JAPAN:Japan's growing army of pensioners is turning into one of the country's most important consumer groups, and forcing companies to innovate, reports DAVID McNEILLfrom Tokyo
IT TAKES roughly 17 minutes to traverse Tokyo's consumer generation gap. In the city's youth mecca of Harajuku, goths, lolitas, rockers and young fahionistas help fill out a shopping landscape crowded with boutiques and brand-name franchises. Nine stops later on the city's Yamanote loop line in Sugamo, the river of human traffic turns greyer and slower as it files past shops selling thermal underwear, hearing aids and orthopedic socks. Storefronts have been modified to accommodate wheelchairs, and hand-written signs replace neon.
It's Harajuku for pensioners.
"I come here twice a week with my friends," says 90-year-old Hisako Yanagida, who chats in between belting out traditional ballads in a musty karaoke bar called Mukashi no Uta (Songs from the Old Days). " helps stop me from going senile."
Japan is undergoing a unique social experiment, according to a 2008 government white paper, transforming into a "type of aged society never experienced before". With one-fifth of its roughly 128 million people aged 65 or over, the nation has the largest percentage of seniors on the planet. By the middle of the century, when average life expectancy for Japanese men is expected to stretch to 86, and to 90 for women, one-third of the population will be pensioners.
That inverted population pyramid is already straining Japan's arthritic welfare system but, amid the nation's worst economic crisis since the second World War, opportunities are knocking for some. According to the government, the average senior couple holds savings of over 24 million yen (about €118,000) and those in the 60-69 age bracket have the highest average monthly spending per household. Businesses want a slice of the silver market.
Sugamo is the retail hub of this phenomenon. The kilometre-long main shopping street, Jizo Dori, has 10 drugs stores and chemists, half a dozen or more outlets selling walking aids, at least two funeral arrangers and a karaoke bar where the song-list stops in the 1970s.
Red underwear, a traditional gift for the over-60s reputed to warm the nether regions and ward off sickness, hangs outside many shops, like the street's unofficial flag.
"People come here from miles away," says Mariko Saito, owner of Mukashi no Uta. Inside, scenes from old samurai dramas flicker on the karaoke screen as Yanagida entertains a handful of customers. The bar is a well-known local haunt for pensioners. "It's hopping at the weekends," says Saito.
Sugamo's spiritual heart is the 400-year-old Kogan-ji Buddhist temple, home of the Togenuki statue, which has earned a reputation over the years for performing miracle cures on the sick and ailing. "Of course most people don't believe that coming here will make them better. But it can't do any harm either," laughs 79-year-old Michiko Morioka.
Sugamo is a harbinger of what could be a major consumer shift, as businesses retool to cater for a demographic they have largely neglected.
"A lot of companies were unsure or even afraid of how to deal with older people," says Florian Kohlbacher, author of The Silver Market Phenomenon: Business Opportunities in an Era of Demographic Change.
"But this is changing. Japanese companies were among the first to react to the challenge of the demographic change and are constantly coming up with product as well as service innovations."
Examples abound. Kyoto-based underwear maker Wacoal has, according to Kohlbacher, studied over 40,000 human bodies in a bid to develop the perfect fit for the elderly.
Nissan is trying to develop a car for the elderly that will respond more sharply to dulled driving instincts. Telecom giant NTT has developed phones with easy-to-read keys and functions. The over-55s are among the fastest-growing groups of new customers in Japan for fitness clubs, dating agencies and holiday outings. Even Tokyo Disneyland is trying to lure some of that grey yen.
The changes are all the more remarkable because before the 1990s Japan's elderly demographic was average - until its huge strides in diet and in healthcare began to kick in. Longer life expectancy has been coupled with the plummeting birth rate, forcing a rethink for many companies, even those catering to market niches once considered unthinkable for the elderly - such as adult entertainment and sex.
The ageing phenomenon has its dark side. For those who can't afford the cost of buying into the silver consumer market, prospects are bleak: life on meager and shrinking welfare benefits. Robbery, assault and murder by pensioners is on the rise amid what the media has dubbed a "grey crime wave". The percentage of over-65s in prison has trebled in the past decade. Japan has a customised prison - Onomichi in Hiroshima - equipped with handrails, pushcarts and walking aids.
But business and government hope the future looks more like Sugamo. With cash in their pockets, the generation who built post-war Japan into an economic superpower can chat, shop and even - if local rumour is to be believed - date at the local love hotels. And of course there is always singing.
"Sometimes I get lonely and think I've been forgotten about," laments Yanagida, whose husband died 37 years ago. "Here I feel like I'm part of the world again." And with that she returns for her fourth stint at the karaoke machine.
