日本家庭正经历着社会角色互换的过程，许多家庭的妻子和女儿开始赚取家庭收入的大部分，而男性在就业市场中不再受宠，进入“衰退”状态。据报道，日本工厂和建筑公司在频繁地解雇工人，而许多服务公司更青睐女性员工，因为她们的平均薪水更低。对于希望通过刺激消费来帮助日本从长达10年的通货紧缩状态中摆脱出来的政府来说，这种趋势将令眼下局势更加艰难。此外，女性因为就业导致的结婚和生育率降低，会让人口老龄化严重的日本雪上加霜。

Japanese families are experiencing a social role reversal, with many wives and daughters making up for the largest part of the income, while male workers are being pushed away from the job market.

Japanese families are experiencing a social role reversal, with many wives and daughters making up for the largest part of the income, while male workers are being pushed away from the job market.

Factories and building companies lay off workers and many service firms prefer women that they pay lower average wages. The new trend makes it harder for the authorities to spur consumer spending and pull Japan out of its decade long deflation. Moreover, working women have fewer reasons to marry and have children, in a country that already has the fastest-aging society in the developed world.

Manufacturing and building sectors, where seven out of 10 employees are men, will lose 4 million workers in the next ten years, according to Works Institute, a Tokyo-based organization. Health care, where three out of four workers are women, has been the fastest growing sector in terms of personal headcount for the last three years, data from the Labor Ministry show.

"With Japanese companies increasingly moving abroad and a shrinking population making growth in construction work unlikely, these sectors just can't absorb male workers the way they used to," explained Toshihiro Nagahama, chief economist at Dai- Ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo. "Nominal wages are falling and falling as a result. This 'mancession' is far from over."

An explanation of the trend is that Japan's economy is moving from industrial production to services. A very popular one is catering, a market with 29 million people over the age of 64.

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(Agencies)

（英语点津 Rosy 编辑）