tests?

A: There is a great deal about hikikomori that we do not yet know. For instance, we do not know the actual numbers of hikikomori in Japan. Psychologists estimate that there are around 1 million hikikomori in Japan. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare on the other hand estimate there to be around 640,000 but, given what I know about the Japanese bureaucracy, in order for the number they give to be within the realms of possibility we ought to double it; therefore, 1 million seems like a good guess.

I hope that my studies will prompt some Japanese and non-Japanese researchers to work together on finding out just how bad the problem of hikikomori is, because the fact remains that the state of social science research in Japan about psychological issues is shamefully poor. This important research is not being done due to the hierarchy system of the Japanese education system, the fact that parents of hikikomori feel too embarrassed to ask for help, and the fact that the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare is not looking for more problems.

There are certain tests that are culturally sensitive in the same way that there are certain psychological therapies which are used in Japan that are not used elsewhere. The reason that I was able to interview these hikikomori was, according to the Japanese doctors, the fact that I am able to speak Japanese but do not have a Japanese face and therefore the hikikomori do not see me as judging them in the same way.

Q: Why has hikikomori not occurred before?

A: I believe that hikikomori is a post-bubble syndrome. I believe it is because, until the collapse of the bubble economy, young Japanese were willing to endure and do as they were told and follow orders because as long as the bubble economy lasted, so did the conveyor system: leave school, get a job for life, retire with a nice pension. Raises and promotions were seen as guaranteed as long as you did not step out of line. It is only since that system stopped working in the 1990s that young Japanese starting questioning the system in which one had to work incredibly hard but with no guarantees of reward.

The word hikikomori only appeared around 1999 or 2000, and there were probably a number of cases of hikikomori-like behavior before the collapse of the bubble but I believe that the problem has only really gained significant proportions since the collapse of the bubble.

Q: Is it possible that waiting another 10 years and slowly reforming so that "nobody gets hurt," as you put it, may not be the worst possible situation?

A: I disagree, because to me the sign of a healthy, self-sustaining recovery is when domestic consumption improves, not the continuing growth of the current account surplus. The driving factors behind the Japanese economy today are consumer exports to the debt-driven U.S. and capital equipment exports to China. This may, therefore, be a nice moment that masks a long-term trend.

I believe that young Japanese are not spending because they are pessimistic about their future and the future of their country; the trade surplus is just masking some of the deeper issues in this society. I do not believe that robots will be able to assuage the hyper-aging of Japanese society and, given the numbers of 55-year-old engineers being recruited to go to Taiwan and China to build the next generation of semiconductor facilities, I believe that the hollowing-out process is not yet finished.

Q: How do you assess the Koizumi administration and its structural reforms, and what are your views of the political process in the future?

A: I think that Prime Minister Koizumi did not really understand the economy but gave political support to Heizo Takenaka to do important things. Prime Minister Abe also does not understand the economy but does not care: that is the problem.

I believe that Mr. Takenaka and others really put on pressure to begin to deal with the problem of bad loans. That was an important change but there is much more to be done. I do also have to fault Koizumi for having sent troops to Iraq to fight what is a silly and unlawful war; especially according to the Japanese constitution. I understand why it was done but it was a terrible and wrong decision; as changing Article 9 of the constitution would be.

My great concern about Prime Minister Abe is that his response to the alienation and unhappiness among the young people of Japan - rather than confronting it and opening up the system - is to say that Japan needs patriotism and discipline and that the flag should be raised for a "beautiful country." I worry that these words are taken as an opening to create a silly nationalism among young Japanese, which is different from patriotism.

Koizumi did some things which may not be reversible, as shown by the fall in Abe's popularity rating when he let the postal rebels back into the party. Instead of focusing on becoming a stronger, more assertive "beautiful country," Japan should focus on using its wealth to make its people feel better about themselves and about their lives.

The whole point of the message of my research is to begin a conversation about what is wrong. I quote Murakami Takeshi, the anime artist, who wrote a book recently and said that, "Sixty years after the end of World War II Japan is prosperous and at peace, but everyone who lives here knows that something is wrong." I agree with that. I do not think that the proper response is rearmament and being assertive militarily. I think that the answer lies inside Japan in changing some of these outmoded ways of thinking and the very orderly, disciplined, do-as-you-are-told systems. I am not convinced that the Liberal Democratic Party really understands that.

