| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : OCTOBER 25, 1999 ISSUE | ||||||||
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| INTERNATIONAL -- ASIAN COVER STORY
Marriage Goes the Way of Lifetime Employment (int'l edition) Kikuko Ohtake, 52, describes her recently ended marriage as ''typical.'' For one thing, whenever she sought her former husband's opinion on their children's education, he would say he could not be bothered, because he was busy reading the newspaper or watching television. ''We were a typical couple where communication was absent,'' says Ohtake. Not too long ago, Ohtake would probably have suffered in silence. But now divorce is an option that's become more acceptable in Japan, and Ohtake took it: She and her husband split up after 25 years of marriage. Japanese salarymen are struggling in their workplace, dogged by restructuring and salary cuts. But they face a domestic crisis as well, as women rethink their relationships with their hidebound husbands. Leading this trend are couples married for 20 years or longer. Last year, some 40,000 cases of divorce for this long-married group were reported, double the number in 1990. THE DARK SIDE. The rising divorce rate reveals the dark side of Japan's boom years, when men toiled and partied long hours, while women submissively held the fort. ''[The wives] are saying, 'We don't want to take care of the husband till the end of our lives,''' says Yoko Tajima, professor of women's studies at Hosei University in Tokyo. ''They [finally] want to live as they want.'' Common these days are teinen rikon, or retirement-age divorces, where the woman divorces her husband when he quits his company, usually at 60 and often with a handsome bonus. Fumiko Kanazumi, a Tokyo attorney, says that increasingly women are winning nearly 50% of the family assets when getting a divorce. And judges are favoring divorce filings from women who claim their husbands never did anything to make the marriage work. Meanwhile, a quiet revolution is taking place among younger women. Naoko Anzai, an active career woman who had dated Japanese men in the past, says she can't imagine tying the knot with one because their way of life is boring and uncreative. ''I didn't want to be fitted into a mold,'' says the 35-year-old Anzai, who recently married a European. More women, in fact, are choosing to get hitched with a foreigner: The number of Japanese females marrying a non-Japanese steadily rose to 7,477 in 1998 from 5,600 in 1990. Small numbers, but indicative of the greater options women have. And some women are just opting to wait. Until quite recently, unmarried women in their late 20s were dismissed as ''unsold Christmas cake,'' whose market value plummets after the holidays. But now many more hold off getting married until well into their 30s. Their reason? Salarymen are no longer the prize they once were, now that lifetime employment is a thing of the past. Besides, many more women are capable of earning a living. ''In the past, women dedicated themselves to the family while men concentrated on their work, and society thrived,'' says Anzai. ''This structure is now beginning to crumble.'' Another sign of change in Japan. By Miki Tanikawa in Tokyo _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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 RELATED ITEMS A New Japan? (int'l edition) ASIAN COVER IMAGE: Japan: Is It Really Ready to Change? TABLE: Change in Japan: Progress...And Obstacles Marriage Goes the Way of Lifetime Employment (int'l edition) Commentary: An Inflexible Japan? Look Again (int'l edition) INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online | |||
