Japan Press Weekly

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2013 July 17 - 23 [ARTS AND SPORTS]

Japan’s abysmal sports policy - Part II

People too busy to enjoy participating in sports

Many Japanese cannot engage in physical activities even when they want to due to harsh working conditions as well as the insufficient support by the national government to build or renovate existing sports facilities.

According to a survey by the Cabinet Office, 45.3% of adults participated in sports or physical activities more than once a week in 2009. However, the rate dropped to 27.7% among people in their 20s and to 35.6% among those in their 30s.

In addition, 22.2% of the respondents said that they did not engage in any sports or physical activities during the last 12 months. The most common reason given was, “Too busy at work (or housework)” (45.9%). Of people aged 20-39, 66.7% cited this as the reason for their failure to engage in sporting activities.

The survey result suggests that long working hours with excessive workloads should be eliminated in order to secure people’s right to participate in sports or sporting activities.

In the same survey, of those who did not engage in physical activities or sports, 5.4% said that it was because of the lack of sports facilities nearby.

The number of sports facilities has decreased from the peak of 292,117 in 1985 to 222,533 in 2008, according to a Sports Ministry’s survey.

Among them, facilities in schools were reduced from 156,548 in 1990 to 136,276 in 2008, and public sports facilities decreased from 65,528 in 1996 to 53,732 in 2008.

While many facilities became too old to use, few are newly built. This is because the national government stopped providing municipalities with a subsidy to cover one-third of the cost for the construction of new facilities.

The Sports Ministry in its white paper in 2010 states, “A decrease in the number of sports facilities is negatively affecting people’s physical activities.”