The notion of hensachi is closely related to the culture of shame within Japan. Shame occupies an important place in the moral system of East Asian civilization. In Confucian texts, shame links personal value and social perception. The assessment of others has become the primary motivation for forming a “Japanese personality.” 

The knowledge of shame is the foundation of Japanese virtue. Under the influence of shame culture, Japanese people have a strong sense of group consciousness and conformity to collective standards, ideals which support the formation of Japanese society’s cultural and political identities. 

On the one hand, the culture of shame promotes the importance of hard work and attaining a state of “perfection” through self-cultivation, as such a virtue would contribute to society’s development. But on the other hand, it emphasizes the importance of “knowing shame” as the basis of virtue and that individuals should not act outside the existing rules.

In some aspects, the development of the modern-day shame culture is closely related to the prevalence of hensachi. Beyond academics, more factors, such as appearance, personality, and job employment, are analyzed for deviance. After research, I found three parts that intertwined with the uniqueness of such culture in three components of Japanese society —1) Political Factions, 2) Corporate Culture, and 3) Family Values. 

1. Political Factions

The formation of factional politics in Japan is inextricably linked to the traditional

social and cultural relationship of dominance and subordination. Political factions, in other perspectives, are more like conventional social structures and organizational forms. The faction still follows the traditional family principle of familial kinship. After the Meiji Restoration, the high level of economic modernization remained the core of society and culture.

For example, in the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan, there are many factions with a dominant leader at the core of politics within each faction. The most dominant faction, in turn, influences the party’s policies and emphasizes the leader rather than the party’s ideology. Under such a system, many follow the leader, thus tying back to the idea of hensachi, a signifier of unification without space for deviance from mass belief. 

2. Corporate Culture

In the 19th century, the power of corporations was concentrated in a single person, and most companies employed relatives as their foremost directors. Thus, most enterprises started as family businesses. The business operates in many areas, employs many people, and accounts for a significant portion of the gross national product. An example of such an enterprise is Mitsubishi, which expanded from a small group of people to a huge corporation. 

Japanese businesses believe that the traditional culture of morality and order provides the ideological basis for all activities. In addition, companies are often viewed as an extension of the family and emphasize the need to create a family atmosphere of harmony within the company, transforming the employment relationship into a form of “kinship.”

This type of kinship has led many people in Japan to believe that employees are a part of the company and should be loyal and willing to devote themselves to it. Managers should not only guide their employees but also pay attention to their lives and give them a sense of belonging and security. Employees tend to have a simple collective mindset and subordinate individual interests to the collective will. 

As a result, Japanese entrepreneurs see business not only as an economic entity to gain profits but also as a place to satisfy a wide range of employee needs to connect them within one unit. Japanese companies’ continuous and rapid development is closely related to employees’ loyalty to the company. In addition, Japanese companies also regard public welfare and national benefit as their responsibility and consider the pursuit of social responsibility a priority. In this sense, Japanese corporate culture has also played a positive role in promoting the construction of the rule of law and morality in Japanese society.

3. Family Values

Last but not least, the family values in society build the foundation of the idea of hensachi and subsequent political and cultural values. Families are considered well-disciplined and promote internal collaboration, suggesting that everyone has a role in the family. Moreover, traditional family values are the first stage to start the cycle of finding the “right” position in society, contributing to the culture of shame when failing to achieve one’s pre-proposed role.

For instance, the Japanese culture has introduced a family culture into the businesses, viewing them as homes where the proprietor must consider keeping and expanding the “family” business.

The modern state of the nation itself shapes the Japanese family system. The formation of the family involves two overarching influences. First, with the capital/industrial system as the main body, the state worked to establish a set of family systems that could supply sufficient labor for the industry to meet the needs of national industrialization. Second, with the state as apparatus, Japan established a “family-mediated” management system that exercised direct domination over individuals, eliminating individual differences from the fundamental units in society.

“Hensachi,” a unique word that only exists in the Japanese language, speaks to the volume of collectivism and the concerns of social harmony within Japan. The three parts of society that were being analyzed: 1) Political Factions, 2) Corporate Culture, and 3) Family Values all tie in with the idea of avoiding being deviant, revealing a bottom-up social value system that promotes harmony and prosperity within Japan. It is interesting to note how cultural identities define a nation’s political, economic, and individual characteristics. 
However, as globalization grows, we are witnessing a new trend within Japanese society: groups of individuals seek ways to express themselves differently. These expressions are considered bold and against strict societal norms and unspoken rules. Moreover, as the declining birth rate and high suicide rate raise consciousness, people are seeking ways to interpret their lives in new ways.

