Japan's wives ready to divorce as workaholic husbands retire

Tokyo Letter: It should be a cause for national celebration. Next year, Japan's corporate samurai will begin hanging up their dark blue suits and retiring en masse to the suburbs, easing company payrolls and injecting billions of yen in pension money into the economy.

The looming retirement of about 6.8 million male baby boomers has something to make everyone happy. Everyone it seems, except their wives, many of whom are dreading the prospect of living in close quarters with virtual strangers.

"I wanted him to keep working, but I've accepted now he's going to come home," says Hatae Ishizaki, whose 59-year-old architect husband is due to punch his last card in April next year.

"I'm just going to spend more time out of the house. I'd divorce him, but it's too much trouble at my age."

Not every woman is opting to stick it out. Some media commentators are warning of a welter of divorces after 2007, once the reality sinks in of life with former salary-men who have nurtured their careers much more carefully than their marriages.

Japanese men generally spend far more time in the company of male work colleagues than with their families: millions wave goodbye first thing in the morning and seldom get back home until long after dark in a country with some of the longest hours of unpaid overtime in the world.

In their scarce non-office hours, husbands are poor homemakers: a recent survey found that men in Japan do just four hours' housework a week: far lower than their counterparts elsewhere. Among the more cruel spousal monikers for wrung-out retired husbands with minimal life skills are "nure-ochiba" (wet leaves) and "sodai-gomi" (big rubbish).

"It's like having another child around the house," says Ms Ishizaki.

Such domestic friction is one factor behind Japan's growing divorce rate, which has climbed steadily for almost two decades, despite a recent tailing off of break-ups among long-term married couples.

The statistical blip has led some to speculate that divorces may have peaked, but journalist Nobuko Ishino has a darker explanation: many wives are simply biding their time.

Next year, a change in the law will mean that workers' pensions can be split between spouses.

Ms Ishino, who has written a series of articles on Japan's baby boomers, is one of several commentators predicting that thousands of unhappy women are secretly planning to ditch their husbands once they have financial independence.

"Men should prepare themselves for a shock," she told a recent conference.

"Women's dissatisfaction lies at the bottom of their mind like magma. Husbands don't understand they are despised and disliked by their wives."

The threat of a nationwide revolt by silently suffering housewives has led to some unusual products.

Senior Renaissance Foundation (http://www.sla.or.jp), an organisation offering consultancy services to older people, is recording thousands of hits a month after posting a checklist evaluating the potential for divorce among spouses.

The warning signs include husbands who can't find their underwear when their wives are not at home.

The designer of the list, Yamato Kawai, warns that the risk of divorce is higher "when a husband believes his family life is peaceful". One of Japan's top-selling weekly magazines, Shukan Bunshun, recently peered inside hundreds of baby-boomer households and was shocked to find many middle-aged women practising their farewell speeches.

"To my husband: Don't suddenly get friendly with me after all these years of leaving me alone now that you have retired from your company. It's too late now!" said one 55-year-old woman who contributed to the magazine's survey.

Prof Shigeru Kashima of Kyoritsu Women's University is one of several academics in the weekly magazine who offers advice to men, suggesting they start working now to help their wives develop interests outside the home.

Prof Kashima also advises retired baby boomers to "move their wives to the centre of attention" and "compliment them on their physical attributes". If that doesn't work, get used to single life, he warns.