You criticize the methodology by citing anecdotal evidence. That's worse.
Also it doesn't explain the correlation with the recession.
Also it doesn't explain the correlation with the recession.
What followed was what I observed from my personal experiences, and I did not say that my personal experiences necessary reflect the state of the whole of Japan, nor vice versa, or prove this article false. These are just my personal observations, which happen to be the opposite of what was stated in the article.
Also, in addition to the very small sample set (3000 out of millions, even if we are just considering the age group mentioned), it also provides little to no detail of the sample selected (location, marital status etc). IMHO this is article seems sensationalist to me, or just bad journalism (no links to concrete sources or data).