It's odd that the article does not mention that Hikikomori syndrome is a disproportionately male phenomenon. Most estimates put it comfortably above 75%, with a 65%-85% tolerance range. Extreme Social withdrawal isn't an exclusively male problem, but it is hard to ignore its disproportionate impact on men.
> desperation as he quit society and normal life between the ages of 18 and 25
If your child face-plants out the gate at age 18, then it indicates gross failure of parenting and the school system.
I also looked into this a little more, and I believe these are out of date. It looks like it's much closer to evenly split than previously believed.
"A government survey has revealed that women make up almost half of the estimated 1.46 million people aged 15 to 64 who have withdrawn from Japanese society. It was previously believed that most of the recluses, known as hikikomori, were men."
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/2391/ [April 2023]
you are inflating the numbers of women by increasing the age range of the population. you are including old ladies and comparing their issues to the issues of young men, full of life who are lost or disappointed by the state of the world.
I don't understand why they give up, it's really a sickness. something old ladies wouldn't understand because they are alone after they had families who abandoned because she had a terrible attitude
It's much more socially acceptable for a woman to live with her parents though her twenties than a man. It won't negatively affect her dating prospects etc.
So much of life is centered around work for salarymen. Being out of that loop means you have limited disposable income, limited social opportunities, limited dating prospects. When you're all out of options, staying in and playing games seems pretty rational.
That was my thought: Women have an opt out. Given how sexist Japan is, being a housewife isn't great but at least there's an option and some agency. Also it's far easier to be a socially reclusive woman without being judged or people thinking you're not contributing. If you want to spend all day at home with your baby/toddler, people still think of you as a responsible adult even if you never talk to other adults and spend all of your spare time on hobbies. I also believe there's some cultural sense that not being able to do things can be 'cute' for girls.
Household help (家事手伝い) had been considered to a valid job for unmarried women. Recently researchers realized that some of them are also almost Hikikomori.
I assume this has something to do with the way Japanese society as a whole looks at boys and girls.
The default assumption seems to be that boys will always fail to live up to girls in any form of studying. Because boys are rough, like games and fight, and girls are diligent and always listen.
It’s seriously hammered into children from the moment they go to kindergarden. It’s no surprise it’s some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Pour a dysfunctional school system on top, and if you fail your middle school/high school/university entrance exams, your life is ruined.
If you get bullied in school, the teachers just look at you and say ‘eh, boys will be boys’.
This is the central debate in the gender war, the question of nature vs. nurture in relation to gender roles. We will probably be debating this until the end of time because it is somewhat unethical to raise a baby in a padded cell and see if they prefer dolls or legos.
I must admit I used to be on team nurture before I had my daughter. But seeing the way that she personified the lego figures and takes care of them (cooks them "food", drives them to school, etc) changed my mind. You can give dolls to boys too, but they're more likely to hit each other with them than nurture them. That drove home that most of this is really built into the firmware.
Children learn and play by mimetism. Me and my brother cooked a lot, as children, because my father was cooking most of the time (my sister still picked it up, but way latter).
I have been a summer camp counselor (and for 2 years a counselor year round at a non-profit, making physic and chemical experiments with kids, that's what brought me to CS) and I'd say role models are a big chunk of a kid outward character (at least before 12). Social group is another chunk, and obviously hormones is the last one dictated by first gender, but also food, and physical activity. Which to me is underrated. You aren't born as an adrenalin junkie, you become one. I've always been very meek and passive. Then I started windsurfing in hard/dangerous weather, and that totally changed my character. The 'surfer boy' cliché is real, but it's something you become, not something you are.
1) obviously, the initial, first, nurturing position will be a woman (womb + immediately after. It can't even be a transgender). And we can change a lot with medicine, but we can't change this. We're not 1-2 years, or even 10-20 years away from changing it. It'll be centuries.
2) When we try to use law to fix this, the big example are the Nordic countries. They were among the first to loosen up professions and have very flexible laws. But the proportion of women in nurturing positions actually went up instead of down. Now this may be local cultural attitudes asserting themselves of course, but if this doesn't work ... what will?
I found it a bit strange that in a photo captioned "Metaverse socialising events are one of the measures being used to ease the hikikomori back into society," Takimoto is watching a YouTube video of the (excellent) Final Fantasy 6 soundtrack.. Just poor captioning I guess.