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For the first time in decades, the number of deaths in China exceeded the number of births in 2022, a shift that could profoundly reshape the global economy. So why is a declining population not good news? 

The first problem is that a declining population also means an aging population without a stable foundation of support. Populations generally rely on the young to support the elderly. 

As China’s social security system is relatively underdeveloped, its elderly rely heavily on government assistance. In the short term, negative population growth will reduce government spending on newborns and youth development. As we see less labor force participation in the Chinese economy, fewer citizens are required to support a growing elder population, leading to reduced tax revenue being collected from the smaller participating working force and contributing to significant economic pressure. 

An aging population, in turn, means an increase in the burden of pensions and medical care for the whole society and a continuous accumulation of the risk of social insurance revenues not covering expenses, which affects social harmony and stability. China’s social insurance system relies heavily on financial subsidies and cannot maintain a self-sustaining balance. 

In other words, the funding of social programs ultimately depends on taxes paid by the working-age population, and concerns about the long-term fiscal future of China stem primarily from the rising proportion of older dependents — that is, the ratio of older people to the working-age population. 

As the proportion of China’s elderly dependents soars, the government faces the difficulty of imposing heavier taxes, which would restrain people’s willingness to spend or decrease government spending. This may be detrimental to many families and individuals relying on government support. 

The other problem is more subtle but also severe. To maintain full employment, a country must maintain high aggregate spending to keep up with the economy’s productive capacity. A shrinking population would make this task easier by reducing production capacity. 

However, a declining population, especially working-age, often reduces some essential expenditures, especially investment. Therefore, the impact of negative population growth on the demand side of the economy is more prominent. 

In the case of specific per capita consumption, population reduction means a decline in total consumption. At the same time, due to the bearish market outlook and deteriorating expectations, corporate investment decisions tend to be conservative, and investment intentions subsequently decline, inhibiting entrepreneurship and private enterprises. 

As a result, the development gap between industries is widening, and traditional industries such as agriculture and foodstuffs, textiles, and daily necessities are facing more significant difficulties in development. 

Some production capacities and enterprises will be scrapped and withdrawn from the market. If the number of workers declines, there is less need to build new capital. In the long run, the declining population would signify the slowdown of China’s economy. All else being equal, China, with a declining working-age population, might be more susceptible to economic weakness. 

Beyond the problems already discussed, the government might save public resources. Negative population growth reduces the number of people served by infrastructure, public facilities, and other corresponding services, posing a greater challenge to the economies of scale and value realization of public resources. 

Taking education resources as an example, with the implementation of the new urbanization strategy, urban-rural and regional population movements have accelerated. The school-age population in many rural areas and small towns has significantly declined, resulting in many school buildings being left unused. Population shrinkage will also significantly increase the difficulty of allocating public resources, placing higher demands on timely grasping population changes and making scientific forecasts.

Beyond domestic impacts, economists are worried that China’s shrinking workforce could be detrimental to the global economy because China remains one of the world’s largest export countries. Moreover, since the country’s demographic and economic development prospects are bleaker than expected, the world may be facing the question of who will fill the gap for a cheap labor force. China’s past “miracle” and former status as the “world’s factory” was based on a labor surplus. Today, the country is facing a labor shortage.

However, there may be opportunities for China to change this negative outlook. First, it is critical to promote economic transformation and development to enhance national welfare. With negative population growth, less production capacity will be reserved to meet the demand of the newborn population in the future, and a greater amount of national income can be released for consumption and welfare, thus improving living standards. 

Negative population growth in China will create favorable conditions for expanding the role of consumption in economic development and promoting economic transformation. At the same time, given a certain amount of resources, a declining population means a higher per capita share of resources and an improved level of welfare. 

Second, population decline might alleviate the pressure on resources and the environment and strengthen ecological protection. Reducing China’s population is conducive to easing ecological carrying pressure, promoting environmental protection and restoration and promoting more coordinated development of population, resources, and the environment.

The negative population growth trend has led many to lament that China may enter an aging society before it becomes affluent. This phenomenon will likely imply slower economic growth, as the government will soon outlive its income when health care and social welfare costs soar. This internal impact may motivate the Chinese government to seek new directions regarding their regime. It may lead to possible changes, such as new regulations regarding birth policies, in the country in the following years.

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