- Parasite women as big spenders: Is shopping a sign of their liberation?
While Yamada is concerned about the negative impacts of Parasite Singles on Japan' s economy, Orenstein focuses on positive ones: "Consider the following: Since the current recession began in 1994, the G.D.P. has dropped nearly 20 percent. Meanwhile, Japanese sales of Louis Vuitton products have soared from $36 million to $863 million annually, accounting for a full third of the company's worldwide sales. Despite Japan's continuing recession, they (Parasite Singles) have created a boom in haute couture accessories by Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, Fendi and Prada, as well as In cell phones, minicars and other luxury goods. They travel more widely than their higher-paid male peers, dress more fashionably and are more sophisticated about food and culture."
Jun Aburatani, a founder of the Tokyo marketing firm, Gauss, is quoted as saying: "We're heading into a market in which mothers in their 50's and daughters in their 20's and 30's are the main consumers (...) The mothers are beginning to live their lives after long years spent in child-rearing. The daughters are liberated from the social pressure of getting married, so they, too, are beginning to live their lives. You can see it already, even during the recession we're in now. Among the strong sellers are entertainment, designer products healthy products, red wine, olive oil, vitamins, travel, performing arts and diet products. Young women are very positive about enjoying their lives. They go to hot-springs resorts. They buy clothes, shoes, purses, cosmetics. Men don't. This reflects a difference in attitude between fathers and mothers. The women are much more vivacious. (...) According to Gauss, men over 50 want to die before their wives and their wives want them to. The women say that widowhood is the best time of their lives."
- In Japan the birthrate is dropping desperately.
Parasite women belong to a new generation that is free from the social pressure of marriage. Orenstein continues: " There was a time when a woman in her late 20's would have been dismissed as Christmas cake. Much like a holiday pastry, her shelf life would have expired at 25. But sell-by dates have changed in Japan, along with male predilections. High-profile sports heroes like Seattle Mariner Ichiro Suzuki (...) are married to women several years their senior. Parents tolerate their dependence. A mother of one of Orenstein's interviewees refers to her parasite daughter as para-chan ("little parasite") with more affection than disapproval."
While these young women enjoy themselves, they may bring some serious problems to the future of Japan because they won't have babies. According to Orenstein, in Japan the birthrate has sunk to 1.34 per woman, well below replacement levels. (The birthrate in the United States, by contrast, is 2.08.) Last year, Japan dropped from the eighth-largest nation in the world to the ninth. (...) Demographers predict that within two decades the shrinking labor force will make pension taxes and health care costs untenable, not to mention that there will not be enough workers to provide basic services for the elderly. There are whispers that to avoid ruin, Japan may have to do the unthinkable: encourage mass immigration, changing the very notion of what it means to be Japanese.