Interesting that he "cured" himself by having an internal debate between his hikikomori self and his ideal self. Sounds a little like cognitive behavioral therapy where you identify and challenge your negative beliefs to determine whether they're correct.
The article, leading with the example of abuse by an elder, frames the situation well.
These individuals are making a decision based on the data they've been given: that the people outside their room want to hurt them, and there's little to be gained by leaving if they can avoid doing so.
When it's an individual recluse, it's on them. But when it's over a million people, they're not to blame.
It seems like this exact situation stands for much more:
When failing a entrance exam and having a person tell you, that there is no point in living from now on drives you into such a despair, where you cut yourself from really basic needs like socializing then I think there is something fundamentally wrong. In my opinion this symbolizes an immense pressure to conform to standards of society, and at a smaller scale, standards of the closer social circle. If society displays little compassion for individual hardships and failures, does not show softness, it's soon to be overwhelmed by mental health issues.
Could be, and maybe that is also the reason for the emerging mental health crisis. Or it's the other way round. Nevertheless, if one asks: What was different say 50 to 75 years ago? Was it the smaller social reference group (you couldn't compare to the worlds elite in every single aspect of your life)? Was it the way of live laid out more clearly (you could get somewhere with a corporate job, own a house, etc.)? Or is there a more fundamental reason mental health is declining and thus more and more people are NEET?
Spending your childhood soaking your brain in dopamine as you are drip fed risk free game achievements is unlikely to build as much resilience as pre-internet childhood.
I'd classify it slightly differently -- in pursuit of equality, we've narrowed or eliminated opportunities for true small successes in childhood.
Where true small successes require the potential of real failure.
In the 90s, I remember constantly failing in small ways: organized sports, quizzes and tests, gym class.
It wasn't pleasant, but because the opportunities were smaller, I feel I learned how to live with failure.
And critically, live with it: not ignore/reject it. "I objectively failed at this thing. That sucked. But I'm not going to let it keep me from trying the next thing" sort of stuff.
As a consequence of eliminating those chances, major opportunities are often the only opportunities, and encountering a first failure there is extremely traumatic.
I don't think this is it. The world is full of competition, despite attempts to sanitize it. Infact, it seems like people are more aware of the competition due to global social media. If we're looking at this from a learned helplessness perspective, I would guess that modern society is an impossibly competitive environment that crushes children more easily, not that they are weaker.
By lessening its prevalence. Participation-based awards. Eliminating contest sports in school gym. Non-100 point grading. Fewer tests. Games that are impossible/difficult to lose.
I'm not saying historical methods didn't need adjustment.
But I am saying that if we're observing bad outcomes downstream, we should look upstream and see if the systems we've put in place are supporting the outcomes we want to see.
There used to be sabretooth tigers outside your room that wanted to hurt you. I am not persuaded by that argument based on the simple fact that the world is orders of magnitude less scary than it used to be.
My theory is that it just got easier to not leave your room. That wasn't possible in the sabretooth tiger days, you'd starve. Now it's easy.
These are called NEET (not in education, employment, or training) in the west with a similarly large populace. I don't think we can attribute this to just Japan. Canada also has a NEET population problem.
I would rather attribute this to the rigors of society which doesn't allow for different development paths. Adulthood is a hard transition and some people need more time or different structures than others, but society doesn't allow for that. In the past these people would be vagrants until they "settled down" and could somewhat easily re-integrate back to society (employment as a stablehand could go to ferrier, horse trainer, or other land management). Now, with the need for specialization and training paired with age expectations, there's much less room.
It's only reasonable to decide your window is missed and therefore there's nothing for you.
Shut-in would be more accurate, NEET is basically unemployed. There's overlap sure but someone on a job hunt is a bit different than someone who doesn't leave their home.
I wonder if employment is really a valuable metric on it's own here.
I've known a lot of people who live with a bunch of roommates, each of them works just a little, part time fast food or grocery store job type things. Outside of the very minimal participation in society at their jobs, they mostly sit at home, drink, smoke weed, and play videogames.
Yeah, technically they aren't NEETs. Technically they don't live alone and eschew all social contact.
But it seems to me it's basically the same lifestyle. Just hampered by the need to support oneself somehow. If they received a basic income that covered a solo apartment, weed, and a game a month ( or MMO subscription ) they absolutely would not be employed or living with people.
