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Evaporated People
Evaporated people refers to a social phenomenon in Japan where tens of thousands of people evaporate every year, often occurring during times of economic hardship (e.g. Japanese asset bubble, GFC) and sometimes even surpassing 100,000 people. This phenomenon exists to due to formerly functional members of society leaving their friends, family, and education or workplace who cannot or do not wish to live in regular society due to having incurred substantial amounts of debt or being unable to live up to social expectations or responsibilities such as the inability to find a job, maintain employment, or unable to pass a university entrance exam.These people often relocate to the Sanya area of Tokyo, where labour jobs and cheap accommodation are available to those who no longer officially exist in society. This phenomenon was featured in a book named “The Vanished: The "Evaporated People" of Japan in Stories and Photographs.” By Léna Mauger.

Summary
According to sociologist named Hiroki Nakamori stated that the term ‘evaporated’ people was popularised in the 1970’s and was treated as a symbol of freedom, as divorce was not common or easily achieved at that time, ‘evaporating’ occurred when marriage relationships became strained. The Author of the book “The Vanished: The "Evaporated People" of Japan in Stories and Photographs.” Mauger stated that the topic of evaporated people in Japan is a taboo and is therefore not a common topic of conversation in Japan. Evaporated people fall under the category of but should not be mistaken with missing people.

History:
Sociologist Hiroki Nakamori claims that the origins of evaporated people extend back to ancient days where people missing without cause were considered to have been ‘spirited away’ or ‘kamikakushi’.

Cause
The culture of avoiding shame in Japan, is the primary factor leading to the occurrence of this social phenomenon. Rather than declaring bankruptcy or reattempting a failed venture, some people instead choose to ‘evaporate’ and move into cheap hostels in Sanya, Tokyo, where illegal, low paying jobs are offered by small businesses and yakuza associated businesses, which allow ‘evaporated’ people to continue living in society while officially being considered ‘missing’ by the government. The culture of avoiding shame also results in the families of some ‘evaporated’ people being reluctant to report their missing status to the police, resulting in the total number of ‘evaporated’ people being unknown while simultaneously putting a financial burden on their families, as they may opt to hire a private detective rather than notify the police.

Due to the idea of ‘shame’ being heavily portrayed as negative in the Japanese culture, many frown upon the idea of ‘evaporated people’ as they may feel that these people are escaping from reality, whereas others are more empathetic to the idea of ‘evaporating’ as these cases occur more often during recessions. This phenomenon is often considered ‘taboo’ in Japan, and as a result, many people do not know much about it, however over 100,000 people still ‘evaporate’ every year.

Another contributing factor is the Japanese corporate structure of almost all members of the Japanese workforce working overtime without pay, which has been a recognised cause death by the Japanese government since the 1980's, resulting as the aftermath of World War II, which eventually resulted in ‘Karoshi’ which means “death from overwork” in Japanese and is another phenomenon that occurs in modern day Japan. This often involves working more than 80 overtime hours every month without pay and therefore, many suffer the ill fate of premature death, often in the form of stroke or heart attack due to the stress of overtime work. The family of the deceased may be compensated but only if the case is ruled as karoshi. The first case of ‘Karoshi’ was reported in 1969, shortly before the term 'evaporated people' became popularised.

While Japanese culture emphasises the importance of the group over the individual, the financial pressure combined with the stress derived from the Japanese corporate structure can also lead to depression, which leads to poor communication and consequently less fulfilment in human relationships can lead to people in financial trouble abandoning their families and ‘evaporate’. According to a private investigator named Katsunori Kudo, this emphasis of the group over the individual is caused by the history of the Japanese people living on an island, and the reason for disappearance is due to the Japanese people not wanting to cause trouble for others, with many believing that disappearing causes less trouble for the collective than staying and helps themselves and their families save face.

Privacy Laws
In Japan, there are no law forcing authorities to search for missing persons as it is considered one’s personal freedom to choose where they live, which means police cannot access government information to track a person’s whereabouts using unless they are suspected to be involved in a crime, and much of their personal information cannot be accessed even after death. The ratio of missing men to women is due to the fact that most cases of evaporation are due to financial problems, and in Japan, while it is more common for the wife to manage the family’s finances, historically, the financial provider of the family would be the husband, and therefore the shame and loss of the ability to support one’s family financially leads men to evaporate, whereas cases of female evaporation are often caused by domestic violence. Victims of domestic violence may opt to evaporate rather than report their case to the police because cases of assault carry a sentence of under 2 years in Japan.

=== Statistics ===

The president of Missing Person Search and Regional Safety Support Association of Japan, Hiroshi Tahara states that the official statistics of missing people in Japan are limited to those that are reported to the police, and thus the true number of currently evaporated people in Japan who have not yet been found could be over one million.

Method of “evaporation”
Many people who ‘evaporate’ often hire businesses called ‘yonigeya’ and are publicly listed, which means night moving shops, help people ‘evaporate’, these are known as night movers, people who drive the ‘evaporated’ to their new residencies, help them find new jobs, which is often related to their old jobs and help them start their new lives, and Japanese privacy laws do not allow the police to access most of a person’s personal information, even after one is deceased, therefore ‘evaporated’ people are very difficult to track.

Public Perception
Evaporated people are considered a taboo subject in Japan, and although many family members of evaporated people are willing to supply evaporated people with money so that they don’t starve, they may still be ashamed of their status.

NEET’s
In contrast to evaporated people, NEET’s (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) often become recluses rather than leave their families behind, however some similarities have been drawn between the two as there are hundreds of thousands of NEET’s in Japan who contribute to society as much or even less than evaporated people as evaporated people still work, although they may have few social interactions and spend most of their time by themselves. Although evaporating is not a known phenomenon in other countries, however recluses and NEET’s have been increasing in other countries such as Australia, where one in eight between 19 and 29 are NEET’s in Australia.

References in Media
Due to evaporated people being a taboo topic very few references have appeared in popular media, however they are pivotal in the film “A Man Vanishes”(ningen jouhatsu), by Shohei Imamura, 1967.