"a Tokyo-based think tank, provides an analysis of household income over the past five years. The results are unmistakable:
Japan is shifting from a society where the overwhelming majority of households once considered themselves middle class, to one in which clearly pronounced classes, including the very rich, the affluent, and those less fortunate -- such as temp-help staff who carry home 2 million yen a year -- are relegated to the bottom rungs (...)
Japan's goal of a nation in which nobody was really very rich or very poor proved to be unsustainable. "Freeters" -- male part-time service industry workers with no fringe benefits and little job security -- could earn enough to sustain their livelihood, but not enough to marry and raise a family. This suggests that society may soon find itself with a permanent underclass, unable to even afford a college education or other things that would give a foothold, however tenuous, on upward mobility."
Wealth, poverty and the shrinking middle class (Mainichi - 2006/6/25)
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