Q: What do you think is the immediate prescription to change, even slightly, Japanese society?

A: To being with I do not believe that the problem of birth collapse will get solved by building more daycare centers. When you look at the demographic data, there are some specific mismatches affecting marriage.

The first is that the typical University of Tokyo-educated male does not want to marry the typical University of Tokyo-educated female. He wants to marry someone with less status and less education who he can tell to stay at home and raise children while he works. She does not want to be told that. She wants to marry a man who will respect that she also has a career. The other mismatch involves junior high school-educated men who cannot find wives.

This situation may be changing with the newest generation. I have some hope for the youngest generation because the freshman class entering the ministries this year is the first to be doing so without any memory of the bubble; it has no knowledge of guarantees and a job for life, so perhaps it will be a little more entrepreneurial.

I do think that attitudes are important. I do not offer easy, immediate prescriptions for two reasons. Firstly, I am from the U.S.; I am not Japanese. It is not for me to tell you what to do. When I was a journalist working here, one of the most painful processes I used to have to go through was watching the U.S. and Japanese business councils meet. The Japanese would ask the U.S. side what they should do, and the U.S. side would lecture them for an hour without giving the Japanese side a chance to say anything.

Some of the answers as to what should be done, I believe, lie with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and with the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. For example, there should be more diversity in education, giving students who want to specialize or study more in a certain area the chance to do so. Young Japanese should be told that it is acceptable not to be exactly the same as everyone else, and in fact this should be encouraged.

In the same way the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare needs to understand that it is not shameful to say that there is such a thing as depression. Unless we begin this honest conversation, people will just continue to deny that anything can be done.

Society should be opened up to allow different voices to come out, just as has happened with the breaking up of the kisha clubs in South Korea.

Q: Do you have any comment on the moves by the Prime Minister's Office to give young hikikomori or NEETs a second chance?

A: I know that during his election campaign Prime Minister Abe spoke about giving "losers" a second chance and that there was some political rhetoric about this but I have not seen any programs or substance to understand what this really means.

There is a "free space" in Saitama prefecture where hikikomori can go and study and meet with others and cook together. It is an alternative to the normal schools where they feel that they have no safety and no place. The gentleman who runs it is not somebody with training from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare; he is a former advertising executive who felt that he should do it because he saw the resources of these young people being wasted. I asked him what he wanted to teach these young people, and he said that the only thing that he could teach them was to make their own choices and to be responsible for those choices.

That is - in a sense - the secret to the rebirth of this country: not to be a collective society where decisions are made as a group, but be a society in which individuals make decisions for themselves and also take responsibility for those decisions. Why is it that for many Japanese corporations the notion of hiring someone at the age of 27 is so difficult? It should not be. Why is it that people who come home from having studied abroad are considered "weird" by their colleagues in Japan, instead of being valued for their skills?

Flexibility and adaptability are the key skills that are needed going forward. A country that only operates slowly through nemawashi, as harmonious as that may be, may lead to a lack of competitiveness going forward.

Q: What is the level of interest in the U.S. in the study of Japan?

A: My metaphor for the Japan-U.S. relationship nowadays is that of a telescope. Japan is looking the correct way through the telescope at the U.S. and everything seems very big, because the U.S. market is one of the most important for Japan and the Japanese feel a great kinship for the U.S. Unfortunately, the U.S. perspective is the opposite. Looking through the telescope the other way, Japan is a tiny dot in a big world.

Having been a foreign correspondent, I realize that U.S. readers are far less sophisticated than their Japanese counterparts, as shown by the fact that on any given day you can turn on the television in Japan and see news from a number of different countries. In the U.S. people tend to focus on only one or two countries, and of course of late this has included Iraq on the one hand, and in terms of Asia people are mostly concerned with China.

I believe that from a U.S. perspective Japan is a fascinating, difficult, and different country and I wanted to write a book that would be translated for both the U.S. and Japanese markets in order to increase mutual understanding.