A recent Cabinet Office estimate that there are some 613,000 people aged 40 to 64 who have shut themselves up at home without working or interacting with others outside of their family over an extended period confirms that the issue of hikikomori (recluse), which used to be deemed a problem mainly among adolescents and youths, has been spreading among the middle-aged population. One out of three such people are believed to be economically dependent on their aging parents, which poses a serious risk for their livelihood as they and their parents grow older. The government needs to scrutinize the data and take steps to provide support for their diverse needs.
The "8050 problem" — referring to hikikomori in their 50s living alone with parents who are in their 80s — has reportedly been widely discussed among people involved in welfare issues. There is a serious risk of the aging parents suffering illnesses and generally declining health, requiring medical or nursing care, or dying — leaving the recluses who have been dependent on them helpless on their own. In some households, it reportedly surfaces that the family had an adult hikikomori member only when the parent or parents became ill and needed help from the outside. Attention should be paid so that such families do not remain isolated from the rest of society — and that they receive support before their problems become serious.
The government has long considered the hikikomori problem as chiefly involving youths who become recluses after engaging in truancy for various reasons, including victimization by bullies. Measures taken to deal with the problem have therefore focused on helping them land a job. The government has twice held a nationwide survey — each time limiting the respondents to people aged 15 to 39. According to the last survey in 2015, the estimated number of hikikomori — defined as people who mostly confine themselves to home without going to work or school or interacting with people other than their family for at least six straight months — in that age group reached 540,000. That was 150,000 fewer than in the earlier probe in 2010, but the 2015 survey pointed to the tendency of these people being withdrawn at home for longer periods — with 35 percent of them, the largest group, remaining a recluse seven years or longer.