> I would rather attribute this to the rigors of society which doesn't allow for different development paths. Adulthood is a hard transition and some people need more time or different structures than others, but society doesn't allow for that. In the past these people would be vagrants until they "settled down" and could somewhat easily re-integrate back to society (employment as a stablehand could go to ferrier, horse trainer, or other land management). Now, with the need for specialization and training paired with age expectations, there's much less room.
Given the phenomenon is almost exclusively male it probably has a lot to do with the borderline hatred for masculinity in the west as well. These men lack purpose that traditional masculinity provided. Before I get downvoted to death, I am not claiming the youtube star pseudo-masculinity is a good portrayal either (rather it is a reactionary movement to the prior). But the mixture of society not caring about men's issues at all (they don't exist, allegedly), the destruction of factory/manual work, men not going to college, dating apps creating a massive imbalance in sexual selection, etc all have an effect here. The situation seems hopeless for a lot of men. Who can blame someone for not trying when society seems to have it out for them.
Society created this problem. The pendulum swinging hard from misogyny to misandry has had a dramatic negative effect on boys and men in general. We need to take the attitudes we used to raise girls up and apply them equally to boys. It starts in school. Hell, even as a successful man by society standards I still often feel society is out to get me. We have a lot of work to do and the answer is not to blame men for being lazy NEETs (which is what the pop media does).
The original article here also says "The largest proportion of people affected [by being a hikkikomori] were in their 40s or 50s and roughly equally divided between men and women."
The Center for Economic and Policy Research actually notes significantly more female than male NEETs, though the female NEETs were also more likely to be disabled or caretaking for dependants. [0]
Those aren't NEETs but rather unemployed men unable to continue working often they're construction workers who's bodies give out. Since they are unable to be retrained in the Japanese system they often end up destitute and homeless. Along side recently divorced women unable to re-enter into the workforce it's two issues that are occurring simultaneously. There are some forms of resources for the women but the men are often left abandoned.
Are you replying to the link I posted? One of the summary bullet points: "More than half of young women not employed or in school (54 percent) fall into one of three categories related to disability and potential care obligations — have a disability, live with a disabled adult, or live with at least one of their children — compared to just over one-third of men who are not employed or in school (35 percent)."
The male NEETs in CEPR data were less likely to have a traditionally "good reason" for being a NEET.
NEET men were only slightly more likely to be disabled themselves than NEET women, and given the higher total count of NEET women, I'd guess this breaks out to about an equal number of each gender being NEET for reasons of their own disability.
I agree there does seem to be a disparity in resources for NEETs, though.
That study is much older, though. 2016. This recent government study was reported on in 2023. That 90% quote actually references an even older study, 2008! It could be possible that studies on NEET people were themselves biased in 2008 in a way that future surveys have resolved. Otherwise it might indicate there's a huge wave of women withdrawing from society over the past decade or so, which is a holy fuck situation.
I like newer data than older data, especially since the 2016 study is actually referencing a 2008 study. If we assume they're both true then we shouldn't be talking about men at all, and exclusively focus on the rapid retreat of women from society!
I wouldn't call it misandry. The traditional advantages that a man has enjoyed over the centuries are gradually losing in importance, yet a complementary decreasing of expectations has yet to happen. This might be creating the imbalance you are mentioning. It's not a "hate of men" but a bad transition, two pendulums out of sync if you want. Don't get me wrong, this is still bad but in a different way, and the clearer we have it the better can we react and hopefully fix it - not by reverting to "traditional" misogyny but by reaching some golden middle point whatever that is.
> The traditional advantages that a man has enjoyed over the centuries are gradually losing in importance
Like the privilege of dying in wars, working in coal mines, and working the trades that kill your back by the time you're 45 (50 if you're lucky).
Amazing. Do you honestly believe you're starting a good faith discussion when opening with this?
Some men enjoyed more privilege in the past, which was absolutely more than balanced out by the vast majority of men getting the shit end of the stick. Now it's just slightly less pronounced, because the whore world is high on exploiting hydrocarbons.
Schools are openly discriminating in favor of the female majority, while having no programs to promote the success of the male minority. Schools are less equal than when Title IX was enacted.
That’s misandry.
