A QUESTION is cropping up more and more on the streets of Tokyo: Male or female?

It is not an exaggeration to say that many young Japanese men look a bit ... ladylike. This phenomenon is an obsession on talk shows, and could have bigger implications for Asia's largest economy, few of them good.

Social commentator Maki Fukasawa in 2006 coined the word "herbivores", or grass-eating men. It is not meant to insult vegetarians, but to explain the subculture of heterosexual males in their 20s and 30s who are less interested in careers than their salaried fathers and ambivalent towards sex and marriage.

If you think this story should be on the fashion pages, you are mistaken.

The feminisation of the ranks of tomorrow's corporate samurais connects directly with two of Japan's main economic problems: A declining birthrate and negligible consumption.

This issue does not fit neatly into the election cycle that is beginning in an economy sinking back into deflation. Nor is it a phenomenon that investors are likely to grasp as they assess Japan's prospects.

The blurring of gender identities says a lot about the many challenges Japan faces - challenges being ignored by the government.

As many as two-thirds of Japanese men between the ages of 20 and 34 would classify at least partly as herbivore men, according to Ms Megumi Ushikubo, author of the best-selling Herbivorous Ladylike Men Are Changing Japan.

Rather than joining one company for life, drinking with colleagues and chasing women, herbivores are more into clothes and cosmetics.

They often shop with their mothers, wear hairclips and sit on the toilet bowl when they relieve themselves. Tokyo-based company WishRoom even sells bras for men.

Philosophising about the explosion of straight, effeminate men more interested in their appearance than starting a family has become a cottage industry.

For many herbivores, it is a rebellion against the lives that their fathers led and their disillusionment with growing up in post-bubble Japan. It is also a response to an increasingly assertive female population.

Japanese who are older than 35 came of age during the pre-1990 bubble years and many enjoyed a period of abundant cash, unbridled opportunity and national pride. The experience of the under-35 crowd is a marked contrast.

The deflation of the 1990s and early 2000s crimped living standards and ushered historic changes to the lifetime-employment system. People with "non-regular" jobs - part-time, less pay, fewer benefits - make up about 40 per cent of the labour force.

The upshot will be less consumption amid worsening demographic and debt trends. The population is ageing, while the birthrate is stagnant. An aversion to immigration means imported labour will not close the gap. And the debt-to-gross domestic product ratio is zooming towards 200 per cent.

Paying off all that debt and staying competitive amid China's rise will rest on the shoulders of the very demographic wallowing in disillusionment.

Commentators often harp on the birthrate implications. As more women delay motherhood, many men of marrying age appear less interested in sex than past generations.

Many point to a steady decline in condom sales and surveys that show some young men prefer pornography, cyber-sex and sex toys to the real thing. It may just accelerate the decline in Japan's workforce.

Economic stagnation is manifesting itself in unexpected ways when it comes to male behaviour, and the phenomenon may have a silver lining or two.

One could be a reduction in karoshi, or death from overwork. The alternative male lifestyle could encourage some of the more than 30,000 Japanese who commit suicide each year to reconsider.

The key is for the government to take steps to ensure the vibrancy of Japan's workforce and society. Here, it's hard to find much good news. If only the state of Japan's politics was as pretty as its young men. Bloomberg

WEEKENDVTRA

The writer is a Bloomberg columnist.

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