For the first time, single people have become the largest category of household in Japan. A preliminary tabulation of last year's government census revealed June 29 that the number of single-member households exceeded 30 percent of the total 50.9 million households in the country.
Japan once was a country that prided itself on its family cohesion and group orientation, but with some 15.9 million people living alone, it is now becoming a nation of individuals.
The change has been swift. Since the last census in 2005, single-member households leaped 10 percent. Previously, households of couples with children were the most common. They are losing ground, though, as couple-only and single-parent households have steadily increased.