And it’s been happening for longer than I’ve been alive… as a middle aged man with a bald spot.
To say nothing of family court, criminal court, etc.
I think that we're getting away from the original discussion of NEETism by making this into a gender debate mostly in a western lens, even though we are talking about a global phenomenon.
Can you expand on the family court claims? From what I've heard, fathers who ask for custody are slightly favored over mothers in family court. Women only end up with custody so much more often because very few fathers ask for custody (and custody is usually not given to the unwilling).
The hollowing out of manual work in many developed countries, replaced with bimodal service jobs (either high-income or low-income), is definitely a contributing factor.
"I can go out and find a decently paying job on the strength of my body, rather than what I've learned/trained" is no longer true in most developed economies.
Economically arguably, that's a good thing.
But it does leave a clear gap for people who don't want to / can't enter into the knowledge workforce.
Couple this with labor devaluing (salary and respect) at the hyper-efficient consumer businesses that do remain and provide the only entry-level jobs in many areas, and it's no surprise you have many people checking out.
fail - "generalized gender problem" is not the lense that will understand, diagnose and prescribe for all people in all places. Rather it serves to unilaterally hijack the conversation into self-referential back and forth that is unresolvable in the general case, almost by definition?
I'm not sure if the ability to be a vagrant has really changed much. I think rather what has changed is the level of social enablement for people to wallow in there situation and avoid leaving their comfort zone.
Why would anyone go down the path of becoming a vagrant and eventually reintegrating if the alternative is to stay at home in relative comfort, be fed 3 meals a day, and be provided with electronics for video gaming?
NEET aren't "just unemployed", it's a four letter acronym, employment is only one of them
Not in
Employment
Education or
Training
It basically means "Not doing anything to better themselves"
Yes, it doesn't imply "completely withdrawn from society" the same way, but that doesn't realt change the fact that many NEETs are in fact completely withdrawn.
>Adulthood is a hard transition and some people need more time
I live in the US, and everyone in my social network (age 40 to 60) was booted out of their parents house around age 18. And my piers in their 50s appear to be doing the same with their kids. Adulthood is the original "fake it till you make it" situation. Parenting is as well. Assuming there's no health issues at play, parents are doing their children a disservice by not allowing them to become adults.
I'm American, but I know someone who seems to fit the definition of hikikomori (not just NEET), and it's been interesting to talk with him over the years.
He lives just down the road from me, but we haven't met in person since high school. We only chat over Discord. Any attempt to meet up somewhere, even if he initially seems semi-receptive, is shot down with an excuse. He lives in his childhood bedroom in his parents' house, where he plays video games 12+ hours a day and sleeps the rest of the time. As far as I can tell, he leaves the house when his parents drag him along on trips, but otherwise has no connection to the outside world. His parents are lower-middle class, so this is a huge strain on them and I get the impression that there's some tension going on as he approaches 30.
We started off having a lot in common - I struggled to find a job out of high school, but I put effort into finding one and after several years I have a decent career path. He was shocked when I mentioned that I'd started a job, and he assumed that my parents had forced me to get one. I thought it was really interesting that his mind went there first.
When I lightly approach the topic of employment, it's 50/50 whether he offers an excuse for not having a job (usually depression and/or anxiety) or just says he thinks having a job would suck. It's like he simultaneously believes he's not capable of holding down a job, and also that he just prefers playing video games all day over working. And when I think about the types of jobs that would hire a guy in his late 20s who's never had a job before (grocery store bagger? fast food?), it's a bit understandable.
I think hikikomorism, or at least our Western version of it, comes from an inability to approach some of the leaps of early adulthood. Getting your first job, moving out, going to college, etc. all involve going out of your comfort zone and diving into something unfamiliar and scary, and it seems like these people are absolutely terrified of leaving their comfort zones.
The guy I know definitely wants out, but it just seems insurmountable to him.
I knew one of these guys. A friend, though not one I knew well.
Mostly just a failure to launch situation. He ran into some road blocks, moved in with a (our mutual) friend, and stumbled a few times in life. Smart guy, genuine, but after he got fired for a 2nd time he just kinda gave up.
Couldn't get him out of the house except to get smokes or taco bell. He neglected his appearance and got uncomfortable around people.
