Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has characterized the upcoming general election as a referendum for his fiscal policies, popularly known as "Abenomics," so it's not surprising that the opposition has focused on those policies as a means of discrediting his administration.

The Democratic Party of Japan's chief cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, recently gave a public speech from a sound truck in Yamagata City, and talked mainly about the effect that Abenomics has had on employment. Abe brags about creating new jobs with his policy, but Edano contends that these jobs are not the kind that allow young people to "get married and start families," since they are mostly temporary or contract work (haken) that doesn't guarantee a stable future. "At the very least, we have to increase the number of jobs that guarantee stability, otherwise we can't call it an employment policy," he said.

Edano has a point, though he may not realize how sharp it actually is. Last year, the marriage information company O-Net, which is part of the Rakuten Group, conducted a survey of single men and women in the Tokyo metropolitan area between the ages of 25 and 39 to find out their prospects for marriage. When asked why they were not married, the most common answer (multiple responses were allowed) for both genders was that they "don't have a chance to meet people of the opposite sex."