> an increasing bifurcation of society into salarymen, with low but stable incomes anchored on jobs-almost-for-life, and part-timers on temporary contracts, with groups like single mothers living in poverty

Sounds like the rest of the Western world. We're not living in such a capitalist utopia over here either, are we?

I think most of us on this forum are sheltered from how the rest of the developed world lives, with our 250k a year and private health insurance. Because from what I see here in Europe it's a temp worker world and single mothers living in almost poverty, with a welfare state close to bankruptcy.

We don't have the jobs for life, in that you might be fired out of the blue, so I don't know which is worse in this case.