He was going to go into the Air Force but ran into issues there and eventually killed himself. Still haunts me, cuz at times he expressed an interest hanging out more and I always thought about reaching out, but didn't...
Japan often faces claims of especially harsh work culture with terrible hours/overtime expectations; I would expect that to contribute more than things like grandmothers being cruel. (Being unable to keep up with work culture ?=> perceived burdensomeness ?=> less social connection?)
I'm a little worried that this will become more common in aging countries as they place higher demands on the working-age population. There's that saying about Japan's social issues being a look at the issues the rest of us will have in a couple decades.
As a side note, if anyone's looking for an indie psychological horror game related to the discussion of hikkikomori, Omori was pretty enjoyable.
I've recently wondered if we are under-estimating the burdens being placed on the working age population in most developed nations. While public benefits are one mechanism to support the aging population, we have also returned higher than typical returns to capital over the last 3-4 decades. As capital is not evenly distributed across generations, and all else being equal - higher capital returns inherently means that less capital is flowing to the younger generation.
How much of the general cost increase we see in housing, education, and other fields is due to the funding needs of pensions/401k funds and other retirement vehicles?
I've noticed the sentiment in some countries in southern and southwestern Europe that the working-aged prime earners are being squeezed harder and harder to support the generous benefits received by the retiring and retired.
Interesting you bring up southwestern Europe, here we have people that are almost the same as hikikomori, as in, living with parents up until 30-35 years of age, not studying, not working.
But the main difference is, since so many people share the same experience (young adult unemployment), it's not looked down socially.
Actually, this kind of phenomenon and the environment it creates (e.g. many people hanging around in evenings, doing a botellón), contributes a lot to how Spanish people and culture is perceived - carefree, "lazy", siesta-loving, night owl.
My point is just that almost the same phenomenon can either be viewed extremely bad, or good.
Yes.
Germany is steering towards a massive cliff and nothing's changing.
The mandatory retirement tax I pay goes straight to retirees today. That system only works though if you have a growing population. Every year the ratio of retirees/workers increases.
Even today that system isn't self-sufficient. In 2021 the government had to allot an additional 91 billion EUR. By 2030 it's expected to be 134.
Most of my peers (20-30 year olds) are fully aware that we very likely won't receive a government retirement or one so low that it wouldn't make a difference.
Didn't the german chancellor say recently that Germany would have to take in 1.5 million immigrants a year so that its pension system wouln't collapse? I personally don't think that is the solution but Spain is going through a similar phenomenon (pensions-low TFR).
Spain has the advantage of having an entire continent who speak Spanish, are generally Catholic, and were former colonies / have overlapping culture. Failing that, British expats might suffice.
German politics/demographics seem balanced carefully between {need for immigrants to maintain population growth} and {cultural reaction to immigrants}.
Although, credit to Germans, at least they're talking about the problem like adults. Mostly. Or moreso than other countries.
In at least my bubble of the US (Republican ~40yr old family members), there's starting to be some grumbling along the same lines, too.
Although I don't usually think of the U.S. as particularly generous to the elderly, social security and Medicare spend ~$2 trillion of the $6.3 trillion federal budget. I've heard complaints that it's squeezing the young too hard to pay for (increasingly longer & sicker) retirement for the old.
I don't understand the alternatives well enough to have a strong personal opinion, though.
The alternatives are fairly simple: you can either increase revenue or decrease benefits.
Increasing revenue (number games aside) would come from productivity gains or additional working population.
Decreasing benefits would come from cutting the payout or increasing qualifying age.
Honestly, taking Medicare out of the picture as a different problem that requires different solutions, Social Security should have been indexed to life expectancy from the beginning. It was never practical to build up a surplus that would be of sufficient magnitude to address demographic imbalances over decades.
Grandfather people in the program into the current rate, apply a sliding scale to people close to retirement (only fair, so their expectations don't drastically change), and make the hard decision.
I agree on indexing retirement age to lifespan, but I doubt that would get much support. See ex. the protests in France. In the U.S., the elderly are a very powerful voting bloc.
I'd argue another concern could be useless/harmful interventions. Like taxpayers paying 82k a year per person for Leqembi treatments, which seems useless at best. There are also a lot of interventions that drag on terrible-quality lives in an attempt to forestall death as long as possible; I have personal experience with elderly family members who expressed a preference for death over their treatment plans (but were no longer able to choose). If I retain the ability to choose, I would go to great lengths to avoid some of modern medicine's pallative care.
