Along with increased pressures for deregulation and a free-market economy have come wider questions of what Japanese society should be like in the new century. Has the Japan in which 90 percent of the people considered themselves middle class ended? Is Japan becoming a class society of winners and losers like Britain or the United States?

Such questions are considered by social scientist Sato Toshiki in "Fubyodo Shakai Nihon -- Sayonara Sochuryu (Unequal Society Japan -- Farewell to the Mass Middle Class)" (Chuko Shinsho). Based on data from the SSM (Social Stratification and Mobility) survey, a nationwide survey conducted by Japanese social scientists every 10 years since 1955, he concludes that there was considerable social mobility in postwar Japan with two paths upward: a college degree and entrance into upper white-collar positions or moving from blue-collar work to starting one's own business.

However, both such routes have been closing since the mid-1980s. Sato devotes particular attention to a trend starting with the boomer generation for new members of the white-collar elite to come from the children of that elite. The emergence of such a self-perpetuating elite means that others will no longer strive as hard when it is clear that they or their children can only go so far in society. There will be a progression from thinking "I can get somewhere if I try" to "Even trying hard won't get me anywhere" to "Why try?"