Shut-In Abroad: Social Incapacitation Among Low-Income Male Japanese Retirees in Thailand

Social Incapacitation as Gendered and Emotive Processes

Shut-in abroad among the Japanese is highly gendered. Most of the known sotokomori cases in Thailand happened amongst low-income men. ³ According to the most recent kodoku-shi report (2020), 83 percent of all reported kodoku-shi in Japan were male, as compared to 17 percent of female cases (n = 4448). This is a remarkable imbalance given that, first, women have a longer life expectancy, and secondly that women make up 69 percent of all older people who live alone as compared to 31 percent for men (Ministry of Interior of Japan, 2016).

Shut-in abroad is an extension of the phenomenon of shut-in at home, or the hikikomori symptom, which is also very male-dominated. ⁴ The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare defines a hikikomori as a person who has not left the home or interacted with others for six months or longer. Previously assumed to be specific young male adults (the dictionary defines hikikomori as “the abnormal avoidance of social contact, typically by adolescent males”), hikikomori is fast spreading among older age groups. In 2018, the first nationwide survey about middle-aged hikikomori identified at least 613,000 aged between 40 and 64 who suffered from hikikomori. This group is larger than the younger-age hikikomori (ages 15–39), at 541,000. The survey found that retirement is a critical turning point that triggers hikikomori: 60 percent of the surveyed population developed the symptom then. Similar to the younger group, the middle-aged hikikomori is male dominated, with 76.6 percent being men.

Shut-in abroad or at home has a strong psychological and emotive aspect. When asked why men are so much more likely than women migrate into seclusion, the answers are often that the “men don’t have friends [in Japan]”; the men “don’t know who to talk to people in Thailand”; they are “too shy,” “awkward,” or “don’t have confidence in mingling with people.” “Shame” is considered an important factor in understanding the psychopathological mechanisms of hikikomori (Kitayama, 1998). Many of my informants implied a sense of personal failing, feeling of inadequacy and disappointment. They are ashamed of the fact that they could not live up to their own expectations, the ideal self-image despite their long-term efforts and painful working life experiences.

Why are men more likely to be socially incapacitated, that is, becoming deprived of basic social relations and self-confidence? This must be understood through history. First, the current prevalent normative ideas what a man should be—what a man should be proud of and what one should be ashamed of—was developed as part of the modern nation building project since the late 19th century (Hidaka, 2010). Second, as we shall see below, various events in their life history prevented them from developing their social capabilities. Although the men’s low-income, low-education and rural origin play a decisive role, it is through individual life history that class positioning translates into actual embodied capabilities. I will now turn to disentangling the historical causes of the men’s social incapacitation.

Social Incapacitation as a Legacy of the Anti-Social Work Regime

Many low-income Japanese male retirees in Thailand, including four out of the six key informants of this article, migrated from the countryside to cities in the 1960s and 1970s. Their post-retirement life is profoundly shaped by what I call an “anti-social work regime” that dominated their working life. The “anti-social work regime” refers to the arrangement of wage work that provided employees long-term job security, but allowed little freedom or capacity for developing social networks because of long working hours, an encapsulating dormitory system, and the workers’ particular migration experiences. The intensive work regime and masculinity are inextricably linked in post-war Japan (Cook, 2013). In the post-war decades, the “salaryman masculinity” and the salary man-centered nuclear family became the hegemonic blueprint to signify the ideal citizen. (Dasgupta, 2017, p. 39) Despite the fact that “only a minority of Japanese men would have fallen within the strictest definition parameters of the category of ‘salaryman’ – full-time white-collar permanent employees” (Dasgupta, 2017, p. 36), the social expectation that men should be responsible breadwinners for the entire family is prevalent (Mackie, 2002).

