This book therefore seeks to study aging Japan in detail, investigating how social aging is affecting intergenerational relations. It analyses themes such as employment, parenthood, sexuality, and art, thus demonstrating how the younger generation can provide insights into the future of Japanese society more generally.

Introduction 1. Introduction: Studying the young generation in super-aging Japan, Patrick Heinrich and Christian Galan Part I Formative events 2. The political economy of the declining birthrate, Yuiko Imamura 3. From youth to non-adulthood in Japan: The role of education, Christian Galan 4. Youth sexuality under the spotlight in a super-aging society with too few children, Beverley Anne Yamamoto 5. Raising children and emergence of new fatherhood in a super-ageing society, Masako Ishii-Kuntz 6. Struggling men in emasculated life-courses: Non-regular employment among young men, Jun Imai 7. The Fukushima event, or the birth of a politicized generation, Anne Gonon Part II Cultural and emotional reactions 8 "How Average am I?" Youths in a super-aged society, Florian Coulmas 9. The structure of happiness: Why young Japanese might be happy after all, Carola Hommerich and Tim Tiefenbach 10. Life on the small screen: Japan’s Digital Natives, Hidenori Masiko (Yuka Ando) 11. Dialect cosplay: Language use by the young generation, Patrick Heinrich 12. No family, no school: Young people in literature by young Japanese writers, Dan Fujiwara 13 Visualizing elders: Age and generational differences, Gunhild Borggreen Conclusions 14. The resilient generation of the Heisei period, Christian Galan and Patrick Heinrich