Abstract
This chapter is devoted to Japanese consumption patterns and the place and role of the middle strata in Japanese consumer society. Consumption is accepted as a key to understanding postmodern society peculiarities, structures, and transformations. Here consumption patterns are used as a methodological tool for the study of postmodern Japanese society, and of the particular features and significant role of its middle strata.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the growth and stabilization of the middle strata became the goal of the ruling Japanese elites, and also the model of material success at the individual and social levels. Middle stratum growth and stabilization led to the emergence of a myth of Japan as “middle-class” or even “middle-mass” society. Starting from the 1980s, Japan turned from a “society of the middle mass” into a “divided middle mass” society. Since the second half of the 1990s till now Japan has been undergoing recessions and crises, followed by periods of recovery. Since the turn of the twentieth century the growing social inequalities are becoming topics of intense discussion. The changes in postmodern Japanese society since the beginning of twenty-first century have led to new “differentiation,” “specialization,” and “regioning” in Japanese consumer society and this is influencing the middle stratum consumption patterns.
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Notes
- 1.
For instance, whether all Japanese women use women’s designer handbags Louis Vuitton, and which social groups consume such highly prestigious brands.
- 2.
Social Stratification and Mobility National Surveys (SSM) are held every 10 years since 1955 and are representative for the Japanese population.
- 3.
The quoted author has used the findings of an SSM survey conducted in 1995, and regroups some of the data to fit his neo-Marxist class schema of four classes: capitalist class, new middle class, old middle class, and working class.
- 4.
It includes professionals, administrators, specialists, officials, and office workers.
- 5.
In this class Hashimoto includes leaders and directors of enterprises with a staff of less than five persons, as well as entrepreneurs, self-employed, and family members working for the latter.
- 6.
Falling under this category are leaders and directors of enterprises with a staff of five persons or more, as well as entrepreneurs, self-employed, and family members working for the latter.
- 7.
Hashimoto assigns to this class all employed excluding professionals, administrators, and officials.
- 8.
In Japan the obligatory education is 9 school years, which comprise the full three levels of basic education.
- 9.
Including activities in the local community, in various neighborhood clubs, in volunteer organizations, etc.
- 10.
These are stores where goods are priced at 100 yen (around 0.80 Euro); they are found near all the central stations of the public transport in Japanese cities and offer a great variety of goods, ranging from stationery to household appliances.
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Keliyan, M. (2018). Middle Stratum Consumption Patterns as a “Key” for Understanding Japanese Society. In: Krasteva-Blagoeva, E. (eds) Approaching Consumer Culture. International Series on Consumer Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00226-8_12
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