Women with long hair are good for the economy
Feb 19th, 2008 by Ad Blankestijn
A Reuters article makes a case for a link between the hairstyle of Japanese women and the state of the economy.
Women tend to wear their hair long when Japan’s economy is doing well and short when there is a slump, the Nikkei business daily reported, citing a survey conducted by Japanese cosmetics company Kao Corp.
Apparently, Kao (a shampoo and soap maker) does regular surveys in Tokyo and Osaka inquiring after women’s favorite hairlength.
Until the early 1990s, when Japan’s economic bubble burst, 60 percent of women in their twenties kept their hair long, the Nikkei said, citing the survey.
But after the Bubble burst, short hair became the dominant style. The last few years we just saw a welcome comeback of long tresses, but the latest trend again seems to be towards “collarbone” hair, so buckle your economic seatbelts…
My preference for long black hair is not only influenced by cult film Exte, I now know there is a solid good reason behind it: when long hair swirls around the shoulders of Japanese women, the economy is also on the upswing!
Reuters article via News on Japan
P.S. On a somewhat related note: here is a piece about women’s hair by Lafcadio Hearn (from Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan).
P.S.2 (March 7, 2008) Also Businessweek has picked up the story, in a quite serious fashion! We get the economy why short hair is more popular in times of financial woe:
One theory is that women adopted shorter hairstyles because in harder times they have less money to spend on hair care products, such as hairsprays and gels, which women tend to use more heavily for longer hair. Sales of hair products peaked in the mid-1990s at $980 million before falling every year until 2004, bottoming out at $550 million.
- This despite more frequent visits to the hair saloon to get a cut!
The article also cites economist Richard Jerram, who expresses his surprise that hairstyles were not a lot shorter if influenced by the economy - he says in 1998 Japanese women would have been skinheads if the theory was correct!
