Single Japanese Men: Lonely in a Crowd?

Young, male, Japanese and single? Don’t worry, you have company. According to a recent government study, in fact, 61% of unmarried adult men surveyed said they do not have girlfriends. The proportion of unattached men jumped 9.2 percentage points since the survey was last conducted, in 2005. No cause for alarm, though, as far as many of the guys polled were concerned: About 45% of those without a girlfriend said they are not particularly interested in finding one.

On the one hand, it’s easy to bemoan the figure as yet another factoid about quirky Japan and a lonely culture breeding a generation of passive men dispassionate about marriage, sex and now dating. Other statistics in the survey point to this trend: a rising percentage of men and women saying they’re content with never marrying, and more people now say they haven’t married because they have trouble getting along with the opposite sex. But a closer look at the survey results suggests that singles are actually becoming more picky and willing to wait longer to find Mr. or Mrs. Right. The biggest spurt in single unmarried men is by far among those aged 20 to 24 years old, increasing more than 10 percentage points since five years ago. While a good chunk is satisfied with bachelorhood, more than half are still interested in finding a partner, a breakdown that is roughly the same across all age groups. Almost half of women surveyed are unmarried and unattached – and similarly to the men, about 45% are content with staying that way for now. Still, also mirroring the men, the biggest surge in women without a partner is logged among those 20 to 24 years old.

Meanwhile, driven by reasons like socioeconomic stresses the average age by which men and women say they want to be married has inched upwards since 1987, now standing at 30.4 years old for men and 28.4 for women. Young men and women aged 18 to 24 years old mostly say they are hanging onto their unmarried status because they feel they are too young to get hitched. But the explanation given for why they are unable to marry that increased across all groups, except for women aged 18 to 24, and remained one of the most prominently cited, was one that equally applies far and wide beyond Japan’s borders: finding a soul mate is just not that easy.

SOURCE