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An ABEMA TIMES article about a future society where “half of people have no spouse” became a hot topic on 5ch’s Newsspeed+ (News Speed+) board. In the thread, opinions split along generational and personal lines — from financial gripes like “I’d marry if I had the money,” to accounts of the liberating feeling after divorce, to questions about the link between non-regular employment and marriage.
Is a society where “half of people have no spouse” just around the corner? What does Japan’s future of “more people not marrying” look like… Experts weigh in: “Building a society that doesn’t depend on children could, paradoxically, increase the number of children”
Thu, 8/27, 11:00 AM JST
ABEMA TIMES
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
I don't have that kind of money.
If I had money, I'd actually want to get married…
Re: #2 Re: #5
It's precisely because you don't have money that you get married — two incomes make one full income. These days, unless you work for a seriously good company, your testicles or ovaries will have already rotted away by the time a single income could support you.
It's precisely because you don't have money that you get married — two incomes make one full income. These days, unless you work for a seriously good company, your testicles or ovaries will have already rotted away by the time a single income could support you.
Re: #1
Call it an old-fashioned value if you want, but we shouldn't have thrown away the idea that you're only truly a full-fledged adult once you're married.
Call it an old-fashioned value if you want, but we shouldn't have thrown away the idea that you're only truly a full-fledged adult once you're married.
Re: #8
That's on married people who never actually grew up. Please go be a proper adult (´・ω・｀)
That's on married people who never actually grew up. Please go be a proper adult (´・ω・｀)
In today's society, being older and single doesn't really put you at any disadvantage, so given the choice between marrying some boring woman (or man) and staying single forever, I'll take single forever.
Re: #19
If you earn a reasonable amount, you can live a reasonably fun life. I'm nearly 50 and got my motorcycle and boat licenses — started going fishing and camping, picked up all sorts of new hobbies.
If you earn a reasonable amount, you can live a reasonably fun life. I'm nearly 50 and got my motorcycle and boat licenses — started going fishing and camping, picked up all sorts of new hobbies.
Re: #15
What's someone supposed to do if they just want to be a "Category 3 insured person" (a dependent spouse who pays no pension premiums but still gets pension credit)?
What's someone supposed to do if they just want to be a "Category 3 insured person" (a dependent spouse who pays no pension premiums but still gets pension credit)?
Re: #21
People like that should just move to some Islamic country and settle in as, say, a third wife. Japan itself had concubines listed in the family register up through the early Meiji era, so I think it'd be fine to bring that back. If a man has the money and can love them all equally, why not allow polygamy?
People like that should just move to some Islamic country and settle in as, say, a third wife. Japan itself had concubines listed in the family register up through the early Meiji era, so I think it'd be fine to bring that back. If a man has the money and can love them all equally, why not allow polygamy?
24 years into my marriage, my kid grew up and moved out on their own, and I finally divorced the wife I never got along with. Living alone for the first time in 24 years, I feel so liberated — it's incredibly refreshing. No child support to pay either, so now I get to spend my entire ¥400,000 monthly salary on just myself, and I've got real financial breathing room too. Hooray for single life!!
Re: #22
Congrats! Being stuck married when you don't get along is rough.
Congrats! Being stuck married when you don't get along is rough.
Re: #22
I don't know anyone else who's as much of a true winner as you.
I don't know anyone else who's as much of a true winner as you.
People without kids really are narrow-minded — they're always shoving their own idea of "righteousness" on everyone else.
Re: #25
Though a broke parent playing the "I have kids so I'm special" card is way worse.
Though a broke parent playing the "I have kids so I'm special" card is way worse.
You don't even need to get married — just make having at least one kid mandatory. Men provide the "seed," too. Society as a whole raises whatever child is born, and whoever gave birth gets a big subsidy. Win-win, right?
Re: #30
Once you give birth, you're on the hook for child support forever.
Once you give birth, you're on the hook for child support forever.
It's the age of diversity, so treating being single as some kind of problem is the weird part.
Re: #38
This whole "age of diversity" thing is just an illusion.
This whole "age of diversity" thing is just an illusion.
Sure, you occasionally get weird people who are married, but people who've never been married are, without exception, not right in the head.
Re: #44
Among men especially there are a lot of socially awkward weird types, but men who've been single their whole lives are pretty seriously odd — basically all of them are the type who are better off not forcing themselves to deal with other people and just living freely on their own.
Among men especially there are a lot of socially awkward weird types, but men who've been single their whole lives are pretty seriously odd — basically all of them are the type who are better off not forcing themselves to deal with other people and just living freely on their own.
Even if you get married, unless you both die at the exact same moment, divorce or bereavement means one or both of you inevitably ends up without a spouse eventually.
Re: #48
Which is why most people go ahead and have kids anyway.
Which is why most people go ahead and have kids anyway.
I'm 51, high school grad, no work history — I can still turn my life around, right? I can land a permanent job at a decent company and get a wife around 35, right?
Re: #69
There's no "starting over" in life. Life is what you've built up along the way.
There's no "starting over" in life. Life is what you've built up along the way.
I make a decent income but I'm still single, so I figure there must just be something wrong with my personality.
Re: #81
Older singles who can't get married even past 40 tend to share the same traits: stingy, only thinking about themselves, and egoists incapable of consideration for others.
Older singles who can't get married even past 40 tend to share the same traits: stingy, only thinking about themselves, and egoists incapable of consideration for others.
Young people today think they've got plenty of room to just play around without marrying. By the time they realize it as they approach 30, it's already too late.
Re: #97
Past 30 I got lonely and got married. Now I come home from work and there's someone waiting with dinner made — what a happy thing that is.
Past 30 I got lonely and got married. Now I come home from work and there's someone waiting with dinner made — what a happy thing that is.
Can't be helped that the Ice Age generation (Japan's "employment ice age" cohort, hit hardest by the 1990s–2000s job crunch) couldn't get married. Guess you gotta blame the government on this one lol
Comparing to when I was a kid myself, today's kids — both boys and girls — seem more passive somehow.
Re: #168
That generation was still pretty proactive.
Re: #168
That generation was still pretty proactive.
Re: #168
The marriage rate had already been falling before the Ice Age generation. It's almost certain that generations after the Ice Age cohort will end up with an even higher lifetime unmarried rate than the Ice Age generation itself. It's simply not true that only the Ice Age generation isn't marrying or having kids — if anything, the birth rate actually recovered while the latter half of that generation was having children. So no matter what the government does, it can't reverse the trend of falling birthrates and rising non-marriage. Every developed country is the same way.
The marriage rate had already been falling before the Ice Age generation. It's almost certain that generations after the Ice Age cohort will end up with an even higher lifetime unmarried rate than the Ice Age generation itself. It's simply not true that only the Ice Age generation isn't marrying or having kids — if anything, the birth rate actually recovered while the latter half of that generation was having children. So no matter what the government does, it can't reverse the trend of falling birthrates and rising non-marriage. Every developed country is the same way.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “Is a society where half of people have no spouse just around the corner? What does Japan’s future of more people not marrying look like…”.
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