Posted on 09/08/2001 5:49:07 PM PDT by Mahone
Japan's 'parasite singles' blow their wages on a life of luxury
Cherry Norton, Tokyo
Big spenders: many young Japanese buy only designer gear
AT £1,500 a month her income may be below average. But for Keiko Yamada, expensive accessories from European designer shops are among life's essentials. Emerging from the ultra-chic new Louis Vuitton store in Tokyo's Ginza shopping district last week, clutching a £415 bag, the 28-year-old bank clerk was unrepentant about spending the bulk of her salary on luxury goods.
"I want to enjoy myself and spend my money on nice things," she said. "I've grown up with these brands, they are in all the fashion magazines. You could say I'm brainwashed, but I love them."
Yamada is one of Japan's estimated 10m "parasite singles" - a growing band of young people in their twenties and thirties who still live with their parents. Like her contemporaries, she pays no rent or bills and is provided with meals and laundry free, allowing her to spend almost her entire pay packet on designer gear.
In a country struggling with a severe downturn and the highest unemployment since records began in 1953, a boom fuelled by the large disposable incomes of women such as Yamada in sales of foreign luxury brands has confounded retailers and economists alike. Although the Nikkei index has fallen to a 17-year low, top fashion houses are building flagship stores to meet the demand.
Louis Vuitton, Emporio Armani and Prada are all opening soon in Omotesando in central Tokyo. The area will also see the establishment of two large complexes devoted to foreign brands and Christian Dior's biggest outlet in Japan. Cartier plans a store in Ginza next year.
"The effects of the bursting bubble economy have been minimal for us and we have seen sales grow annually by more than 10%," said Vuitton, which sells more than £500m worth of goods a year in Japan - almost 100 times more than 20 years ago.
While upmarket retailers are enjoying unprecedented levels of growth, traditional stores have issued profit warnings and plan to cut staff. Last year Sogo, one of Japan's most famous chains, went bankrupt.
Hidehiko Sekizawa, executive director of the Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living, in Tokyo, said there was no doubt that the "parasite singles" were the driving force behind luxury goods sales - even though their average income is a modest £18,500 a year.
"Such a high percentage of the monthly income of these women is disposable that £400 or £500 for a handbag is not expensive," Sekizawa said. "Japanese women have an intense commitment to luxury labels, especially European ones. Even schoolgirls will have a Gucci belt or a Vuitton purse."
Government figures show that nearly half of all Japanese women are still single at the age of 29 and growing numbers are postponing marriage until 35 or beyond. Nine out of 10 single women still live with their parents. Noriko Suzuki, 33, another self-confessed "parasite single", said she did not aspire to marriage or a family.
"This way I have my own income and am free to do as I please," she said. "My boyfriend does not earn enough money for us to live in the way I want or to buy the things I like."
Michiko Miyamoto, a professor of sociology at Chiba University, attributed the phenomenon to the unwillingness of many young people to take responsibility for their lives.
"Japanese women in their twenties and thirties are childish and dependent. They are not willing to become proper adults," she said. "Parents are partly to blame. They want to keep their daughters with them for as long as possible in the hope that they will look after them when they are older."
If these 29 year old women were living on their own, paying their own bills, spending within their means, not leeching off mom and dad, and saving for retirement, I would have no problem with them spending their extra income on designer labels. Personally, I love fashion, makeup, clothes, and shoes.
Spend smarter, not harder.
But then self-sacrifice is just so old fashioned isn't it?
And to think, I drop mine off at private school every morning with the warning "Learn well, in 5 more years, we change the locks."
/john
Particularly notable was the popularity of gold crosses as fashion accessories, with no thought given by wearers to the symbolic nature of such items to Christians.
What's your take on this, A.I.T. (if you're out there)?
The trick is to position yourself in a way that they willing distribute some of their wealth to you!
There aren't very many jobs where un(der)educated women can make enough money to live on. It's expensive here. I agree with your first statement though.
No, it's the refusal to grow up.
Something like that.
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