Precarity refers to an aspect of one's life that makes him or her live with caution due to a lack of stability or certainty. In itself, a precarity is something that is unstable in one’s life, but a sense of precarity is not an actual event. Rather, a sense of precarity refers to the feelings of instability caused by aspects of one’s life; not the unstable aspect itself. Or, in other words, precarity is the cause, and a sense of precarity is the effect. In the years following the 3.11 triple disaster in Japan, ordinary Japanese people have experienced both precarity itself and a sense of precarity in the workforce and regarding aging and retirement. Firstly, consider the Japanese workforce and the topic of unemployment after 3.11, which cause …show more content…
Thus, Japanese men, who are expected to be the breadwinners of their families, cannot accomplish this social role, and as a result, there is causation between unemployment and the increasing divorce rate, retirement age, and government dependency (Matthews 64, Wilhelm and Delaney). Some men have had to live on the streets and become self-reliant in order to cope with this sense of precarity and pressure because they cannot find jobs, as seen in the film in class about homelessness and Thomas Gill’s article, “Failed Manhood.” To those homeless men, independence and self-reliance is better than being dependent on government welfare. I suspect this is not unique to Japanese culture, either, for one can think that any government is ineffective and choose to stay away from bureaucracy. These stresses on Japans men are also not unique to contemporary culture nor Japan alone, but currently Japanese men are feeling a sense of precarity due to a lack of job security after 3.11. Some men have also turned to their marriages to cope with precarity, only to have their marriages …show more content…
These stresses in the Japanese workforce are examples of precarity that have caused an increased sense of precarity among the Japanese as whole; not just among men, but women and families as well (as shown in the divorce rate, government dependency, etc.). In this example of the Japanese male workforce, a sense of precarity and lack of job security is caused by the inability for men to be devoted to one’s family without a job. This inability to work further hinders their social roles as fathers and husbands, thus also creating a sense of precarity among families and society (Matthews 77). Secondly, to understand the difference between precarity and a sense of precarity, consider the topics of aging and retirement in Japan with reference to Japanese society and families. As mentioned, the retirement age is increasing in Japan, however, so is the population of elderly people (Coulmas 62). This increase of the elderly population is precarity in itself for Japanese society, but it