斷子絕孫:日本的性冷淡危及全球經濟

Japanese women walk down a Tokyo shopping street. (Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

日本女孩走在東京購物街上。(馬克﹒柯比/華蓋創意)

People in Japan are so averse to romantic relationships that the country's media even has a name for it: sekkusu shinai shokogun, or "celibacy syndrome," according to a widely circulated Guardian story on the country's low rates of marriage, childbearing and even sex.

日本人對於戀愛是如此的反感，以至於日本媒體根據一個廣爲流傳的衛報報道創造了一個新名詞 – ‘セックスしない症候羣'，即‘獨身主義綜合症'來形容日本的低結婚率、低生育率和低交配率。

But this is more than a story about Japan and its cultural quirks: It's a story about the global economy. Japan is the world's third-largest economy, a crucial link in global trade and a significant factor everyone else's economic well-being. It owns almost as much U.S. debt as does China. It's a top trading partner of the U.S., China and lots of other countries. The Japanese economy is in serious enough trouble that it could set the rest of us back. And the biggest source of that trouble is demographic: Japanese people aren't having enough kids to sustain a healthy economy. One big reason they're having fewer kids is that they're not as interested in dating or marrying one another, in part because they're less interested in sex.

但這篇報道不僅僅敘述了日本人的文化極癖，它還和全球經濟息息相關。日本是世界第三大經濟體，全球貿易中關鍵的一環，也是影響其他經濟體狀況的重要因素之一。日本擁有的美國國債幾乎與中國相當，是美國、中國和衆多其他國家的主要貿易伙伴。而當今日本的經濟狀況是如此的糟糕，甚至有可能把我們一起拖入經濟衰退的漩渦。日本最大的麻煩來自於其人口：日本沒有足夠的青少年來維持健康的經濟，最主要的原因之一是日本的年輕人對於約會和結婚並不熱衷，因爲他們對交配不感興趣。

Here are a few of the statistics, some from the Guardian story and others from a 2011 report by Japan's population center:

下面是一些統計數據，來自衛報的報道和日本人口中心2011年的報告：

Extremely high numbers of Japanese do not find sex appealing. 45 percent of women and 25 percent of men, ages 16 to 24, are "not interested in or despised sexual contact."

非常多的日本人從未感受到性吸引力；45%的女性和25%的男性，年齡介於16至24歲之間，‘對性接觸不感興趣甚至厭惡'

More than half of Japanese are single. 49 percent of unmarried women and 61 of unmarried men, ages 18 to 34, are not in any kind of romantic relationship.

過半的日本人單身；49%的未婚女性和61%的未婚男性，年齡介於18至34之間，未建立任何一種戀愛關係。

In every age group, the percentage of Japanese men and women who are not in a romantic relationship has been increasing steadily since the 1990s.

自1990年以來，各個年齡組中不戀愛的日本男性和女性比例正在穩步上升。

About a quarter of Japanese don't want a romantic relationship. 23 percent of women and 27 percent of men say they are not interested in any kind of romantic relationship.

約有四分之一的日本人不願意戀愛。23%的女性和27%的男性表示他們對於戀愛不感興趣。

More than a third of childbearing-age Japanese have never had sex: 39 percent of women and 36 percent of men, ages 18 to 34. That number hasn't actually changed much over the last decade, but it is unusually high.

超過三分之一的適齡男女從未發生過性關係：39%的女性和36%的男性，年齡介於18至34歲之間，從未發生過性關係。過去十年裏，這個比例變化不大，但高的異乎尋常。

The Japanese population institute projects that women in their early 20s have a 25 percent chance of never marrying and a 40 percent chance of never having kids.

日本人口署預計二十歲出頭的女性有25%的可能性不結婚，40%的可能性不生育。

These trends are not new. Since 2006, Japanese women have complained of soshoku danshi or "herbivore men," so called for their lack of interest in the opposite sex. There's an entire industry in Japan that helps men who eschew romantic lives cope with loneliness through relationship-simulating video games and even holiday retreats. See Chico Harlan's great 2010 piece on this.

這種趨勢早有苗頭，自2006年起，日本女性已經開始抱怨‘草食(系)男子'，‘食草男'指的是對女性缺乏興趣的男人。日本已經建立了一整套產業，從戀愛模擬遊戲到度假屋來幫助那些逃避戀愛關係的男性打發寂寞。奇科﹒哈蘭在2010年發表過相關報道（Japan's young men seek a new path - Washington Post）。

Japanese women, for their part, often avoid romantic relationships because Japanese laws and social norms can make it extremely difficult for women to have both a family and a career. Japan is extremely unusual in that it is highly educated and wealthy but still has some of the worst systemic gender inequality in the world; it has a European-style economy but South Asian social family mores. Professional women are stuck in the middle of that contradiction. It's not just that day-care programs are scarce: Women who become pregnant or even just marry are so expected to quit work that they can come under enormous social pressure to do so and often find that career advancement becomes impossible. There's a word for married working women: oniyome, or "devil wives."

