Abstract This article examines the discursive strategies and institutional context that led the Abe administration to change Japan’s migrant admission policy. For the past thirty years, Japan officially refused to admit migrant workers and instead relied on a side-door policy. However, in 2018, the Japanese government introduced the Specified Skilled Worker Program, marking the first official migrant worker program in post-war Japan. Key factors behind Japan’s reluctance to admit migrants and its reliance on the side-door policy include the pivotal roles of the bureaucracy, institutional constraints, and negative public perceptions of migrants. To overcome these obstacles, the Abe administration employed top-down decision-making within institutional frameworks and used discourses such as the ‘utilisation of foreign human resources’ to justify the reform while framing it as ‘not an immigration policy’ to ensure its legitimacy. Additionally, the discourse surrounding ‘competition for human resources’ and Japan as ‘a chosen country’ motivated the policy reform by emphasising the need to enhance national competitiveness. Drawing on the framework of discursive institutionalism, this article demonstrates that discourses in specific institutional contexts play a critical role in explaining the shift in Japan’s migrant admission policy and reflect changing national identifications.

Abstract The (hi)story of the Buraku minority group in Japan is complex and fragmented, variously tied to living space or profession, the Edo-era mibun caste system or post-liberation migration, personal identification, or family lineage. Japan’s Buraku-focused museums are charged with delineating this multi-layered (hi)story, particularly as it relates to discrimination, a focal point in Buraku notions of identity. Through quantitative content analysis, this paper reveals significant regional differences in where Japan’s Buraku-focused museums locate the root of this discrimination, demonstrating that stigma in western Japan and eastern Japan is attached to Buraku neighborhoods and professions, respectively. This divergence often results in reification of this identity fragmentation. However, occasionally museums demonstrate an intersectional perspective including both space-based and profession-based understandings of Burakuness, hinting at opportunities for richer curatorial storytelling. This research also indicates that the museums in both regions see their educational role as a spiritual one, “purifying” these stigmas. Leveraging this commonality for interregional dialogue may provide further opportunities for intersectional engagement. This paper contributes to Japanese Studies literature by connecting regional understandings of Buraku discrimination to contemporary discontinuities in Buraku identity perception. It also contributes to museum literature by highlighting the importance of considering regional differences in intersectional curatorial practice.

Abstract This study examines changes in the association between social policy performance and trust in government, focusing on the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination policy implemented by Japan’s central government. Data from the Online Panel Survey of Stratification and Social Psychology (SSPW2021-Panel) were analyzed using two-way fixed effects regression models. The quadratic term of the COVID-19 vaccination rate at the prefecture level had statistically significant effects on the evaluation of the central government’s infection control policies and trust in the central government. This implies that the relative deprivation experienced by unvaccinated individuals weakened trust in the central government in the early stage, and the decline in the number of unvaccinated individuals strengthened trust in the central government in the latter stage. Thus, this paper finds that even if a social policy meets people’s demands, its implementation may temporally damage the government’s reputation through relative deprivation.

Abstract While previous studies have examined the link between maternal employment status and child development, the results remain inconclusive, and the underlying mechanisms are not yet well understood. A potential explanation for the mixed findings is the omission of mothers’ return home time from work, a factor that has yet to be tested in the literature. To address this gap, this study examines the relationship between mothers’ time of returning home and their children’s locus of control using a nationwide child–parent survey in Japan. The results of the entropy balancing method demonstrate that the daughters of mothers who return after 7 p.m. are more likely to believe that they lack control over their life outcomes, whereas this effect is not observed for mothers who return home by 7 p.m. This relationship is mediated by the deterioration of family relationships. Consistent with prior research, the negative association is more pronounced in households with higher socioeconomic status, while it is mitigated when fathers return home early or when children cohabit with their grandparents, highlighting the importance of caregiving by all family members. Given the increasing number of married women in full-time and managerial positions and the diffusion of teleworking, these findings are relevant for policymakers.

Abstract For Japan, a latecomer maritime nation, establishing a navy and training its officers were both necessary and obvious tasks. This study examines the structure of the naval officer corps as a professional group by analysing the processes of selection, education, and assignment. European officer corps were traditionally expected to be composed of individuals from the ‘officer-capable class’. By contrast, the Japanese navy, from its inception, prioritized ability over ascribed status. Officer candidates, therefore, underwent rigorous entrance examinations, and at the Naval Academy, cadets faced competitive testing. In the early years of the navy, class rank at graduation held little significance; however, since the 1900s, it began to strongly influence officers’ careers. Furthermore, factors such as graduation from the Naval War College also played a significant role in assignments. Academic achievement and educational background came to be interpreted as indicators of officers’ competence and professionalism, leading to the establishment of internal rankings within groups. Thus, the naval officer corps became an intricate and unstable structure, comprising both military ranks and an additional hierarchy: that of academic careerism. The ‘best officers’—those with higher graduation ranks from the academy and the college degree—who lacked awareness of the officer corps’ underlying instability, planned the Hawaii Operation and constituted the highest leadership during the Pacific War.

Abstract Scholars have long investigated the impact of flexible work arrangements (FWA) on job satisfaction. However, in recent years, many workplaces have abruptly introduced telework as a form of FWA in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, only to later call workers back to offices as the pandemic subsides. This trend is particularly prevalent in societies with inflexible work cultures like Japan. Nevertheless, we know little about how telework affects job satisfaction unequally among workers during and after the pandemic. Using the nationwide survey dataset collected by the Government of Japan’s Cabinet Office from 2020 to 2023, this study examines heterogeneous associations between telework and job satisfaction. Propensity score matching analyses based on the counterfactual framework show that the average effect of telework is substantially positive in both 2020 and 2023, but its magnitude decreases by over two-thirds during this period. Nonetheless, female nonregular workers experienced a larger psychological return on telework in 2023 despite its null effect in 2020. Male nonregular workers also see a high telework effect on job satisfaction in 2020 and 2023, whereas the effect size among their regular counterparts declines to near zero. These findings suggest that, in postpandemic Japan, (1) regular workers, particularly men, do not gain psychological benefits from telework under the traditional work culture requiring them to be present in the office, but (2) telework underpins job satisfaction of relatively precarious workers with less job security and benefits; and thus (3) the expanded usage of telework may help mitigate labor stratification in worker well-being.