Controversial topic

Prison: A haven for elderly women

By James, February 25 2019

Every aging society faces distinct challenges. But Japan has been dealing with one it didn’t foresee: senior crime. Complaints and arrests involving elderly people, and women in particular, are taking place at rates above those of any other demographic group. Almost 1 in 5 women in Japanese prisons is a senior. Their crimes are usually minor, with 9 in 10 senior women being convicted of shoplifting.

Why have so many otherwise law-abiding elderly women resorted to petty theft? Caring for Japanese seniors once fell to families and communities, but that’s changing. From 1980 to 2015, the number of seniors living alone increased more than sixfold, to almost 6 million. A recent survey found that more than half of seniors caught shoplifting live alone and 40% either don’t have family or rarely speak with relatives. Seniors say they have no one to turn to when they need help.

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Japan’s Prisons Are a Haven for Elderly Women

Society

Ageing population

Controversial topic

Apologizing to Japan

By Di, September 27 2018

This is an op-ed—meaning it is the author's personal view—from The New York Times.

For nearly the last two decades, Japan has been held up as a cautionary tale, an object lesson on how not to run an advanced economy. After all, the island nation is the rising superpower that stumbled. And Western economists were scathing in their criticisms of Japanese policy.

In January 1990, Japan's stock market crashed. Property values fell 87%. The Bank of Japan lowered the interest rate from 6 percent to 0.5 percent by 1995, but it didn't revive the economy

These days, I often find myself thinking that we ought to apologize.

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Working mothers in Japan

By Di, September 11 2018

The Japanese government wants women to work more and have more children, but it lacks concrete plans of how to do so. To begin with, there is a drastic need to increase government-funded care for children of all ages. In Japanese elementary schools, a lot of the activities and meetings fall in the middle of a weekday, and while public afterschool care does exist, in many places it is only for children up through third grade.

To truly support families and encourage people to have kids in the first place, both women and men should be encouraged to leave work earlier and take paid leave. As long as this issue is not properly addressed, then nothing is really going to change.

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Working mothers in Japan: The more things change, the more they stay the same