A key issue for the Abe administration is to tackle Japan’s declining birthrate.
Now, the 2013 edition of the annual report issued by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has been unveiled, revealing that over half of men and women not only don’t have a partner, but they don’t even have a friend of the opposite sex.
Netizens were shocked at these percentages, making this one of the most tweeted about stories of the day.
From Yomiuri Shimbun:
60% Of Young Men And 50% Of Young Women Have No Partner
On August 26, the 2013 edition of the Annual Health, Labour and Welfare Report was unveiled.
This is the first edition of the report in which has dealt with “young people” as a separate theme, and one of the report’s special features was to analyse why young people are getting married later and the rate of unmarried people is rising, both of which are linked to the declining birthrate. The report stated “One cause of these problems is in the difficulty of finding your ‘ideal partner’ by yourself”.
Once the white paper is reported at a cabinet meeting in mid-September, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare is scheduled to publish the report.
Under the subtitle “Investigating Young People’s Consciousness”, the report analysed how young people felt about marriage, childbirth/child raising, and work.
Regarding marriage, the white paper indicated that “There is a limited number of young people who have a partner they who could possibly be a candidate for marriage”, based on results from the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (JSPSS) survey (2010), such as (1) Just under 90% of unmarried people aged between 18 and 39 want to get married; (2) More than 60% of men and 50% of women have neither a partner of the opposite sex nor a friend of the opposite sex.
Comments from Twitter:
ゆでりんゴー【ししし妖怪】 :
Uh-oh…! RT @aira69: A lot of my friends are like this…
宮崎 歩@狂犬野郎:
They say that just under 90% of unmarried people aged between 19 and 39 want to get married, but my desire to marry is zero.
ZsAiri:
Let’s date, baby.
キコキコ@エルフorララフェル:
This is basically self-harm, but I don’t even think man, I want to go out with her.
Iwataning:
I wonder if the fact that there is a 10% difference between men and women is because of a difference in the number of people.
ひろ:
Don’t worry guys, there’s still time w
s0407bali:
A lot of young people don’t have lovers, huh. And love is so special, too.
ぷにねこ:
Straight guys and girls have so many places where they can meet each other, so why the hell aren’t they out there getting know each other! The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare is definitely all like “What are you talking about? You faggots are the ones increasing the number of unmarried people!” (^_^;)
空想委員:
When I saw the headline, I thought “Oh, I guess that about half of them have someone to date, then,” but it seems that actually this is the “percentage who don’t even have a friend of the opposite sex, let alone a partner”. I really really wish that they would stop producing headlines that invite misunderstandings. #decliningbirthrate
ずん@横コツ所属:
Hah, 10% more guys (；^ω^)
信二
Ultimately, in the old days people mainly had arranged marriages, so even people who couldn’t find love could get married. These days, the way things are structured is that can’t find love= can’t get married, so the number of unmarried people is rising.
ヤギ。:
I don’t have a partner either…Is it because I’m an otaku? Because I’m a hentai?
JY:
Is the percentage difference because of two-timing?
のぶ
I wonder how much of the LGBT population is in there?
みやまち:
Huh? Seems like those percentages are a bit weird……_(:3｣ ∠)_I don’t have a partner though …_(:3｣ ∠)_
takeero:
Now’s the chance for those red-blooded nikushoku middle-aged men to come out!
ナッチ＠ｳｫｰﾙﾛｰｾﾞ女子:
These proportions are a bit weird…doesn’t this mean that a certain group of men are only going out with other men?
