Regardless of the argument of incorrect interpretation of the stats, the above observation that the young Japanese people's negative behavior towards overseas seems to be followed by people around the young generation, such as universities' professors or senior people at their companies. They say that students don't try to study abroad or young employees don't hope for overseas assignments.
My impression is also similar to one that they are not aggressive to go out, particularly when compared to young generations in our neighbor countries, such as South Korea, China, etc.
My feeling might be further supported if the fact, which Japanese currency, Yen, has been much stronger than 80's, is taken into account. Yen became much stronger in the late 80's, and many Japanese people, including myself, studied abroad, as the strong Yen made tuition and living costs in overseas lower, and going abroad became easier. Yen is recently becoming weaker, however, it's still stronger by around 30% than 80's. Regardless, young Japanese are not so attracted by this currency advantage.
One analysis for the young people's passive attitude is that many young Japanese believe they can just live in Japan without taking any risks such as studying abroad or an overseas assignment, if they don't expect huge success in their lives but just expect normal lives.
This sounds very convincing as there seem not to be any other reasons for the younger's negativeness.
But, if the young Japanese really believe that they can stay in Japan without much dealing with foreign countries, it's of course wrong even though they are OK to live just normal lives. I think they also understand it's wrong and are just making such an excuse not to go out.
Well, what are true reasons for their hesitations then?
Just would like to be "a lion at home"?
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