THE MORE THEY CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME: JAPANESE MILLENNIALS AND THEIR ATTITUDES TOWARD WORK AND FAMILY

Japanese Millennials display many of the positive and negative stereotypes attributed to this complex generation, like creativity, versatility, information literacy, self-centeredness, commodity, and lack of adventure spirit. This generation, also known as “satori (enlightened) generation”, also comes across as an inward-looking, insecure cohort, who has little interest in the things that had been held in esteem until they were born: prestige, career, marriage and family. The present paper reflects on the particularities of this generation, and on the difficult task of negotiating between old values, which they can no longer accept, and the insecurities of a future that they are not prepared to wrestle with.