8.2.1 SHARE OF AND CHANGE IN DIFFERENT TOPICS IN JAPANESE NEWSPAPER REPORTS
Table 6 provides an initial overview of the content of Japanese newspaper reports. The table shows how many of the articles discussed the topics ‘work, retirement and pension’, ‘ageing, health and care’ and ‘lifestyles and identities’ during each analytic phase as well as the whole period.10 The calculations signify that the topic was discussed in the articles either as a main subject or as a minor subject. This means that one article can be categorised under multiple topics. Therefore, the sum of the percentages for each topic do not add up to 100 per cent.
10 How the topics were categorised is elaborated on in CHAPTER 7: MATERIALS AND METHODS FOR NEWSPAPER ANALYSES, especially in subsection 7.3.2, Analysing the Japanese data, and in Table 4.
Table 6. Proportion of articles by topic and phase in Japanese newspapers
49.4 55.6 59.7 52.7 52.5
Total number of articles (N)
541 394 62 112 1109
Note: One article can be categorised under multiple topics.
Looking at the whole period, nearly half of all articles (n=1109) dealt with the topic relating to ‘work, retirement and pension’. Yet, the proportion of articles differed in different phases. In phase I and phase II, the period associated with early retirement, articles discussing work and retirement held a dominant position. The number and percentage of articles belonging to this category decreased in the course of time, leading to a significant loss in share during the normal retirement period. This demonstrates that until phase IV, society had been gaining familiarity with the topic of the impending retirement of the baby boomers, after which the issue was not considered to generate special interest among readers any longer.
The topic ‘ageing, health and care’ accounted for a mere 13 per cent of all articles throughout the study period. Nevertheless, contrary to the importance of the aforementioned topic concerning work and retirement, the proportion of articles assigned to the topic of ageing, health and care increased over time.
From a tiny portion, it grew to account for more than 40 per cent of all articles in the last phase, i.e. during the normal retirement of the baby boomers. This is likely to reflect an increasing general concern with health and care issues as the boomers advanced in age.
The topic ‘lifestyles and identities’ comprised approximately half of all articles throughout the studied period. The trend implies that Japanese discussions about the baby boomers had diverse aspects to them. Though not shown in the table, further analyses of the sub-topics included in ‘lifestyles and identities’ revealed that most articles corresponding to ‘consumption and marketing’ appeared during the phases before and during early retirement, while those related to ‘activities, associations and relationships’ and
‘baby boomers as a generation’ remained relatively constant in number
and share over time. Particularly remarkable is the substantial proportion of articles related to the topic ‘activities, associations and relationships’, which ranged from nearly one-fourth to two-fifths of the total number of articles during the respective phases.
8.2.2 SHARE OF AND CHANGE IN DIFFERENT TOPICS IN FINNISH NEWSPAPER REPORTS
Table 7 provides an overview of the content of Finnish newspaper reports. The table shows how many of the articles discussed the topics ‘work, retirement and pension’, ‘ageing, health and care’, ‘current events in economic and political affairs’, ‘baby boomers as a generation’ and ‘other’
during the respective phases of analysis and entire period.11 The calculations signify that the topic was discussed in the articles either as a main subject or as a minor subject. In other words, one article could be categorised under multiple topics, and the sum of the percentages for each topic shown in the table do not add up to 100 per cent.
Table 7. Proportion of articles by topic and phase in Finnish newspaper
Phase I before early
retirement (2000)
Phase II during early
retirement (2001–07)
Phase III during normal
retirement (2008–15)
Total period
Topic (%)
Work, retirement and pension 70.0 67.2 52.5 60.6
Ageing, health and care 50.0 27.6 30.5 30.7
Current events in economic and political affairs
0.0 17.2 20.3 17.3
Baby boomers as a generation 0.0 8.6 22.0 14.2
Other 0.0 1.7 5.1 3.1
Total number of articles (N) 10 58 59 127
Note: One article can be categorised under multiple topics.
Over the study period, approximately 60 per cent of all articles dealt with the topic ‘work, retirement and pension’. The share of articles focusing on this particular topic, however, decreased continually over time, from 70 percent during phase I (before early retirement) to 53 per cent during phase III (during normal retirement). While the decline was not as steep as for the same topic
11 How these topics were categorised is elaborated on in CHAPTER 7: MATERIALS AND METHODS FOR NEWSPAPER ANALYSES, especially in subsection 7.3.3, Analysing the Finnish data, and in Table 5.
in the Japanese data, in both Finland and Japan other topics emerged and gained in prominence as the baby boomers actually began to retire.
The topic ‘ageing, health and care’ was the second most frequently discussed topic over the total period as well as during the respective analytic phases. When looking at absolute numbers, the articles falling into this category increased over time from five in phase I, to 16 in phase II to 18 in phase III. However, the minor difference in number between the period during early retirement and the period during normal retirement suggests that advancing age of the baby boomers did not seem to have an obvious influence on discussions about ageing and care issues.
The topics that did not exist at all in the first phase but emerged toward the last phase were ‘current events in economic and political affairs’ and ‘baby boomers as a generation’. Changes in the macro-economic trend and the transformed circumstances surrounding the baby boomers might well have contributed to the delayed emergence of the two topics. Particularly, the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent economic and political hardships, as well as the post-retirement lifestyles gradually established by baby boomers, appeared to affect the emergence of new discussions.
The topic ‘other’ was an extra group that was not connected to any of the four categories explained previously. There was also no relation between the manifest content of each of the four articles coded as ‘other’ with respect to the main subject. Of the four articles covering the issues of (1) popularity of choosing vocational school, (2) lowering age limit for voting right, (3) innovation in media and (4) family crisis, two ((2) and (4)) dealt with additional topics as minor subjects; one (2) also discussed the topic ‘baby boomers as a generation’ and one (4) covered the topic ‘work, retirement and pension’. These two articles were included in the later qualitative analysis implemented for each topic separately.