Revenge of the Office Lady With the Japanese economy
in depression, why are the fashionable streets of Tokyo’s Shibuya district
crowded with women weighed down with shopping Why are cafes and cinemas
bursting at the seams Shinsaibashi, in the heart of Osaka, is the same -- and
the phenomenon is repeated, if to a lesser degree, along the streets of a dozen
other dries. Call it the revenge of the office lady. Used and
abused in the office as tea ladies, these college graduates are expected to do
low-level chores until they marry and quit. There are some 10 million unmarried
women between 15 and 29 in Japan, many of them working in offices. Their pay,
around $1,800 a month for a typical 25-year-old goes a long way. Unlike young
men, most live at home, pay little towards their keep and tend not to own cars.
Their younger sisters at college and school have plenty of money, too, thanks to
Japan’s vast part-rime job market. The Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living in
Tokyo reckons there are 3 million young women living within an hour of Shibuya’s
shops, ready to catch the latest fashion. If the rest of Japan were to spend as
much as young females do, its economic woes (不幸) would be over.
They have plenty of time (again, unlike young men) to read consumer
magazines and watch television. Women’s magazines in Japan are twice as fat as
American or European ones. They are packed with information on where to get
almost everything from cheap designer trousers to the latest haircut. No
surprise that young Japanese women are among the world’s smartest
consumers. Department stores love them. No one is spending,
except young women. Sales of women’s clothes, accessories, shoes, handbags and
cosmetics have remained good. When Takashimaya, a chain of exclusive department
stores, opened a new branch in central Tokyo, half the sales area was given over
to women’s goods, against the usual 40%. Japan’s hard times are
making the office ladies even more imaginative. They have been quick to check
out the discount stores that are sprouting across the countries as a result of
deregulation. Luxury labels are fine, but they young women demand real value.
Foreign exporters that taken them for granted had better watch out. According to the passage, what kind of job are Japanese office ladies doing