I don't know. It's all hard. Obviously I want elderly people to be healthy and cared for as much as possible, but not at infinite cost (to the taxpayer or to their own quality of life).
Medicare is an entirely different ball of yarn that should be separated as much as possible.
It's complicated enough that including it in any other reform overcomplicates the effort and kills it.
That said, I do think the "death panel" branding from Republicans was extremely intellectually dishonest and in poor taste. Everyone knew exactly what was really being discussed, and to claim mock outrage in front of cameras for political points was dodging the hard question and hurting the country.
The moral argument I always hear for our high prices is that it uniquely benefits medical research. I'm not convinced that dichotomy exists, and that those aren't largely indepedent of each other.
Social security is almost double the outlay of Medicare. We should definitely be looking at decreasing medical prices (especially for enraging subtopics like insulin), but I imagine supporting non-working elderly is going to be an increasing slice of the federal budget regardless.
> I don't usually think of the U.S. as particularly generous to the elderly
US benefits for retirees are quite generous by European standards, which is often surprising to both Americans and Europeans. Americans are consistently messaged to save for their own retirement throughout their lives, which lends to this impression.
Social Security is a classic Ponzi structure. If you can't see that you're deliberately not looking. Ponzi schemes always collapse, and the fallout is never pretty.
It's a Ponzi scheme in that the money isn't being invested. The money isn't working and earning a return. That's why people suggest private pensions as an alternative to social security as it can put money to work. And there's skin in the game as it's not a Pension fund board member investing tens of thousands of members savings with a single decision, it's you deciding your own future and the level of risk you're willing to take on
To me it's also pretty interesting, how politicans (at least here in Southwestern Europe), almost never consider or talk about ordinary, middle class working people.
It almost always has to be about the elderly, or benefits to the ultra-poor.
Seems to me super weird that none of the major political groups "speak to me", as a normal, middle class worker.
I don't buy the work culture thing, I can't back it up with hard numbers, but I think Americans work equally long hours, some even two full-time jobs. It's not unheard of that in certain corporate environments people work 60-80 hours a week.
Or is it that Japan doesn't have a "water cooler chat" culture and/or breaks are frowned upon?
Looks like Japanese people worked significantly more hours than Americans in the 80s and 90s, the gap narrowed in the 00s, and the U.S. just (barely) passed Japan starting in 2015. I could be outdated in my understanding of Japanese work culture.
Japanese people seem to stay in the workforce a few years longer, but given the older population, I'm not sure how to weight this.
I'm not an expert on Japan by any stretch, but I do know that there was a severe economic collapse ~1990 (called the lost generation I believe), this changed a previously very strong economic/social contract where people were essentially guaranteed well paying jobs given a relatively low barrier of entry (in exchange they were obviously expected to work very hard), however this led to a removal of that system and many people from that generation have had to struggle to find meaningly work outside of low paying temp work (maybe like a gig economy deal), this led a lot to feel they had been abandoned by their government/corporate entities even though they had done all the things they were "supposed to do" to get into that system.
In a way, I lived through a similar thing in a post-soviet country. Pre-1990 it was illegal, to be unemployed. But on the other hand people got a guaranteed job if they wanted to work. Sure it was in most cases a meaningless job, but a job nevertheless.
Somehow that part of the world seems to have avoided this phenomenon. Maybe because it was a big political/external change (the collapse of the soviet union), so people found it easier to cope with it.
Maybe this also helps explain part of the reason the problem is prevalent in the US as well? Corporate culture in some places can be utterly soul crushing, and the rewards are rarely worth it.
Some people are able to survive, while others get crushed and give up.
> It's not unheard of that in certain corporate environments people work 60-80 hours a week
> certain corporate environments
it happens, both in terms of company, and situation (e.g. crunch weeks), but that ain't the entire country all the time the way it is in Japan.
I recall a study about how the average workday in Japan was peaking at 13 hours, and the corporate execs were worrying that it was starting to trend down. Similar approaches like 996 are a thing in China, too.
I don't think the raw working hours matter. Do a job you love and it's much less of a burden compared to something you dread but do anyways because of social expectations.
These kinds of situations always seem like a collective trauma response to some aspect of society.
