Rents. Until a few years ago the habitual frequenters of internet cafés were stressed-out entrepreneurs in search of some minutes of rest or commuters who missed their train to return home. At that time the products offered were limited to a beverage or some snacks. But with the deterioration of economic conditions, for many young people constrained to uncertain work and starvation wages these places have assumed quite other characteristics, and the hospitality is now extended to true and proper meals, as well as divans, showers, and even clean linen. According to the research, more than sixty thousand people use the internet cafés for spending the night. Almost 10% of these stay there because they have no houses. Others because they don’t have the means to pay rent, equivalent, on average, to half their salary (1,200 euros a month against the 3,500 of an average salary). Eighteen per cent of those interviewed said they had “transferred” themselves to the cafés because of bad relations with their parents.

Reforms. Of the irregular workers, around 600 have temporary jobs, usually little more than a week or even a single day. Twenty-six per cent of the “refugees” are in their twenties, the over fifty amount to 23%, and those in their thirties are 19%. The Japanese Ministry of Health has on the drawing board a plan to furnish them advice and facilitate their entry into the world of work. Above all, in the new Japan of Shinzo Abe, the doors of the free market, already open for years, are wide open thanks to the new economic reforms, while the social safety net is reduced and the conditions of life for the poorest have become worse. The opposition, which has obtained an historic victory in the elections of last month for the triennial renewal of half of the Senate, imputes to the reforms of Abe the responsibility for the deepening of the difference between rich and poor and between the countryside and the urban areas of the country.