MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY HOLIDAYS 2022

we touched this same spot with our hands, our feet, our gaze and our dreams

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Tokyo blues


Fretting about job prospects and their place in society, only 8% of young Japanese describe themselves as happy. A global poll of 16-34 year olds, conducted by MTV Networks International, has put Japan at the bottom of a “Wellbeing Index”. The misery is particularly acute in Tokyo, where ever more young people flock in search of better employment prospects; “pressure to succeed” was a commonly cited cause for despondency. But Japan’s lack of optimism, though extreme, was part of a pattern across the developed world, where less than 30% of young people, on average, said they were happy with the status quo. By contrast, 84% of young Chinese expected their lives to become more enjoyable in the future. Indians were at the top of the index.