Category: Japan

Several media items from Japan cover a proposed survey of hikikomori by the Japanese government’s Health, Labor, and Welfare Ministry. From Japan Times:

The government has allocated ¥20 million from the fiscal 2018 budget to finance research for Japan’s first nationwide survey on middle-aged hikikomori — people who have shut themselves in their homes.

The survey, to take place in fiscal 2018 starting April 1, will be held amid growing calls for public assistance to help aged parents take care of their jobless, financially dependent and socially withdrawn children.

The survey will cover 5,000 randomly selected households with members aged between 40 and 59, to identify the total number of middle-aged social recluses in Japan.

URL: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/01/07/national/japans-first-nationwide-survey-middle-aged-hikikomori-pipeline/#.WlvGO0tG3eQ (Japan Times); http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0004166783 (Japan News); https://www.nippon.com/en/genre/society/l10718/ (Nippon.com)

Nippon.com offers an informed view of Japanese recluses by a psychiatrist working directly with hikikomori, offering definitions, descriptions, and communication and work issues.

URL: https://www.nippon.com/en/column/g00455/

According to the Japan Times, The Labor Ministry is extending job help to hikikomori, specifically older adults:

The government has decided to expand the scope of its job support program for socially withdrawn people, which is limited to those 39 or younger, to include people in their early 40s.

Many people aged 40 to 44 have been living as hikikomori (recluses) who shut themselves in at home, or NEETs, an acronym for “not in education, employment or training,” because of the hardships they suffered during Japan’s “employment ice age,” the officials said.

URL: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/11/18/national/labor-ministry-extend-job-program-social-recluses-neets-early-40s/#.WjAkNktrzeQ

Review article in Nippon.com on the status of Japanese hikikomori.

URL: http://www.nippon.com/en/currents/d00332/

A Quartz article titled “Japan’s extreme recluses are coming together to create a newspaper for social outcasts” describes the creation of Hikikomori News in Tokyo by a disparate group of hikikomori. Includes links and photos.

URL: https://qz.com/924866/a-new-newspaper-in-japan-aims-to-help-the-countrys-population-of-social-recluses/