ABSTRACT
Japanese society, as any other society, has developed its own agenda and set of images associated with the body, sport, fitness, health and beauty. Ideas of what sport is, and what sport is good for, are to the same extent socially constructed as the social institutions in which practice and consumption of sport are embedded. These constructs are related to conventions, roles, behaviour and values associated with mainstream society and the capability of dominant ideologies to bear up against contending claims. The notion of sport, based on the outcome of social interaction between various groups of society and their underlying power relations, therefore is fluid, unstable and open to transformation, triggered by shifting constellations of the broader environment. Japan's enforced integration into the world economy in the later 19th century, defeat in World War II, the rise of the consumption-led economy and recent globalization processes have been decisive moments of social change with a major impact upon the role of sport in society. At the outset of the 21st century, it is the greying of society which is leaving the most evident marks on the sport system in Japan. Between 1970 and 1994, when the proportional share of people aged 65 and older increased from 7 to 14 per cent, Japan was one of the fastest ‘aging societies’. For the following 13 years, Japan turned into the fastest ‘aged society’, and since the share of the elderly exceeded the 21 per cent mark of the entire population in 2007 for the first time, Japan became the first nation to pass the line towards a ‘hyper-aged society’. Numerous challenges have been associated with these demographic transgressions ever since media reporting about the government's 1.57 shokku in 1990, when Japan's total fertility rate of 1.57 was far below reproduction rate and had initiated public awareness for the first time.
