6 Comments

I work for a Japanese company in small city Japan (about 5 hours from Tokyo by car). I translate and interpret for the 250 so foreign workers there. Every year we have harassment training as per our RBA/CSR requirements. We use outsourced training videos that look like they were produced in the 90s (though they mention chat apps, the cloud, etc.). And though they drone about how "bad bad bad" harassment is, there's a very STRONG victim-blaming vibe. "As a new mother, you shouldn't demand your right to take maternity leave. After all, without the support of your coworkers, you couldn't take it." Almost fell out of my seat first time I had to translate it.

Expand full comment

As always, I find your articles fascinating. Many countries are going through the same issues Japan is going through, but for some reason, it seems more pronounced in Japan. Perhaps because of the economy? Or the work culture? Or the beliefs behind having children? Based on those 3 factors, I'm not surprised that folks are having less children or not at all, let alone not getting married. I'm divorced and would get married again, but have chosen to be childfree for my entire life, so I can certainly appreciate why folks choose not to go down that route, and for some, having children is a dream come true - to each their own :) In the future, we're going to have to continue to develop technologies to improve our lives that don't need as many humans to run it.

Expand full comment