To better compete, companies slashed jobs and wages, replacing much of their work force with temporary workers who had no job security and fewer benefits. Nontraditional workers now make up more than a third of Japan\u2019s labor force.<\/p>\n
Younger people are feeling the brunt of that shift. Some 48 percent of workers age 24 or younger are temps. These workers, who came of age during a tough job market, tend to shun conspicuous consumption.<\/p>\n
They tend to be uninterested in cars; a survey last year by the business daily Nikkei found that only 25 percent of Japanese men in their 20s wanted a car, down from 48 percent in 2000, contributing to the slump in sales.<\/p>\n
Young Japanese women even seem to be losing their once- insatiable thirst for foreign fashion. Louis Vuitton, for example, reported a 10 percent drop in its sales in Japan in 2008.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not interested in big spending,\u201d\u009d says Risa Masaki, 20, a college student in Tokyo and a neighbor of the Takigasakis. \u201cI just want a humble life.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s aging population is not helping consumption. Businesses had hoped that baby boomers \u201d\u201d the generation that reaped the benefits of Japan\u2019s postwar breakneck economic growth \u201d\u201d would splurge their lifetime savings upon retirement, which began en masse in 2007. But that has not happened at the scale that companies had hoped.<\/p>\n
Economists blame this slow spending on widespread distrust of Japan\u2019s pension system, which is buckling under the weight of one of the world\u2019s most rapidly aging societies. That could serve as a warning for the United States, where workers\u2019 401(k)\u2019s have been ravaged by declining stocks, pensions are disappearing, and the long-term solvency of the Social Security system is in question.<\/p>\n