Older Japanese women are boozing more than ever, according to a new survey conducted by Tokyo Metropolitan Government. The study found that while binge drinking by men decreased over the last ten years in all age groups, the percentage of women in their 40s, and especially those in their 50s, drinking dangerous amounts of alcohol, has shot up. For the latter cohort the figures were particularly alarming: 9 per cent a decade ago and 17 per cent now.
Public displays of drunkenness are not especially frowned upon
Why would this be? The most popular theory is that life for many middle-aged women has simply become much more stressful in recent years as a result of heavy-handed and perhaps ill thought through government efforts to get a more gender balanced workforce. The Equal Opportunity Employment Act of 1986 banned gender discrimination in the workplace, while late PM Shinzo Abe administration introduced measures to boost the economy through increased female employment.
It could be that women who appeared to benefit from all that well-intentioned legislation are now juggling demanding jobs and, probably, demanding teenage children, while somehow keeping a hand free to hold a beer glass. Traditionally Japanese women would stay at home cooking, cleaning and child-rearing, with time off only for the obligatory neighbourhood culture clubs (kimono, ikebana, calligraphy). That life was hard enough but now many are doing most of that and holding down a punishing 9 to 5 (or more likely 9 to 9) job as well. No wonder many are hitting the bottle.
Japan is a pretty accommodating country for heavy drinkers. There isn’t much of a stigma connected to boozing and alcohol is available anywhere, even from vending machines, which are never out of order or stock and remain admirably unmolested. The lowest grade stuff (chu-hi – a cocktail) is pretty cheap (a can might cost as little as 50p). Drinking in bars is reasonably affordable too, especially if you can find a cut price nomihodai (drink as much as you like) deal at a neighbourhood izakaya (pub).
Alcohol is portrayed positively. There are no restrictions or health warnings on advertisements here, which on TV typically feature attractive women taking a long draught of a cool gassy beverage on a blazing hot day and then gasping in refreshed ecstasy. The Japanese government’s tax agency even had a campaign to encourage people to drink more a few years’ back after revenue dropped. It was aimed at the young (incredibly enough) but may have missed its target audience.
Public displays of drunkenness are not especially frowned upon, surprising perhaps in such an etiquette-based culture. The sight of a possibly quite senior suited and booted executive, sleeping on a park bench or collapsed in a heap on a station platform, with his tie around his forehead and an expression of flushed exhaustion is a classic Japanese image and one that passes without censure. The Viz character 8-Ace would love it here.
Such behaviour is not quite so acceptable for women though, which suggests the surge in middle-aged drinking among females is probably done at home, perhaps in front of the gaudy, blabbing inanity of evening television, which requires a stiff drink to be fully appreciated. There are beguiling TV ads for Kirin beer which certainly look to be aimed at women and are handily scheduled between the evening dramas and late night variety shows.
But it’s not just the work and family balancing act; there are plenty of other sources of stress. Economic uncertainty and the health-related anxiety that set in during the Corona period has never entirely lifted (masks are still ubiquitous). There is also a general feeling of despondency about the state of the country (the birth-rate! the international situation!) are probable co-accelerants of a descent into alcohol dependency for many women.
How serious is this? Quite. Research suggests that women succumb to alcohol related disease more quickly than men due to a slower rate of alcohol decomposition, and coverage of the Tokyo government report here highlighted the risk of lifestyle related diseases that excessive drinking brings. A Kyoto university study from 2020 found that hospitalisation for alcohol related diseases had doubled for women compared to the previous year. Suddenly the old line about why the Japanese smoke and drink so much (otherwise they would live forever) seems less amusing.
It should also be stated however that the study found that young women, aged 20 to 39, were drinking less alcohol than ever. This is hardly surprising though, as the chronically passive smartphone addicted Gen Z-ers and Millennials of Japan are such abstemious goody two-shoes types now (they apparently don’t even date much anymore) that the old Adam Ant lyric ‘you don’t smoke, don’t drink, what do you do?’ leaps to mind.
This appears to be a generational problem then, and perhaps a self-inflicted one. ‘Womenomics’ was how the late prime minister Shinzo Abe’s labelled the grand social engineering project that would bring women into the workforce and transform the Japanese economy. How ironic if it turns out not only to have failed in that endeavour but had pretty ghastly societal side effects as well.
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