對日本女性而言，日本的法律和社會規則使女性難以兼顧家庭和事業，所以她們往往回避建立戀愛關係。日本的非同尋常之處在於，儘管日本人受教育程度高又非常富裕，但其體制中的性別不平等現象也處於世界前列。日本經濟與歐洲類似，但家庭結構卻接近南亞（婦女結婚後不工作，做全職家庭主婦），職業婦女被夾在兩者之間無處可去。這不僅僅是缺乏託兒所的問題：婦女們一旦懷孕或結婚就面臨着來自社會的壓力，要求她們辭職迴歸家庭，升職的可能性也愈加渺茫。有一個詞用來形容已婚職業婦女：‘鬼嫁'，或‘惡妻'。

Because they're forced to choose, inevitably lots of women who might otherwise have a family and a job are only seeking the latter. That sense of pessimism about marriage appears to be partially driving the lack of interest in romantic relationships, and thus in sex. This chart shows common reasons expressed for staying single, by Japanese men and women ages 25 to 34. The shaded bars represent the subsequent national surveys, from 1987 through 2011:

因爲日本女性被迫在家庭和工作兩者中做出選擇，難免有許多女性選擇後者。這種對於婚姻的悲觀情緒不免影響對戀愛甚至交配的興趣。下表中顯示了25歲至34歲之間日本男性和女性保持單身的常見理由。陰影條代表1987至2011年間的全國調查結果。

太年輕，還不想結婚 2.7%

不覺得有結婚的必要 30.4%

希望專注於事業（學業） 16.9%

希望能保留嗜好，繼續享樂 20.7%

不希望失去自由或舒適的生活 31.1%

沒有遇見合適的對象 51.3%

無法和異性建立良好的兩性關係 11.6%

沒錢結婚 16.5%

無法解決住房問題 4.5%

父母不同意或其他原因 5.5%

Reasons Japanese women give for staying single. (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research)

日本女性給出的單身理由（全國人口和社會安全調查署）

太年輕，還不想結婚 6.5%

不覺得有結婚的必要 31.2%

希望專注於事業（學業） 17.8%

希望能保留嗜好，繼續享樂 21.2%

不希望失去自由或舒適的生活 25.5%

沒有遇見合適的對象 46.2%

無法和異性建立良好的兩性關係 13.5%

沒錢結婚 30.3%

無法解決住房問題 7.6%

父母不同意或其他原因 3.7%

Reasons Japanese man give for staying single. (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research)

日本男性給出的單身理由（全國人口和社會安全調查署）

This all has major and potentially catastrophic implications for the economy. Because Japanese people aren't having kids – which is both partially a product of, and perhaps driven by some of the same factors as, their relative disinterest in sex or sexual relationships – the population is shrinking. It's shrinking very, very fast. The Japanese population dropped by 212,000 people last year, the largest decrease on record. The birth rate is still falling, with only 1.03 million live births last year, a record low and dramatic decrease from 1.21 million the year before.

日本經濟因此受到災難性的影響，因爲日本人不再製造後代 – 性冷淡或戀愛不能的後果之一 – 日本的人口數量正在下降，下降的速度非常快。日本去年創紀錄的減少了212,000人。出生率仍在持續降低，去年的出生人數僅爲103萬人，比前年的121萬人大幅下降，爲歷史最低。

Here are two charts showing Japan's shrinking population. The first shows you the projected population over time and the second shows you the rate of change, which is just getting into negative territory:

下面的兩張圖顯示了正在萎縮的日本人口數量，第一張顯示了預計人口數量，而第二張則是人口變動率，正持續下滑至負數。

Japan's population

日本的人口

1872 to 2050 (projected)

1872年至2050年（預測）

Created with Datawrapper Source: Japan Ministry of Internal Affairs, Get the data

用Datawapper軟件製作的圖表：數據來源於日本內務省

Annual % change in Japan's population

日本人口年變化率

1872 to 2050 (projected)

1872年至2050年（預測）

Created with Datawrapper Source: Japan Ministry of Internal Affairs, Get the data

用Datawapper軟件製作的圖表：數據來源於日本內務省

This isn't just bad because it means the Japanese economy will have fewer workers and thus be less productive. It's setting up an economic time bomb that will go off before long. People in Japan tend to live a long time; elderly Japanese are expensive to care for because they spend so many years in retirement and because they're accustomed to a high standard of living and medical care. For any economy to stay healthy, there need to be enough taxpayers to support all the retirees. But Japan's population is shrinking and aging simultaneously, which means that the number of old people is skyrocketing just as the base of taxpayers shrinks.

