Psychologist Toshio Kawai has an interesting hypothesis. We may, he says in an article written for the Asahi Shimbun's Globe, be entering an age when "becoming an adult will not be necessary."
What makes an adult an adult? Autonomy, the ability to stand on one's own two feet. What hones autonomy? Conflict — with exacting parents, authoritarian teachers, personality-stifling society, competing peers, what have you. As anyone who has ever grown up knows, it's a hell of a passage, painful but stimulating.
But conflict is waning, Kawai fears. Population decline is one factor. Competition is no longer what it was, especially among students, who used to have to fight their way into university through a vetting process aptly known as "exam hell." Now they can pick and choose among universities desperate to fill increasing vacancies.