New Japanese Marriage Law Causes Instant 6% Divorce Increase
Posted by Aaron Lovelace
I came across an article that caught my eye this morning about a new law in Japan which allows married women to receive 50% of their husband’s company pension upon divorce. The immediate effect of the law has been a 6% spike in divorce filings throughout the country.
The fact that a wife can now get 50 percent has ignited guys to think about their fragile marriages…
This news should raise eyebrows for anyone who is familiar with Japanese society. The country has a long history of being a ’salaryman’ society in which for a majority of city-dwelling men, work always comes first and husbands come home late at night, rarely talking or interacting with their wives and families.
Men near the end of their corporate lives, he said, are especially edgy. “To be divorced is the equivalent of being declared dead — because we can’t take care of ourselves…
…When his wife told him eight years ago that she was “99 percent” certain she was going to dump him, Amano said, the only things he then knew how to do in the kitchen were to fry eggs and pour boiled water over noodles.
It is apparent to me that this new law will have a lot of deep social implications within the country. I won’t go into details about my personal opinion of the new law, suffice to say that I think it will eventually force a sea change in the attitudes of Japanese corporations towards their male employees. I predict that as laws which give more rights to women such as these become more prevalent, we will see a greater emphasis on work-family/life balance in Japan.
