قصة الكتاب :
Kōbunsha (Kōbunsha Shinsho), 2005. 288 pp. ¥780. ISBN 978-4-334-
03321-7.
Miura Atsushi
Born in 1958. Earned a degree in social sciences from Hitotsubashi
University. After working at Parco Co., a company that operates
urban shopping complexes, served as editor-in-chief of the marketing
magazine Across and then worked at the Mitsubishi Research
Institute. In 1999 established the think tank Culture Studies. Author
of many works, including Fasuto fūdoka suru Nihon [Japan’s Increasingly
Casual Cultural Climate], Daiyon no shōhi [The Fourth Phase
of Consumption], and Tōkyō wa kōgai kara kiete iku [Tokyo Will
Disappear from the Suburbs].

The title of this book is a coinage of the writer that reflects the changes that have
come to Japan, a place where rapid economic growth once made the vast majority
of the population middle class. “Downwardly mobile” goes beyond low income
alone and refers to people with low communicative abilities and few desires in life,
including a lack of the will to work or study.
The author uses a wealth of data to empirically demonstrate, from the
standpoint of marketing analysis, that Japan is being transformed from a nation
that was once dominated by the middle class into a downwardly mobile society.
He makes the case that economists and sociologists who have researched social
classes to date have neglected the concept of consumption, so he conducted his
own fieldwork in November 2004 and May and June 2005, asking people whether
they considered themselves upper, middle, or lower class and analyzing their
consumption trends according to their self-identification.
His results show that the downwardly mobile trend is strong among the
second baby-boom generation, whose members are now in their early thirties. As
this was the first generation born after Japan had developed a middle-class consciousness,
these people grew up not knowing a gap between society’s haves and
have-nots, which the author says has led to a lack of desire to improve their station.
This book will become an important source of data for understanding contemporary
Japanese society. (MK)