Japan’s population decline the steepest on record

[Art_from_Ark]

31. Economic concerns are not the main problem for men

Well, not in the conventional sense, at least.

Marriage is not particularly attractive for a lot of Japanese men because they don't really get all that much out of it. The first few years after the ceremony might be a happy time, but once the babies start coming, the wife focuses nearly all of her attention on the kids. In a lot of cases, the husband becomes little more than a source of money. When payday comes, it's like George Jetson offering some bucks to his wife, and she takes the wallet instead.

And Japanese married couples often don't even sleep in the same bed. Check into a Japanese hotel (not a "love hotel", just a regular hotel) as a married couple, for instance, and chances are you'll get two single beds, right out of some old '50s movie. Or two single futons in the more traditional hotels. Heck, the local accommodation for foreign researchers here had that kind of arrangement for married couples until enough complaints forced the management to switch to double beds.

And then, men might look at how their parents, say in their 50s, are behaving. It's not uncommon at all for a husband and wife of that age to go through a whole day without saying more than a couple of words to each other. And the son looks at that and thinks "If that's what I have to look forward to 25 or 30 years down the road, then forget it".