Land of the rising sun and the falling house prices
From Dot Dot Dot founder, Katharine Hibbert
It’s a huge honour to be invited to Japan to speak at a symposium about the impact social enterprise can have on wellbeing using housing, organised by their Public Corporation for Housing Improvement and Development. But when I received the invitation, my first reaction was panic. What could I – or anyone from the UK – tell the Japanese about using housing to improve their citizens’ lives?
Japan keeps its citizens healthy and safe…
My worry was sparked by the fact that Japan is famously good at keeping its population safe and well. Life expectancy is very high – 81 for men and 88 for women, second only to Hong Kong as the longest of any country in the world. Meanwhile in the UK, it’s 79 for men and 83 for women – in 40th place. Crime rates are also extremely low in Japan – for example, there are 0.233 intentional homicides per 100,000 people per year, 12th lowest for any country and the lowest of any large country, whereas we in the UK have 1.148 per 100,000 people per year, making us 63th in the world.
Meanwhile, Japanese housing is affordable for most people. Their citizens are the least concerned of any in the OECD about covering the costs of their housing. Homes there are cheaper in real terms than they were in the 1990s. Rents have been falling steadily for decades on average across the country, although they have risen in Tokyo. These falling prices may be caused in part by wider challenges in the Japanese economy, and some Japanese people do struggle with poverty and housing affordability – particularly single mothers. However, many British people struggling to pay for a home in the private rented sector would look on in envy.
…but maybe the British enjoy our lives more?
The saying ‘the grass is always greener on the other side’ exists in Japanese too (tonari no shibafu wa aoi), and the comparison between our two housing systems may well be an example of it. I have been asked to focus my talk on Dot Dot Dot’s approach to using housing to support wellbeing and community-building, and these may be respects in which the Japanese system could do better.
Happiness and connectedness are much harder to measure rigorously than hard facts like life expectancy – and anyway being alive and safe is a prerequisite for wellbeing, so one could argue that health and criminal justice should come first as government priorities. In addition, any international comparisons must be taken with a pinch of salt because they almost always rely on surveys, and people’s ways of answering will be shaped by their culture. However, the World Happiness Report suggests that the Japanese are the least happy in the G7, whereas the British are fourth – less happy than America, Canada and Germany, but happier than the French and the Italians, as well as the Japanese.
Meanwhile, the CAF World Giving Index, which looks at generosity to strangers, ranked the UK 22nd most generous country in the world. When surveyed about their own actions over the past month, 55% of British adults said that they had helped a stranger, 67% had donated money and 26% had volunteered. These numbers are low relative to our track record – we have dropped from 3rd place in the rankings in 2019. However, they are much higher than the Japanese equivalents. In the last month, 24% of Japanese survey respondents said that they had helped a stranger, 17% had donated money and 19% had volunteered. This leaves them ranking 141st in the world, in second to last place above only Poland.
Getting older and lonelier
In addition to this, Japan is dealing with the challenges of being an aging society with a shrinking population. While long life expectancies are good news, Japan has combined them with low immigration rates and low birth rates for an extended period. Japanese women on average have 1.3 children each. This is well below the replacement rate – the number of births required to keep the population flat – which is around 2.1 children per woman in the developed world (it is higher in some poorer countries because of higher mortality rates). Meanwhile in the UK the birthrate is 1.6 children per woman which combines with more immigration to top up our numbers of younger people.
These factors are creating huge shifts in the Japanese population, which will have a major impact on housing over the years to come. By 2070, Japan expects 38% of its population to be aged over 65 – up from 29% today, compared with 19% of the British population aged over 65 today. By 2070, Japan’s population is forecast to be 87m, down from 126m today. However, while the population is shrinking, the number of households is expected to grow until 2030 and only begin to decline after that, because older people are more likely to live alone.
This change creates a need to reshape housing for fewer, older people living in smaller households. Like the UK, Japan built large volumes of homes after World War Two, many of which are now being regenerated – I’m excited that I’ll get the chance to visit some of these projects, and to look at the similarities and differences with the ambitious regeneration schemes that Dot Dot Dot is involved with here.
This demographic change also means that loneliness is a huge problem in Japan. Among elderly Japanese people who live alone, fewer than half have a conversation with someone every day, and among elderly Japanese men living alone, one in six only has a conversation once a fortnight. Even among Japanese people who are not elderly, social isolation can be a problem. For single Japanese people of working age, more than three out of ten only has a conversation every two to three days, and one in ten single Japanese men of working age only has a conversation once a fortnight.
Learning from each other
I very much hope that the contrasts between the Japanese and the British situations create the conditions for excellent conversations during my trip.
I’m looking forward to sharing what we have learned at Dot Dot Dot about creating cross-generational friendships by housing younger people alongside elderly residents in our projects with SOHA and Women’s Pioneer Housing. I’m also proud to be able to tell the stories of some of the brilliant volunteers we house – both their individual stories of building community and helping others through projects like city farms and food banks, but also the cumulative impact of their effort and the thousands of hours they give to good causes every month. And I look forward to sharing my own experiences as a social entrepreneur – the aspects of the British system that have helped Dot Dot Dot, as well as those which have made life harder.
Meanwhile, I look forward to learning from the housing professionals and Japanese social entrepreneurs I will meet – and to reporting back on my return.
