SAITO CHIHIRO and Saito Seika have a lot in common: they’re twins. Now aged 26, they grew up together in northern Tokyo. They share many interests, including a passion for Hollywood films. But their paths diverged when Chihiro moved to Hungary to study medicine and Seika enrolled in a Japanese university to pursue artistic studies. “I’ve always been interested in the outside world,” says Chihiro. Her sister also considered studying abroad, but eventually gave up on the idea. “I was able to learn a lot of things in Japan,” says Seika. “And I wasn’t sure I could live abroad.”
The rise of “inward-looking youth” with little interest in venturing outside of Japan has caused consternation among Japanese journalists, policy makers and business leaders in recent years. Only 4% of all university students study abroad, according to the Department of Education. Another government survey from 2019 found that only a third of young Japanese want to study abroad, compared to 66% of South Koreans and 51% of Germans. The Japanese are just as lukewarm about working abroad. A survey conducted by Sanno University in 2017 found that 60% of young employees did not want to work in other countries, down from 36% a decade earlier.
This inward shift marks a departure. From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, the number of Japanese seeking a degree abroad skyrocketed. A strong yen has made it possible for many to study abroad without scholarships or loans. The largest Japanese banks sent hundreds of their employees to American business schools every year. “We were dozens of Japanese in the same class at Harvard,” recalls Hiraga Tomikazu of Osaka Seikei University, who attended Harvard Business School. “We would study together and share our notes so we could all pass the course.”
Today, Chinese and Indian students abroad far outnumber the Japanese. This is in part because of the strength of the Japanese labor market. The unemployment rate remained below 3% for the three years before the start of the covid-19 pandemic, when working or studying abroad became impossible anyway. Since new graduates easily find employment in Japan, there is “little merit” in studying or working abroad, says Yonezawa Akiyoshi of Tohoku University: “In a way, the structure of the Japanese workforce does not discriminate on the basis of university education. ” In any case, the remuneration of graduates of foreign institutions is little different from that of colleagues who have studied at home.
Likewise, the experience of working abroad is seldom rewarded. Many companies rather favor “Japonism” among their employees, deplores Kato Etsuko of the International Christian University of Tokyo. Experience abroad no longer seems to increase the chances of promotion. Employees who change offices in Japan, as opposed to foreign branches, can even be promoted faster.
A crippling fear of the outside world deters some young people from going abroad. Many cite their “allergy to English” – a shyness to speak English or other languages - as a reason for their insularity. Their anxiety is not entirely unfounded: Japanese people rank low on the English proficiency index established by EF, a company specializing in language teaching and educational exchanges, behind their South Korean neighbors. Seika, the artist, was afraid to study in another language. “I wasn’t as confident with my English skills as Chihiro,” she says. It doesn’t help that Japan is one of the most convenient and secure countries in the world.
The growing insularity is embarrassing for the government, keen to play a more active role on the international scene. “Japan is falling behind and hasn’t even noticed its decline,” says Hiraga, who believes the country’s influence is waning in Asia and beyond. For companies too, the scarcity of young cosmopolitan recruits hinders their aspirations to do more business abroad. “There is so much growth and pressure to go overseas to other parts of the world,” says Yonezawa. “It’s a wave that Japan must also ride.” ■
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Home, sweet home”