Individualism versus Collectivism, the Case of Japan

In relation to the individualism-collectivism dimension, many scholars have disregarded the three facts mentioned above. A typical example is the Japanese culture. During the last 30 years, drastic changes have taken place in one aspect of Japanese culture: the group orientation. Jiko tassei, the promotion of the individual, is no longer a taboo subject. Individualization has been making strong inroads in the Japanese society. For the young generation, self, the individual, has become more important than the group. Recently, in a white paper, the Japanese government described these changes, giving examples.

An example is the young salary man who refuses to work late at night or during weekends because he wants to relax or do things that he likes. Or again, the young salary man who refuses to be transferred to another city, thus giving up a promotion, because he wants to be with his family. The lifetime employment, which is the lifetime commitment between corporations and their employees, is also under siege (Abegglen, 2003).

According to a survey by the Management and Coordination Agency, in the one-year period ending February 1989, about 2.5 million Japanese switched jobs. Seventy-three percent said they changed jobs to seek better working conditions for themselves. Gakusei Engokai in 1989 conducted a survey among young salary men aged between 20 and 30 in the Tokyo and Osaka areas: Seventy-four percent declared that their own personal work and happiness were more important than the company which employs them. Ninety percent of these same salary men also believe that in the future even more salary people will change jobs (Saint-Jacques, 2005). In a recent paper, Shigeyuki writes: Around the year 2000, personnel managers began talking about how the latest recruits had a whole new outlook. They said that the new employees were narrowly focused on their careers, interested only in themselves, and lacking loyalty to the company (2006).

The seniority-based wage systems and promotion systems are giving way to performance-based systems, and companies are looking for talented individuals who would be an asset for the company from day one.

This new “individualism” tendency also influenced the most basic group underlying all othergroups: the family. The rate of divorce has climbed to previously unknown heights. Japanese women marry later and have fewer children. Many women now decide not to marry. In the 2005 census, about 60 percent of women in their late twenties and 30 percent in their early thirties reported they were single. In comparison with the 1975 census, the first figure has roughly tripled and the second quintupled. In his recent book, The New Japan, Matsumoto, quoting his own research and that of several other scholars, makes the statement that “there is no support for the claim that Japanese are less individualistic and more collectivistic than Americans” (2002).

He makes the distinction of two groups in Japan, the young generation being more individualistic and the older generation still attached to the importance of the group. He proposes the concept of “individual collectivism,” that is, a society which can celebrate cultural diversity in thought and action, that is, individualism, while maintaining core values related to the importance of the group and hierarchy, that is, collectivism.

Robert Christopher was more than prophetic when in 1983 he wrote: “To an extent unmatched by the inhabitants of any other nations, the Japanese succeeded in marrying the social discipline that is the chief virtue of a strong collective consciousness with individualism” (Christopher, 1983). Moreover, it should be remembered, as Tanaka points out in his 2007 paper “Cultural Networks in Premodern Japan,” that the Japanese of the Edo period were not nearly as group-oriented (collectivism) as most people are inclined to believe. The Japanese of the Edo period did not have the group mentality in the sense in which this concept is generally understood: that is, a strong tendency for the individual to conform to group norms in respect to education, values, skills, fashions and lifestyle (Tanaka, 2007).