Looking at abortion statistics in the US it also gives collective trauma response vibes. For what it's worth, I'm still pro choice. But it's hard to look at the sheer magnitude of abortions and not think that maybe something is wrong with society.
Reading this article, the discussed solutions seem rather vague. I'd be interested in reading what concrete steps other HN readers think should be taken in Japan and more broadly. I'd probably recruit a bunch of reformed ex-recluses, get their feedback and suggestions and test them out in different regions, then continue iterating from there.
I don't think that the people responsible for creating existing power structures tend to have the proper context or perspective to fix the flaws, and often the ones who do have a better perspective are powerless to make changes.
As a thought excessive, I wonder how many people would end up living through a similar outcome if they were reborn in the recluse's shoes. How much autonomy do you think these people had before growing up and being psychologically crippled by societal structures and systems?
Hikikomori is a japanese expression of "acute social withdrawal", which is a global phenomenon. The US is encountering it, as well as europe. It is also a mostly male phenomenon, with young men finding their roles in society increasingly unnecessary. Without the motivation to provide for a family that they don't have, men become depressed and withdraw from society. There is a direct relationship between acute social withdrawal and falling birth rates in the developed world
It seems like the phenomenon requires enablement. Someone is supplying food, shelter, and electronics to these people which allows them to avoid leaving their comfort zones
>it forces them to decide if they would rather get a job or be homeless.
With the current state of the world, these aren't mutually exclusive. That's the sad reality as of now. Even if they stay at home, having a minimum wage dead end job doesn't exactly inspire much confidence in becoming a productive citizen outside of satisfying some statistics.
I kind of thought you'd say that and I disagree. It's not that hard to live an independent life, at least in the US. Unskilled labor is in high demand and it is easy to be stuck in a pessimistic mindset as an excuse for not doing anything.
Of course you're not going to transition from living at home without a job to being a successful homeowner immediately. However, your chances are basically zero if you stay at home and do nothing.
Well I'm in the US and couldn't disagree more. But "in the US" has such radically different experiences by region and even demographic that we may as well be talking about different countries.
>Of course you're not going to transition from living at home without a job to being a successful homeowner immediately.
That's another sad reality. It was true some 60 years ago. And that's the mindset the lion's share of congress has. Make minimum wage a living wage again and maybe people won't see it as hopeless to get a job.
I don't think it's mostly a male phenomenon. The original article says hikkikomori are about equally likely to be male as female. There are also more female NEETs worldwide, though female NEETs are more likely to be disabled and/or caretaking for dependents.
I don't know. Maybe women have stronger and more supportive social networks in general?
There's stereotypes within the US that women tend to be more likely to be supported while men are more likely to get abandoned. But that might just be a really low resolution model of reality which fails to capture the full nuances of the situation.
What do you think are some of the potential reasons for the sex disparity?
I think you are right, but I think it is not the complete picture. There are several reasons I could think of:
- Dating: Men are, generally speaking, expected to make the first move, which creates pressure to perform.
- Work: Men are expected to provide for a family, which creates pressure to perform.
- Social backup: Because of all that pressure to ge ahead social structures inside male dominated circles are more competitive (which reduces support and adds pressure). But I might be wrong about that.
- Genetics and hormones: Men are, AFAIK, seen as the sex of the extremes. There are more high performing and low performing men than women.
>But that might just be a really low resolution model of reality which fails to capture the full nuances of the situation.
in general women have less stigmas against not working (even 50 years after women entered the work force en masse and the modern western workforce is basically 50/50) and perform better in school than men. So I imagine it's a mix of less women falling through the cracks to begin with and them more support options if they do.
Other factors on the male side include being more likely to abuse alcohol/drugs and less likely to get treated for mental health issues. it's part of why homeless population are overwhelmingly male (not to mention there are some female-exclusive shelters for homeless women).
Males may have higher career ceilings, but much lower floors as well, with not as many people trying to reach out.
Reasons? Its pretty clear and obvious to me, but possibly not socially correct to say.
Biology. In evolutionary terms we're still the same creatures as our neolithic ancestors. The clear division of roles by sex, that you see in most other animal species, are also baked into our brains. To the degree we cannot fill the roles that our brains tell us we should be filling, we feel useless, unfulfilled, and unhappy.
