Parasite Singles

The west has coined a rather unpleasant term “parasite singles” to delineate the group of Japanese unmarried women or men in the 20’s & 30’s, who are living with their parent and hence, able to blow large portions of their paychecks on themselves. In fact, this segment of consumers are what European fashion brands have counted on in the 90’s for their year-on-year sales growth. Currently, nearly half of Japan’s single men & women, age between 20 and 34, live at home.

They are however, moving away from their brand-conscious habits with the decrease in income & increase in employment. To ride on their changing behaviour, Fast retailing, with its low cost Uniqlo brand, has introduced a line by Jil Sander to cater to this new customer group to capture higher price points amidst other lower price products. H&M is doing the same with the introduction of Jimmy Choo-designed goods. While Louis Vuitton has recently cancelled its plans for a glitzy new megastore in Ginza, Uniqlo sales jumped 14% in October and profit expects a 25% surge to USD 713Mn by year end.

High real estate prices have deprived a lot of youngsters the opportunity to build their own homes in places like Hong Kong & Japan. Take Hong Kong as an example: average monthly income of a fresh graduate is HKD9,000; average per square foot cost of a residential home is HKD4,500. It would take the new graduate round 10 years to save up for the initial 20% deposit. For rentals, the monthly average of HKD15 per sq ft for a 300 sq ft studio could easily eat up half of the fresh grad’s gross income. “Parasite” doesn’t seem to be a fair term as long as the youngster does contribute to the household of which he or she is a part of.