Mr. Yamamoto, born in 1951 in the agricultural prefecture of Akita, moved to Tokyo in 1966 at the age of 16. He was part of the mass recruitment initiative organized by the government. At that time, the Japanese economy was booming, large companies were absorbing college graduates from cities, and the low-end manufacturing sector badly needed manual labor from the countryside. The Ministry of Labour in Japan organized so-called “mass recruitment trains” (shudan shyushoku): chartered trains that ran across the country to recruit young workers en masse from the countryside for manual jobs in cities. The recruitment targeted students who had just finished middle or high school, mostly aged between 15 and 18. These workers from rural Japan were called “golden eggs” at the time because they were young, cheap, hardworking and docile. The migrants had no prior work experience in their hometowns, they had hardly any prior knowledge of the destination but they longed for urban life. The school teachers would recommend the work placement and the students simply followed the arrangements. Furthermore, the recruits’ peers were likely to be sent to other cities. This left migrants with rather limited social networks beyond their immediate families, which created a decisive rupture in their lives.

I asked how frequently Yamamoto visited his hometown, as a physical visit was then the main way for his generation to maintain social ties then. “It was costly and time-consuming to go back to [my] hometown,” he said. “I did not go back unless it was absolutely necessary.” Few of the youths managed to sustain frequent social visits to their rural origin. Following the patrilineal system in Japan, only the oldest son of the family had the privilege to inherit family property. The migration of younger brothers created awkward tensions. The first son may have wanted to go to the city but had to remain in the countryside with his parents, while their younger siblings may have wished to stay home rather than having to go to the big city at such a young age in order to relieve the family of its financial burdens (Kase, 1997, p. 61). It was common for both sides to feel envious and resentful, culminating in cutting off connections from each other. Thus, there is no surprise that Yamamoto declared that “It would be the last choice to go back to my hometown [after retirement]!” For him, the “hometown” is an alien place in the middle of nowhere that suffers from rapid depopulation and offers him nothing.

The young rural workers’ post-migration experiences were also distinct. They were picked up by the employer at the rail station or sent to the doorsteps of the factory, and immediately absorbed into the labor market. There was no need for them to search for jobs or accommodation at the destination. Everything was pre-arranged. The workplaces where these young recruits worked were small, typically having less than 30 employees. It was not uncommon for the workers to stay with the employer’s family (Katase, 2010). Yamamoto recalled:

“Some of my friends went to heavy-duty jobs, but because my body was too small and skinny, I was dispatched to work for a small Japanese restaurant. It was just a small restaurant managed by a couple who did not have children. I rented a room near the restaurant. The couple treated me like their son, and I worked hard for them… I had a chance to meet some of my old classmates at an early stage. But later, some got married, others changed jobs, and my classmates became too busy getting on with their own lives.”

Yamamoto was closely bound to the employer. The employer, according to him, was a hardworking man and got up early every morning to start working. So, he followed their example. He did not have much free time, but it did not bother him too much—this family-like working environment provided security, and he did not have much spare money to spend. But it also made the employee vulnerable once this working life came to an end. After the owner’s death, his wife decided to close the restaurant and Yamamoto had to stop working at the age of 61. As the small family restaurant was the only the place that Yamamoto had ever worked, he did not know where to look for a job. For a man of his age and education level, who had spent all his adult life in one place doing one job, it was too frightening to knock on others’ doors to ask for work. Furthermore, he still remembers how he was bullied soon after arriving in Tokyo because of his Akita accent. This also deterred him from reaching out.

Without an income, it became too expensive to continue living in Tokyo. But returning home did not seem feasible: Yamamoto’s parents had already passed away, and as the second son, he could not inherit any family property. Within his family circle, he had only been in touch with his sister, who had also gone to the city with the mass recruitment scheme. They had this shared experience, but then his sister returned to the hometown to get married. He did not wish to burden her. He felt, in his words: “I have no place to go back to in Japan.” Yamamoto had heard from one of the restaurant customers that Thailand is a Buddhist country, and he assumed that people would be polite to the older adults. He went to Chiang Mai at the age of 63.

The Japanese work regime is socially incapacitating because it impedes social relations across rigid hierarchies even after retirement. Low-income Japanese male retirees tend to keep their distance from more affluent Japanese as their pre-retirement status is a major obstacle for developing solidarity with other Japanese. For example, those who are accustomed to playing golf with business partners during their working age acquired certain social graces and etiquette, but those who did not have similar experiences are less able to do so. Even after retirement Japanese male retirees are rather sensitive about their former job titles and affiliations, information which is quickly circulated among the Japanese social networks. Explaining his decision to migrate, Yamamoto said, “In Japan, I constantly had to worry about what my boss might feel or what other people think. In Thailand, I feel at ease because I no longer have to worrying about what other people think.”