Women feel unhappy as they live out their childbearing years without a male partner, children or without fulfilling the role of mother and nurturer.
Men feel unhappy as they live out the prime of their lives without children and a female partner and fulfilling the roles of protector and provider.
Obviously there are exceptions, and compensating mechanisms. But it's not that complicated.
Men define themselves by their capacity to support others. They need to be a provider or contribute in some way or they feel useless. These days, there does not seem to be many meaningful ways for men to be able to do that. Additionally, women are putting off having children (or choosing not to entirely) in lieu of a career. Without a wife and kids, men don't tend to see much point in living
They have their pick of the litter when it comes to dating. They’re much more likely to get a college degree. I think overall they’re less likely to be disgusted by the hollow and meaningless culture that has engulfed all. They aren’t archetypal matriarchs anymore, but perpetual teenagers jockeying for position via social media virtue signaling
>I'd be interested in reading what concrete steps other HN readers think should be taken in Japan and more broadly.
Japan is its whole beast and I'm sure there's subtleties that will go over my head. But if I was to address the general aspects, it's a multi-facet issues:
- Short term solutions (< 1 year): US centric problem, but loan forgiveness would help with a lot of youth debt. It's years in the making and currently happening so I sort of count it in "short term". We could also use more supprort centers (be it homeless shelters or job placement centers), but advertising the existing ones can go a long way as well.
- Mid term (<5 years): Obvious financial ones, but raise minimum wage and and lower rent (while controlling how much renters can increase it every year). start making sure people can actually live off a job and some won't see it as hopeless. Also, make sure entry level jobs are actually "entry level": Nothing more discouraging than "all applicants welcome!" followed by "preferred: 3-5 years experience".
- Long term (10-20 years): Firstly, we could use more spaces for youth to meet without romantic context (e.g. bars). An under talked about aspect of society in the last 30 years includes the falling apart of community lounges, so it's no wonder people feel lonely. post college, you either find a party scene, find a mate, or suffer in silence. For jobs, we should bring back more of an apprenticeship culture. Not every job needs a degree, and some jobs use a degree more as a filter than an actual preparation for useful job skills. So why not put that training back into the companies?
You should read Thomas Sowell. You're not thinking about second and third order effects of policy . Loan forgiveness is like the government offering unlimited student loans. Can be argued in the short term but has the moral hazard of making college the only viable path to success.
Raising minimum wages and lowering rent is trying to control outcomes at the final level but ignore that raising the minimum wage cuts out the bottom of the market and prices out these low skilled males in the first place. Also legislatively trying to limit the price of housing while having political policies that result in an ever increasing demand for housing and expanding of the city population, while simultaneously limiting the ability to build in a city which limits the ability to expand the supply. You're suggesting "Do something" without looking at the consequences of what those policies are on a second and third order of effect, and not realizing how those "good intentions" make things worse.
I've lived 2 years as a hikki and 15 years as a neet (worked very little, mostly freelancing and various expedients).
I always wondered how it happened, and in the end I think that while some thing were out of society's control, the italian society is based too much on people being "perfect".
It's not a society where one can make mistakes or be different, these things are not allowed both by the State and a good number of people.
And I'm not talking of mistakes like shooting heroin, but even dropping out of college, getting some bureaucracy wrong, etc
It's perfectionistic on paper, but perfection is impossible so things end up messy most of the time.
This has been a recent realization, before that I truly believed what were required of a person by society, which for sure did contribute to my failings.
100 comments, but I must have missed the ones saying the real cause: anxiety. There’s a growing severe anxiety problem. Social, economic, even of the outdoors. That’s the problem to address and solve, and social stigma is a factor, but it’s more of a multiplier, not the original root cause
> desperation as he quit society and normal life between the ages of 18 and 25
If your child face-plants out the gate at age 18, then it indicates gross failure of parenting and the school system.
[1] over 90% of Hikikomori are men http://ijfs.padovauniversitypress.it/system/files/papers/IJF...
[2] Findings in this study suggest that 76.4% of the cases are male and 22.9% are females. https://www.proquest.com/openview/d2fb2f85ee1b7f913be30ed142...
[3] it is estimated that there are 700,000 hikikomori (1.8% of the population between 15-39) with the male:female ratio of 7:3（66.1％：33.9％). https://ameblo.jp/lastpray/entry-10819921709.html