"Unlike in the U.S., where most adoptees are children, 98 percent of Japan’s adoptees are 25-to-30-year-old men."
Why? "In Japan, a 2011 study found, businesses run by adopted heirs consistently outperformed those run by blood heirs."
http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/
Audio podcast: http://freakonomics.com/2011/08/03/new-freakonomics-radio-po...
Transcript of the podcast: http://freakonomics.com/2011/06/03/the-church-of-scionology-...
One of the papers cited by Freakonomics is here: http://www.insead.edu/facultyresearch/areas/finance/activiti...
That paper's title is Adoptive Expectations: Rising Sons in Japanese Family Firms, and the transcript is as follows:
A unique Japanese practice of adopting adults, even if one has biological children, makes Japanese family firms unusually economically competitive. Using a large panel that very nearly comprises the population of postwar listed nonfinancial firms; we find inherited family firms more important in postwar Japan than generally realized, and also performing well – an unusual finding for a developed economy. Adopted heirs’ firms outperform blood heirs’ firms, and match or nearly match founderrun listed firms. Both adopted and blood heirs’ firms outperform nonfamily firms (excluding founders’ firms). With blood heir gender and educational records as instruments, we find family succession events “causing” elevated performance. These findings are consistent with adult adoptees displacing blood heirs in the left tail of the talent distribution, with the “adopted son” job motivating star managers, and with the threat of displacement inducing blood heirs to invest in human capital, mitigating the socalled “Carnegie conjecture” that inherited wealth deadens talent.
Legally, "family" means that you are listed on the koseki. As far as I know, every Japanese citizen must be listed in a koseki. Your family name is dependent upon the koseki. When I got married to my Japanese wife, she decided to use my name and since I am a foreigner we had to create a new koseki for our family. I could just have easily have changed my name to her family name and joined her family's koseki. I didn't read the linked article, but I suspect that is what they are referring to as "adoption".
I suppose it is adoption in a way since the person is joining the family, but when you get married one person or the other has to move to the other koseki. Usually the woman moves, but there are many reasons why a man might be invited to join the woman's family instead. The obvious one is that the family has no male children and therefore nobody to continue the family (if all the female children get married and join other koseki). Other reasons can include things like the man being an orphan and wanting to join the other family (this is the case of a friend of mine).
Note that gay and lesbian couples have hacked the koseki to have a form of marriage. One of them simply "adopts" the other. Then they are in the same koseki and legally in the same family. I don't know the details, but I don't think this affords all the benefits of marriage, but I think it gets you quite close.
The koseki is quite strange when you first get exposed to it, but it is really a simple legal instrument. There are definite problems, but for the vast majority of Japanese people it works quite well. The main problems are related to non-citizens. For example, in my case if I were to divorce from my wife, I would revert to a state where I was not on any koseki. This would essentially remove a whole raft of rights that I have when I am on a koseki. You basically aren't a legal person unless you are on a koseki. If I had children, for instance, if I got divorced my wife would automatically get custody because I would not legally be able to take custody, not being a person. There are apparently some reforms coming down the pipe to handle these corner cases, but like I said the system works quite well for the vast majority of Japanese citizens.
This isn't true. You're still considered a person but you're not considered a citizen. Big difference. Koseki does not (nor should it) grant you the same rights as a naturalized citizen of Japan. Becoming a naturalized citizen (through citizinship) is a step which you (or anyone else who qualifies) can take if you want, but it takes a bit of time (same length as becoming a citizen in the U.S, ~10 years).
In your comment, you don't differentiate being a naturalized citizen of Japan and a koseki. But there's a huge difference. A koseki is something different and apart from becoming a naturalized citizen. It shouldn't grant you the same rights if you're a foreigner, it wasn't meant too.
Foreigners can only be "noted" in a Koseki, they can't have their own, or be registered in, a Koseki.
This is my understanding, but I find the whole thing a bit confusing and am hoping someone will set me right where I'm incorrect.
When you marry, if either you or your spouse already have his/her own koseki, the other will be registered to it. If both are under their respective parents' koseki, then always a new koseki will be created for the couple.
This is easily accomplished since the Japanese koseki family registry is primary-keyed by last name. Usually the wife takes her new husband's name and joins his koseki, but if they do the reverse, then the son is now part of the wife's family.