At the end of each year, Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living (HILL) publishes Dynamics of Japanese Sei-katsu-sha, a future outlook on the following year’s sei-katsu-sha trends. Our keyword for 2013 is: Extended Offspringhood.
Japan’s simultaneous declining birthrate, aging population and shrinking overall population have not been experienced by any other country at any time in history, putting Japan in unknown demographic territory. HILL looked at this trend from a fresh perspective, that of individuals as offspring. Japan, today, is set to experience an age of extended offspringhood, where the time between an individual’s birth and the death of both of his or her parents is some six decades. In Japan, both the slice of the population pie made up of offspring, as well as the portion of a person’s lifetime spent as an offspring have grown. Below is our outlook on the future of sei-katsu-sha and society in the midst of this great wave of change.