１ｓｔ（Ｓ）

I believe the gap between rich and poor people in Japan will increase in the future. There are two reasons why I believe so. Let me explain why.

First, due to growing international competition, there are more and more Japanese companies introducing a system, called meritocracy, where employees are paid, based on performance, rather than age. In this system, competent workers can get paid better, but less skilled workers won't be able to get a raise even though they get old. Traditionally in Japan, most companies respected age and the employees were paid based on seniority. But this seniority based pay system is becoming a thing of the past, and as a result, rich people are getting richer and poor people are getting poorer and poorer.

Second, in today's aging society, there will be an increasing number of old people, and at the same time, the number of young people is expected to be decreasing. Which means, there are few workers to pay taxes, so the government won't be able to support all the elderly people, and those who don't have enough sayings will suffer a lot. What's worse, most people today live in a nuclear family, and there aren't many children who support their aging parents either physically or financially.