Yea, they f'd up a whole generation because of TRADITION.
There was a good video about this but the tl;dw is about this:
In Japan you're supposed to get hired straight out of school and then you'll stay with The Company until you retire.
The same tradition implies that The Company will _never_ fire people.
Japan faced some very hard times. Companies couldn't afford to hire new people because they couldn't fire the older people.
A whole generation never really entered the workforce because they never got the experience. Now they're mostly doing odd jobs and for the same reason never got married and had children.