Prime Minister Abe continues to stress his commitment to a range of key Free Trade Agreements despite the recent setback of US withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.   As globalization has accelerated, the importance of the liberalization of trade, not only in goods but also services, has become widely recognized in international society. Discussions about the benefits and risks of globalization are held around the world. Everyone understands that trade negotiations may be difficult, but the expectation in international society is that free trade will inevitably spread as the various difficulties are overcome to form a better trade scheme for the coming era. Nevertheless, on January 23, the United States decided to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations and agreement. The decision startled not only the countries party to the TPP but also promoters of free trade around the world. Soon after the ... ... [Read more]

< Key Points > Create positive effects of female employment on fertility rates Rapid increase in benefits in cash does not directly lead to the reverse trend of fertility rates Other countries that show higher fertility rates shifted to benefits in kind after the 1990s Japan’s total fertility rate (average births per woman during her lifetime) was 1.45 in 2015, which seems to show a tendency toward recovery. Some advanced countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and France, show fertility rates greater than 1.8. The pressure of the declining birthrate and aging population that currently faces the Japanese economy and society is not seen in other advanced countries as a common phenomenon. Child-rearing support as a measure for the declining birthrate consists of benefits in cash, such as child allowance, and benefits in kind, such as child care services. The scale of ... ... [Read more]

It is about a 10-minute drive north from the center of Shizuoka City to the Chiyoda branch of the Gusto chain of family restaurants. The branch faces a main road, but its location is not particularly good. This restaurant has achieved top results among some 3,000 Gusto, Jonathan’s, Aiya and other chain restaurants operated by Skylark Co., Ltd. nationwide, and it has received awards from the company again and again. Mochizuki Isuzu, 63, began working at this family restaurant as a part-timer 36 years ago. Mochizuki has been the manager of this Gusto branch since 2009, when she became a permanent employee of Skylark. “I tell our young staff members to phone me day or night if anything happens, because our store is open around the clock,” says Mochizuki. “They actually call me quite often. I don’t get angry, even if the reason for ... ... [Read more]

In June of this year, the 26th Japan Para Athletics Championships took place at Denka Big Swan Stadium in Niigata. Due in part to this being the last major event in qualifying for the Rio Paralympics, the press area was full of media teams wearing photographers bibs. The jumbled rows of camera lenses were pointing at the likes of Yamamoto Atsushi (34), who set a world record of 6.56 m in the men’s long jump in the T-42 class (single above-knee amputation or equivalent), Nakanishi Maya (31), who holds the Japanese and Asian records in the women’s long jump in the T-44 class (single below-knee amputation or equivalent), and Takakuwa Saki (24), who finished seventh in both the women’s T-44 100 and 200 meters at the 2012 London Paralympics. The championships featured a steady stream of athletes with prosthetic limbs who have become well-known ... ... [Read more]

Bowie first became interested in the culture of the East after he encountered Tibetan Buddhism in the mid-1960s. Even though this was during the peak of the hippie movement, Bowie’s interest in Tibet was not transitory and he continued charity work for Tibet for the rest of his life. Before long, Bowie’s interest in Tibet broadened to Asia in general, and in Japan he was attracted first to stage arts such as kabuki and noh. This was probably not unconnected to Bowie’s involvement with Lindsey Kemp’s mime troupe at the time. Bowie’s interests broadened to clothing, accessories and Japanese culture through chance encounters with Sukita Masayoshi and Yamamoto Kansai. Just three days after arriving on his first trip to Japan in April 1973, Bowie went to the Kabuki-za theater and talked with the actor Bando Tamasaburo. During his US tour that February, he had ... ... [Read more]

  Six years have passed since Defure no shotai (The Truth Behind Deflation) was published. Here, I expand upon the answers offered by the book — which highlighted the importance of population in predicting the future economic outlook — and apply them in analyzing the global economy. In my book Defure no shotai (The Truth Behind Deflation), which was published in 2010, I pointed out that the root cause of the long-term stagnation in the Japanese economy was the decrease in the population size of the active working generation. The productive working-age population of Japan (those aged between 15 and 64, including foreign residents) peaked in 1995 at around 87 million, and by 2012 had already declined by over 10 million; a decrease of more than 12%. This decrease was accompanied by a decline in the volume of demand for housing, cars, home appliances, ... ... [Read more]

  I believe that the first time I met David Bowie was in April 1973, when he came to Japan for his first tour here. Bowie was 26, and I had just turned 23. The memory is a little indistinct, but I think he told me that he wanted to see me putting on make-up. He came to my dressing room, sat behind me, and watched me intently as I did my face. The red shading off around my eyes must have seemed unusual to someone from abroad. Actually, around that time other artists from England, including Emerson, Lake & Palmer, also came to see me on stage. And at the time I did wonder why. They came from Britain, a country which places importance on forms and appearances. But, thinking back, as well as recognizing kabuki as a classical form, they must have ... ... [Read more]