A 30-year-old Japanese man silently surfs the internet inside a small, dark room. He hasn’t left his house in years; his days are mostly spent sleeping, scrolling on his computer, and eating an occasional meal. He still lives with his parents and has yet to find a job, but he has no motivation to do much of anything. This situation sounds extreme, but it is not an outlier. He and thousands of individuals across Japan have completely withdrawn from society, joining a growing population known as hikikomori.
The word hikikomori comes from the Japanese words hiku (which means “to pull”) and komoru (which means “to seclude oneself”). Although popularized by Japanese psychologist Tamaki Saito in the late 1990s, the term hikikomori has been used since the 1980s to refer to socially withdrawn individuals who have had no relationships outside the family for more than six months. In general, hikikomori do not work and spend most of their time in their homes, depending on family members for support.
A 2022 government survey revealed that nearly 1.5 million people in Japan were living as hikikomori, accounting for almost two percent of the population aged 15 to 64. According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, this marks a significant increase from 2018, largely driven by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic not only increased loneliness and anxiety during lockdowns but also made isolation easier through the rise of mobile ordering and contactless shopping. As a result, hikikomori-type symptoms have risen worldwide, with Japan experiencing a notable increase.
In response to this alarming increase in hikikomori, the Japanese government enacted a series of measures aimed at addressing mental health among middle-aged Japanese individuals. Although these programs saw some success, they were largely ineffective in slowing the broader tide of hikikomori because they failed to address the clear economic underpinnings of the crisis, specifically in education and labor. As young people enter an economy they perceive to be working against them, they increasingly retreat into a smaller space they can control: their home. If the government truly wants to address the hikikomori crisis, it must engage in major economic reforms that upend the Japanese educational and labor systems altogether and create a more workable system for the next generation.
Social Factors and Mental Health
Historically, Japan has framed the hikikomori crisis as a mental health issue. Studies have repeatedly shown that hikikomori is intimately related to psychiatric disorders, including developmental, psychological, mood, anxiety, and personality disorders. Similar studies have shown that hikikomori is often tied to childhood disruptions, difficulties in interpersonal relationships, depression, anxiety, and loneliness. So, from a purely psychological perspective, hikikomori suffer from a cognitive malfunction that can be treated through medication and psychotherapy.
This is the position that the Japanese government has largely taken in its response to the hikikomori crisis. For example, between 2018 and 2022, the Ministry of Health created local support centers across its 190 municipalities, providing critical mental health support to hikikomori. In 2021, the Japanese government also created a new Minister for Loneliness and Isolation, which aimed to, among other things, address the mental health issues that have contributed to the hikikomori crisis. In terms of guidance, the government frequently points hikikomori toward psychotherapy and counseling services, placing the responsibility of addressing hikikomori on psychiatrists and other health professionals. But despite these efforts, cases of hikikomori continue to rise across Japan.
The Government’s Failures in Labor and Education
These efforts in mental health have largely failed to address the rise in hikikomori because they fail to account for the government’s economic failures that push hikikomori toward isolation. For example, one major driver of the hikikomori crisis is youth unemployment. A recent survey of hikikomori found that workplace problems and difficulty entering the job market are the second most cited causes of withdrawal, behind physical illness. Since the Asian-Pacific recession in the 1990s, youth employment and the youth labor market have shrunk considerably. The 1.7 million job offers to Japanese high school graduates in 1995 shrunk to just 0.2 million in 2003. Unemployment also rose sharply during this period, with many workers pushed into non-standard employment, which includes temporary and part-time work. Although Japan has largely recovered from the economic crisis, the Japanese labor market remains incredibly competitive, and Japanese youth are finding it increasingly difficult to find a job commensurate with their education.
Besides the recession, another major driver of labor market competitiveness in Japan is the growing number of older and middle-aged employees, which has raised labor costs (particularly with firms that maintain senior-based compensation) and increasingly crowded out a younger workforce. High labor costs have also increased companies’ dependence on inter-firm recruitment, for which training costs are generally lower.
Similarly, education in Japan has become increasingly competitive in recent years. The Japanese education system is single-track and rigidly organized, which means that students are under pressure to perform well from an early age at the risk of falling behind. A recent OECD report also highlighted increased education stratification in Japan, which has led to a crisis of confidence that could trigger withdrawal. One of the main drivers of this stratification is cram schools, which are highly intensive after-school academic institutions. In a country where the perception of the competencies of the public school system is decreasing, cram schools are viewed as a necessary supplement to a public school education. However, because cram schools are primarily available to upper-middle-class families in urban areas, they systematically increase stratification within the Japanese education system, leaving low-income students feeling increasingly left out.
Additionally, where labor and education have had the most impact on the hikikomori crisis is where they intersect. Specifically, although education has become increasingly intense, job prospects have lowered, forcing many students who dedicate time and money to achieve higher education into employment below their education level. In other words, Japanese students increasingly see a disparity between what they are expected to accomplish in school and the outcomes of their hard work in the labor market.
Proposed Policy Reforms
In the short run, one of the most important roles the government can play in addressing the hikikomori crisis is providing for the workers unable to find permanent employment in the formal sector. Especially in Japan, where permanent employment is an integral part of social standing, individuals’ primary loss when they cannot find permanent employment has to do with social status. In general, this is something that the government cannot address directly through policies. However, the government can compensate for some of the economic losses individuals lose in the informal sector. For example, informal workers do not receive full social security benefits and decent wages. Therefore, the government should expand social security benefits and strengthen the social safety net for part-time employees.
However, in the long run, the government must take major steps to address the labor and educational issues that drive the hikikomori crisis. Primarily, the government must invest in extensive training programs for young adults outside of academic settings. Because training mainly takes place on the job in Japan, individuals unable to break into the formal sector from the outset are at a significant disadvantage. The Japanese government should partner with private companies, public schools, and non-governmental organizations to expand public vocational training opportunities for young adults. Primarily, this would smoothen the transition between education and employment. However, vocational training has the added benefit of transitioning individuals from temporary non-regular employment (contract terms of less than one year) to ordinary non-regular employment (contract terms for more than one year). Because firms are incentivized to keep competent workers, firms are more likely to retain ordinary workers. Therefore, vocational training improves job retention rates and creates a more stable labor market.
Such training would also help students be more competitive in a graying workforce. In the status quo, where job training occurs on the job, older individuals have a significant leg-up in recruitment because they have more job experience and thus more practical training. On the other hand, new recruits require extensive job training, which is costlier for the company than retaining old employees or recruiting trained employees from other companies. Therefore, outsourcing job training reduces the financial burden of recruiting new employees and increases youth competitiveness in the job market.
On the other hand, Japan can address education stratification by improving the quality of public schools through decreased class sizes and increased teacher training, thus reducing dependence on cram schools. Of course, this would require a massive investment in public education, but Japan’s educational investments as a percentage of GDP are already lower than most developed nations. These investments would simply put Japan’s education spending on track with the other developed countries. Although this policy could increase competition in the workforce, if done in conjunction with policies addressing worker retention and job training, the Japanese government can begin to address the root economic causes of social withdrawal.
Of course, these policies alone are not sufficient to address the hikikomori crisis; mental and physical health services are also important policy priorities. However, the government has already made a substantial effort to address hikikomori health outcomes while largely neglecting the clear economic drivers of the crisis. Investments in labor and educational outcomes for young Japanese individuals would be a long overdue acknowledgment of the unsustainability of the status quo, which is increasingly leaving young Japanese burnt out and prone to leaving the world and entering isolation.
