
Longreach puts a ring on it
Is the spirit of romance ebbing away in Japan? Naoki Sawano, president of bridal jewelry specialist Primo Japan, suggested as much a couple of years ago. He held a trend among young people “to think of the proposal and the engagement ring as two separate things” as partly responsible for a drop in the percentage of couples purchasing engagement rings.
As Sawano acknowledged, there are other factors at work - not least Japan's falling birth rate and aging population. In late 2013, the number of people aged 65 and over crossed the 25% threshold for the...
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