Love Cars: Creating Joyful Memories on the Open Road
Okay, I understand your question.
I take it you mean: “Why do the Japanese elderly want to keep & driving a car”.
For this question, there are two things that you have to consider:
1. Why are the younger generations so reluctant to own a car?
2. Why are the elderly so insistent on keeping their cars?
So let’s get moving to our 1st point shall we!
1st point: Why don’t young men buy cars anymore?.
I’m old and have a biased view, but please consider it.
My 1st car was a Toyota RAV4 2000 edition. It was tiny and clunky but did the job.
I bought it over 30 years ago, I used it to send your mother home after our dates. Owning a car made us feel so much safer – even when it got late into the night.
The only risk was my driving, which I thought was completely fine. No amount of danger would truly scare us when we were inside our cars. I made so many memories with my car. So truthfully, when you said you didn’t want to own one, I thought it was a bit strange.
My first thought was, “What are you going to do when you go on a date??”. Implying that in our generation, having a car was almost an essential to be able to go on dates.
You often say that “it’s enough to rent a car when necessary”, but it’s very different from owning one.
A car gives you the freedom to go to places suddenly, without having to consider the distance.
In the past, your mother and I would ramble in the car while taking her to places like the sea. It sounds like nothing, but those moments are the ones you truly cherish.
Without a car, we would have never been cable of creating those lasting memories…
Okay, I know you like evidence, so I found some to support my case.
Although it’s a bit old, I think you will find this interesting.
“There has been a fall in car ownership by young men. Interestingly, there has been an inverse increase in car ownership by young-women”. (Ministry of Land & Transport 2012). So maybe, there is a change that your sister will own a car. 🙂
The assumption I make here is going to be different to yours, but here’s what I see from it. One, men of this generation are losing the desire to go-out. And two, women are choosing to increasingly go out by themselves.
Adding onto that, I want to share with you another statistic. “There has been a sudden increase in the number of men and women who don’t want to marry”. (Ministry of Health & Labor). You may already know this with Japan’s decreasing birth rate.
I know there are likely lot’s of different factors. But since we want to understand your question, let’s connect this to car-ownership. So here’s my guess.
One is that men are losing interest in women and going out in general. With other dopamine hits like video-games and junk-food, they aren’t as giddy to go outside and talk with others. If you don’t go outside, you don’t need a car, period.
And two, women are having to own a car to be able to go out. They are compensating for the lack of young men who go out and own a car. Thus resulting in the increase you see in the statistics.
So let’s conclude my first point. I say there is a decrease in car-ownership among young men is caused by a general decrease in activity. Including all things like going outside and dating, rendering the need of a car to be obsolete.
2nd point: “Why does the elder generation want to keep their cars??”.
Before we start, there are things that need to be admitted. Once you own a car, it’s hard to get rid of it. Case in point, it took me 10 years to finally let go of my Toyota RAV4. Even then, my extended family used that car for another 5 years.
Once your life revolves around a car, it’s difficult to give it up. When everything in your life from shopping, commuting, amusement is tied to your car, it’s hard to give it up without first having to change your lifestyle.
You don’t know yet, but the train-commute in Tokyo rush hour can be abysmal. And it’s the same in many other popular cities. Fortunately and unfortunately, you haven’t experienced that life yet — living in a quiet city. Through feeling the hassle one day, I hope you gain an appreciation for the ability to own a car.
Let’s move back to the topic at hand. To support my case, I will use my own life as an example. Throughout my life, I’ve moved from one-place to another many times. These instances have led me to travel across seas and give up my car ownership repeatedly. But as we finally settled and bought a home and car, a realization dawned on me. With all these possessions, simply changing life-style now would be very and I mean very difficult.
And it’s the same for the elderly. You can see a glimpse of it from the graph below.
From the graph above, you can see a relationship with housing ownership and age. It peaks at around 75+ years, but you can still see the clear increase. At 75 years old, it’s estimated that 80% of them would own a home. It sounds crazy, but think of yourself at that age. When your 75 years old, would you really commit to such a drastic change in life-style?. Maybe it depends, but I certainly can’t fathom going through that process. And that’s potentially the same thought process that crosses through the minds of the elderly.
So similar to housing, the same logic can be applied to car-ownership. The elderly who own a car now are going to keep owning one, because it’s so ingrained in their lifestyle. Imagine having to tell your grandparents to completely uproot and change their lifestyle… that would be tremendously difficult wouldn’t it?. Right. And it’s the same for everyone else. So that’s my interpretation of why so many elderly own cars.
I hope that this answers your question.