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.