The Japanese work regime also prevents solidarity among low-income retirees themselves. Cheap Japanese eateries are one of the very few public spaces that the low-income male retirees regularly visit, but communication between them is minimal. They even avoid eye contact with each other. One of my informants told me that as “losers,” everyone holds painful and embarrassing memories; they prefer not to talk about them and be left alone. This is very similar to what Gill describes as the “homeless etiquette” in Japan whereby “homeless men will avoid using their surname and will also refrain from asking someone else their surname or other personal details.” (Gill, 2012, p. 22) They also “deliberately avoid intimate friendships for fear of incurring obligations.” (Gill, 2012, p. 10) One of my informants called such mutual avoidance an “un-written courtesy” and warned me to be sensitive when approaching a male retiree.

Social Incapacitation as a Legacy of Family Norms

The social incapacitation that older Japanese men suffer from after retirement can also be traced to the dominant family norm; that proper, responsible men must form a heterosexual family, preferably having multiple children. The man should be the head of the household and the single breadwinner. Those who are unable to do so are regarded as cases of existential failure. Miyazaki, born in 1949, was another “golden egg” from northern Japan. He explained why he could not marry and therefore felt “out of place” in Japan once he retired in 2010. Like the other sotokomori migrants mentioned, Miyazaki came to Tokyo to work immediately after high school through the mass recruitment scheme. He was sent to a small factory where he worked most of his life. He had female classmates who were recruited to Tokyo to work in a group at the same time as him. He had considered marriage but he said his female classmates preferred to marry white-collar urban salaried men over manual workers like him from the same rural town.

The low marriage rate among males over 50 in Japan has significantly increased in the last 30 years. According to the latest demographic statistics from the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, 5.6 percent of Japanese males were never married at the age of 50 in 1990; the proportion then rose sharply to 12.6 percent (2000), 20.1 percent (2010), and 23.4 percent (2015). It is projected to further increase to 26 percent (2020) and to 29 percent (2035). There is a strong association between one’s income level and the likelihood to be married; the lower the income one earns, the lower one’s chance of being married (Yamada, 2019).

These men did not marry when they were young, not because marriage was regarded as irrelevant; on the contrary, they could not marry because they failed to meet most women’s expectations for desirable husbands. Apart from traditional familism, the Japanese state has actively promoted heteronormative households consisting of full-time working husbands whose salaries are high enough to have full-time “home-making” wives (Harada, 2000). It was envisioned that such a family regime would help maximize male employees’ productivity and their dedication to the employer, while minimizing the public cost of social reproduction and maintaining social order. The family regime thus constitutes a critical supplement to Japan’s post-war economic development strategy.

The government encouraged this family model primarily by discouraging women’s participation in formal full-time employment. First, there was a widespread normative pressure that women should quit their full-time jobs upon marriage in order to be dedicated to taking care of the family. Second, the government introduced the policy of “spouse tax exemption” in 1961. According to this policy, husbands’ income taxes are reduced or even exempted if their wives’ incomes are lower than a certain level. This effectively incentivizes married women to avoid seeking high-paid jobs. Although women did work—and, in fact, provided a flexible reserve labor force throughout post-war Japan (Macnaughtan, 2006, p. 36)—they were not supposed to be the main earners in the family. Even after decades of social campaigns for gender equality, the rate of non-regular employment among Japanese women is still higher than that of male workers: 56.1 percent for females, and 22.2 percent for males as of 2018. ⁵ As a result of unequal economic opportunities between genders, hypergamy became the norm. It is institutionally intended that women should expect their husbands to earn higher incomes than themselves.

The income gap between men and women has been the chief reason why Japan is positioned 120^th out of 156 in world gender equality rankings, according to the Global Gender Gap Index (World Economic Forum, 2021). But its low ranking of gender equality does not mean that women in Japan are deprived of opportunities in human development, particularly in education and health. On the contrary, women tend to outperform men in educational achievement and health conditions, which means that women can be highly educated and a small number of them do manage to obtain high-income jobs. They thus have very high expectations about what a desirable family life should be, both materially and culturally. This caused the so-called “marriage squeeze.” On one hand, low-income male groups face difficulty in finding a marriage partner; on the other, high-income females are positioned too “high” in the marriage market. The marriage squeeze thus resulted in the sharp increase of non-marriage.