除了缺乏人手，從而導致生產力下降之外，人口年齡分佈這枚定時炸彈將會在不遠的未來爆炸，摧毀日本經濟。日本人非常長壽；漫長的退休生涯、高水準的生活和醫療質量使老年人的看護費用居高不下。任何健康的經濟體都必須保證擁有足夠數量的納稅人來負擔退休老人的開支。但日本人口數量下降的同時，正在步入老齡化社會。這意味着老年人的數量正在爆炸性增長，而納稅人的數量正在不斷減少。

Here's a famous chart showing the age distribution of Japan's population in 1950, 2007 and projected for 2050. The 1950 chart shows a baby boom, lots of young people. The 2007 chart shows a healthy-ish economy, with lots of retirees but also lots of working-age people to support it. The right-most chart is a catastrophe. With almost one retiree for every working-age person, that's hardly sustainable.

下面這張非常著名的日本人口年齡分佈圖分別顯示了1950年，2007年和2050年（預測）的日本人口年齡分佈情況。2007年的分佈圖顯示經濟狀況良好，退休人口數量多，但有充足的在職人數支撐。最右邊的2050年預測圖則顯示了災難性的後果，幾乎每一位在職人員都需要負擔一位退休老人的費用，這幾乎不可能維持下去。

Japan's population distribution by age.

日本人口的年齡分佈。

So far, this all might look like a big problem for the Japanese economy and for regular Japanese people, but not a story with major implications for those of us in the United States or elsewhere in the global economy. But here's the big problem: Japan is one of the most indebted governments in the world. Right now, Japanese public debt is 200 percent of its GDP – more even than Greece. Japan will be okay as long as it can keep growing but, with its demographic time-bomb, it's hard to see how that's possible in the long term.

到目前爲止，人口問題對日本經濟和日本人來說是一個重大問題，但對美國人或其他人來說並沒有什麼重大影響。我們將面臨的大問題是：日本是世界上政府負債率最高的國家之一，公共債務是GDP的兩倍，比希臘還要高。如果日本經濟能保持持續增長，那就不會出問題。但人口這個定時炸彈使日本在很長一段時間裏難以實現持續增長的目標。

Last year, economists Peter Boone and Simon Johnson warned in The Atlantic that Japan "could face a wave of insolvencies, triggering a broader loss of confidence" and setting off a financial crisis greater than even the Euro's. Investors could one day look at the country's aging and shrinking tax base and decide that Japan's public debt might not actually be such a safe investment, triggering a loss of confidence and possible insolvency. Given that Japan owns $1.1 trillion in United States debt, a Japanese financial collapse could be very scary for us as well. Perhaps worst of all, that could endanger China's already tenuous economic slow-down; China is Japan's largest trading partner and the two economies are closely linked.

去年，經濟學家彼得.博恩和西蒙.強生在大西洋月刊中警告日本政府‘可能面臨一波無力償付（日本國債）的狀況，引發更多民衆失去信心'，產生比歐洲更嚴重的經濟危機。也許有一天，投資者們對日本老齡化和少子化的狀況失去信心，不再把日本國債視爲安全的投資，繼而觸發日本政府無法償付國債的窘境。鑑於日本擁有1.1兆美元的美債，日本經濟崩潰對於美國來說同樣也是一場災難。而最糟糕的是，中國的發展速度已經開始變慢，其脆弱的經濟也將受到衝擊。中國是日本最大的貿易伙伴，兩國的經濟緊密結合在一起。

Officials in Japan are keenly aware of how endangered they are by the country's low birth rate. National programs encourage young men and women to get together and politicians often debate how to create more Japanese babies. One prominent legislator, Seiko Noda, has worked on the issue since soon after taking office in 1993. In February, Noda proposed that Japan lift the birth rate by simply banning abortion. The proposal may have been facetious, but it was certainly desperate – and maybe appropriately.

日本官員清醒的認識到日本的低出生率會有多要命。他們制定了許多國家政策鼓勵年輕男女交往，政治家們常常辯論如何製造更多的嬰兒。著名的立法委員野田聖子（現任自由民主黨總務會長，國家政策委員會委員）自1993年成爲議員以後一直致力於提升日本的生育率。2014年2月，野田議員提議通過禁止墮胎來提升生育率。這項提議看上去有些可笑，但背後的絕望已經難以掩飾。

Correction: This post originally stated that Japan owns $1.1 billion in U.S. debt. In fact, it own $1.1 trillion.

更正：本文原先聲稱日本擁有的美國國債爲11億美元，但實際爲1.1兆美元。