Probably they don't. I mean, many or even most of those teachers are young and single and don't have many expenses. They come to Japan in search of adventure but eventually they leave. Others get stuck in those jobs but cannot go back home because they are too old to start all over again. If they get married, a double income helps.
This is an interesting case study. Tell us more about the possible decline in demand. Perhaps there are simply fewer students overall. Maybe the answer can be found by segmenting the consumers of eikaiwa. You already highlighted one growth area as young children. What about trends related to other consumer segments (e.g., up-and-coming young business people subsidized by their employers, middle-aged housewives, retired people who consider eikaiwa as a hobby, etc.)?
Thanks, I will try to look into some of those more. By segment, my off-hand guess would be that middle-aged housewives are in decline as the number of them is falling as more middle-aged women work full-time. Retired people who consider eikaiwa as a hobby probably got badly dented by Covid, they found other ways to socialise. Eikaiwas I know that relied on this kind of custom have recently pivoted towards kids lessons. Up-and-coming young business people I'm not sure about, but the declining number of positions advertised by the three-letter-acronym companies that used to dominate the corporate segment probably indicates a shift to online lessons subsidised by their companies instead.
Based on feedback from one of my sons who teaches part-time at an eikaiwa in Japan, I feel that your intuition about each of these customer segments is correct.
I used to run the Japanese subsidiary of an American company that offered 100% subsidized eikaiwa online training to employees who requested it. Almost all of the instructors connected from offshore in the Philippines. It was questionable whether this program was effective. The results were highly dependent on the individual participants. In any case, the underlying demand from "up-and-coming" corporate types may still be there, but the offshoring of the industry via videoconferencing may be another factor, despite the benefits of face-to-face interaction with a native English speaker.
Apps like SayHi may also be having an impact, although I would certainly advocate personal development when it comes to learning a foreign language.
It’s kind of a more socio-cultural question rather than economic but I wonder what keeps anyone doing eikawa for these wages.
Probably they don't. I mean, many or even most of those teachers are young and single and don't have many expenses. They come to Japan in search of adventure but eventually they leave. Others get stuck in those jobs but cannot go back home because they are too old to start all over again. If they get married, a double income helps.
This is an interesting case study. Tell us more about the possible decline in demand. Perhaps there are simply fewer students overall. Maybe the answer can be found by segmenting the consumers of eikaiwa. You already highlighted one growth area as young children. What about trends related to other consumer segments (e.g., up-and-coming young business people subsidized by their employers, middle-aged housewives, retired people who consider eikaiwa as a hobby, etc.)?
Thanks, I will try to look into some of those more. By segment, my off-hand guess would be that middle-aged housewives are in decline as the number of them is falling as more middle-aged women work full-time. Retired people who consider eikaiwa as a hobby probably got badly dented by Covid, they found other ways to socialise. Eikaiwas I know that relied on this kind of custom have recently pivoted towards kids lessons. Up-and-coming young business people I'm not sure about, but the declining number of positions advertised by the three-letter-acronym companies that used to dominate the corporate segment probably indicates a shift to online lessons subsidised by their companies instead.
Based on feedback from one of my sons who teaches part-time at an eikaiwa in Japan, I feel that your intuition about each of these customer segments is correct.
I used to run the Japanese subsidiary of an American company that offered 100% subsidized eikaiwa online training to employees who requested it. Almost all of the instructors connected from offshore in the Philippines. It was questionable whether this program was effective. The results were highly dependent on the individual participants. In any case, the underlying demand from "up-and-coming" corporate types may still be there, but the offshoring of the industry via videoconferencing may be another factor, despite the benefits of face-to-face interaction with a native English speaker.
Apps like SayHi may also be having an impact, although I would certainly advocate personal development when it comes to learning a foreign language.