Such a family regime has multiple and far-reaching social implications, particularly on low-income men. Low-income men who fail to establish their own nuclear families internalize a masculine “loser” identity. For instance, Akira, a 72-year-old single man, had a high school education in Okinawa and worked in a small factory most of his life in Osaka. He was not recruited through the mass recruitment scheme but followed an older cousin to find a job in Osaka. He thus had more social connections back home, but constantly felt awkward and out of place in extended family gatherings. A specific custom of Okinawa is that seniors in the family have to offer “red pockets” (monetary gifts) to the young on numerous occasions throughout the year, which was a particularly heavy burden for him. While men like Yamamoto and Miyazaki decided to leave Japan after retirement because they did not have social relations in Tokyo due to their singlehood, Akira felt displaced because he lacked his own nuclear family and was overwhelmed by the expectations from his extended family. All three men ended up in Chiang Mai to spend the final stage of their life.

Social Isolation as the Legacy of “Self-Reliant” Ideology

Finally, the male Japanese retirees are incapacitated by the gender norm that men should be self-reliant and, therefore, refrain from seeking help. My informants attach great emphasis to self-reliance, and regard it as a core attribute of masculinity, more so than “active aging” or “self-fulfilment.” Mr. Yamaguchi decided to leave Japan because he felt he could not be self-reliant. He had difficulties in finding a guarantor’s endorsement, which is compulsory for renting a flat, and he thought the only future he had was to emigrate. He explained, “I have always been a man of self-reliance since I was 18 years old. How could I bother to contact my distant relatives asking for help at this stage of my life?... This is why I am here in Thailand.”

This obsession about “self-reliance” is also observed among homeless men in Japan—they do not beg because asking for help is considered as “shameful” (Gill, 2012, p. 18). According to an attitude survey of older people living alone conducted in 2014, 35 percent of older males without children reported that they “have nobody to ask for care support,” and 22.6 percent of older males without children feel that they “do not feel like relying on anybody for care support.” Although gendered difference in help-seeking is observed universally (Johnson, 2001; Chan & Hayashi, 2010), among Japanese male, and especially among low-income unmarried male, notions of self-reliance and self-autonomy have become the last bastion of their self-esteem as they look toward their aging futures.

This gender norm has even hindered some retirees in seeking health care. Mr. Watanabe explained why he was reluctant to see doctors in Thailand after his experience in a well-equipped private hospital. “The medical facility here in Thailand is probably better than in Japan. Here the nurses come to visit me very often, to check [my] temperature, clean the room, and bring the food etc. I felt well-treated. But I could not help feeling uneasy because I have to rely on the help of a Japanese translator.” His hesitations come from the masculine pride of self-reliance. When I asked how he could lead such a secluded life, Watanabe reminded me of my gender: “You are a woman. You may need to chit-chat with others. But I am a man. I am not afraid of loneliness.”

Male retirees also resort to the ideology of self-reliance to present their incapacitation as a sign of dignity and even empowerment. Mr. Yamaguchi in Thailand went to a local bar just once a week. He did not engage in social, let alone sexual, interactions. He took one drink and just watched young women in distance. He presented his experience with a sense of pride, especially by comparing himself to “desperate” Western men:

I did not know that there are so many old Western men in Chiang Mai. They are really big, not only in body size, but also in attitudes. They speak English and talk to local women at the bar. They speak loudly and are desperate in having close relationships with the bar girls. These big old Western men are lonely and cannot stay alone. I am well-customed to be alone and I do not need to rely on these women.

It is paradoxical that the notion of self-reliance is supposed to empower, but it leads to social incapacitation in the case of the sotokomori migrations instead. The reason is this ideology was imposed by a top-down Japanese development model historically and into the present. The system requires Japanese men to be self-reliant and not demand help, rather than the pursuit of self-development. This life-long inculcation turns the norm into a deeply-ingrained hegemonic “common sense” in the Gramscian sense (Crehan, 2016), which the Japanese retirees emotionally identify with and do not question even as they transition toward aging futures. Thus, emotion and ideology are important mechanisms of social incapacitation.