The Japanese value stability much, much more than Americans. This harms their economy in various ways:
Firms that are losing money are kept alive
Employees that underperform are not fired
Seniority is prized much more than talent (if someone is promoted higher due to talent, other employees will be unhappy)
Customers continue to patronize their known vendors due to loyalty, even if those vendors aren’t very good
The idea of “disruption”—the holy grail of Silicon Valley—is anathema to Japanese.
To me the most important graph is the one that shows both mothers and fathers started spending much more time on child-care in the 90s. What the heck happened? Did children suddenly become that much more difficult to manage? If kids really consume that much time and effort, it’s no wonder that people don’t want to have kids—it’s too much damn work!