Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on Japanese People’s Lifestyles
The purpose of the paper is to understand the difference of before vs. after COVID-19 pandemic and Japanese people living in Japan. Subsequently, examining the analysis results help obtain useful insights into new business models for business parties in Japan as a micro-leveled perspective. The paper also tried to explore future conditions of globalization by taking into consideration nation’s political and economic changes as a macro-leveled perspective. The COVID-19 has been spreading across the world with more than 513 million with 6.2 million deaths confirmed cases in 190 countries as of 01 May, 2022. In this pandemic, consumer lifestyles have to change as people's range of activities is restricted. In general, consumers tend to think of new ways to carry out their daily activities when they are difficult to execute. For example, if the government forces its citizens to refrain from going out, they will try to center their work and social life around their homes. Even if the pandemic is over and things are back to normal, people will not revert to exactly the same lifestyle as before. The impact of COVID-19, such as a digitalized work style all at once and a life where people spend most of their time at home, will change their lives before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The decline of the Japanese economy due to COVID-19 is said to be as destructive as or more destructive than the IMF financial crisis of 1997 or the Lehman shock of 2008. As a result, globalization in the global supply chain of goods and services has already been severely impacted. Much of the government's financial and economic policies, such as those implemented in the immediate aftermath of the Lehman Shock financial crisis, will focus on its own interests to the exclusion of those of other countries. This paper studies the changes in the lives of the Japanese people due to the altered globalization exerted by COVID-19, through analysis and discussion at both the micro and macro levels.