These Consumers Have Yen to Spend

The transformation of Japan in two generations is embodied in Kimiko Omori, who scratched a living from the ruins of war, and her granddaughter, a child of prosperity who spends every yen she earns.

Omori, 70, was the privileged daughter of a prosperous restaurant owner. World War II changed everything.

In 1950, in a devastated city, she became a kimono tailor. Hard work and prudence have left her comfortably fixed, but she gives her extra money to her children’s families rather than treating herself to an afternoon of Kabuki theater or a trip abroad.

Norie Omori, 22, lives in a world alien to her grandmother’s experience.

She is an unskilled office assistant at a Japanese securities firm, lives at home and earns the equivalent of about $640 a month after taxes. She gives $190 to her parents and spends the other $450 on clothes, cosmetics, eating out and skiing.

Her grandmother does not think Norie is spoiled, but still, she shakes her head and says, “Society has really changed.”

More and more, the pursuit of work yields to chasing pleasure, especially among the young.

Many in Japan’s working population still lead frugal lives, weighed down by high schooling costs and mortgages on houses priced at more than five times their annual incomes. Surveys show the average Japanese spends about half as much time on leisure pursuits as an American.

The young, single woman has become Japan’s big spender, and is a major target of those with something appropriate to sell.

Like Norie Omori, she lives with her parents, pays little or nothing toward living expenses and has an office job she plans to hold only until marriage.

With plenty of time and disposable income, she propels the fashion industry, travel industry and publishing industry.

She travels with other young women to Hawaii and Australia, devours novels and magazines, buys the world’s leading brand-name shoes, bags and perfumes, and goes to trendy restaurants.

Her gifts for birthdays and Valentine’s Day are generous and she spends thousands of dollars a year on golf or health-club fees, according to a profile by Dentsu, Japan’s largest advertising and marketing agency.

Tokyo Disneyland, Japan’s premier amusement park, overflows with young women. Female visitors to the park outnumbered males nearly 2-to-1 last year.

“Young adult females are the core of our repeat customers,” said Disneyland spokesman Toshiharu Akiba. “Leisure is here to stay. Unlike their parents, the younger generation knows the joy of taking holidays, and they have the knowledge, time and the money to spend.”

Of the 9 million Japanese who traveled abroad in 1989, about 780,000 were women ages 20 to 24. Men in the same age group, ambitious and less eager to take vacations, numbered only 430,000.

In a magazine survey, 100 young women with office jobs in Tokyo said they spent an average of $554 a month on clothing, food and drink, athletics, language lessons and other non-essentials.

They reported spending 13.5 hours a week on leisure activities, according to the May issue of Travail, a job-placement magazine for women.

Japan became an economic powerhouse partly because of its people’s sacrifices. Many Japanese who grew up with long work weeks, cramped houses and sky-high prices are bent on raising their standard of living.

This follows the new national path desired by Japan’s trading partners, who urge the Japanese to play and buy more as a way of reducing a $70 billion annual trade surplus with the world.