The issue is intensifying with so-called “middle-aged hikikomori,” individuals who have remained in their homes since the late 90s. According to Gendai Business, it is becoming a social issue as parents approaching their 80s are neglected by their children when they suffer from diseases like cancer and dementia. As Japan’s economic bubble collapsed in the 1990s, finding jobs became difficult, leading many in their 20s and 30s to retreat into their homes. These individuals, now in their 50s and 60s, continue to live in their rooms today. According to a 2019 survey by the Japanese Cabinet Office, the number of middle-aged hikikomori aged 40 to 64 reached 613,000. Once considered a youth issue, the hikikomori issue has become a social problem for middle-aged and older people.
As such, with hikikomori reaching middle age, Japan’s society is suffering from the “8050 problem,” where elderly parents in their 80s are supporting their 50-year-old hikikomori children. Middle-aged hikikomori often neglect the corpses of their parents after they die from illness. They do this to continue receiving pensions in their parent’s names, or they may abuse their parents by refusing their treatment.
Those who mainly live off the old-age pensions their parents receive reduce the medical expenses of their sick parents for fear of running out of money after their parents die. One man in his 50s admitted his mother to a facility after she was diagnosed with cancer, only to take her home two months later, saying, “I can’t leave my mother in a facility. I will take care of her,” and then left her neglected in a shoe cupboard. If the child discharges their sick parent, the nursing home has no right to stop them. However, it has been pointed out that neglecting an 80-year-old cancer patient in a place where the sanitary conditions are so poor that even garbage is not properly disposed of is a form of abuse.