Social Issues
Social Issues
105 items
Insights & Analysis
1,218 Retrial Applications Concluded in Five Years and 7 Orders to Reopen — 115 of the 121 Dismissed in 2023 Had No Examination of Facts at All
Insights & Analysis
Regular Employment Among Japan's Employment Ice Age Generation Rose by 110,000 in Five Years Against a Target of 300,000 — the Government Adds 200,000 Company Officers to Reach "310,000 in Total"
Insights & Analysis
Ten Years of Japan's Hardship Support Scheme: 3.456 Million Enquiries, 26.6% Turned Into a Plan — and in FY2024 Enquiries Rose by 9,373 While Plans Fell by 3,790
Insights & Analysis
Vacancies Among Japan's Community Welfare Commissioners Reach 20,091 — The Quota Rose by 424 While 4,476 Fewer People Took the Role
Insights & Analysis
Of 4,279 Dismissed From Type A Support Providers, 936 Found Re-employment and 2,073 Moved to Type B — From Work With a Contract to Work Without One
Insights & Analysis
Of 84,759 Pupils in Japan Needing Japanese Language Support, 9,699 Receive None — Both the Number and the Share Are Up on the Last Survey
Insights & Analysis
68.8% of Children Who Died From Abuse Were Under One, and 48.5% of Those Died on the Day They Were Born — Of Those 16, an Agency Had Been Involved With One
Insights & Analysis
95.9% of Japanese Care Facilities Require a Signature Other Than the Resident's — What the Law Forbids Is Refusal on the Sole Ground of Absence, Not the Asking
Insights & Analysis
93.4% of Adult Guardianship Applications Cite Managing or Closing a Bank Account — The Entrance to a System for Supporting Decisions Sits at a Bank Counter
Insights & Analysis
About a Fifth of Choshi's Seafood Processors Have Failed or Effectively Closed — Imported Mackerel Cost 2.6 Times More per Kilo Than a Decade Ago, and Domestic Landings Fell 46.9%
Insights & Analysis
Care Managers Average 55.1 Years, the Oldest of Any Role in Japanese Care — Exam Candidates Fell From 131,560 to 49,332 and Have Not Returned in Seven Years
Insights & Analysis
91 Home-Visit Care Failures Against 45 in Day Services, Down a Fifth — In the Same Fee Revision, One Set of Units Fell and the Other Rose
Insights & Analysis
Young Carers Fall to 4.1% by Year 11 and Return to 6.2% in Their Third University Year — The Person Cared For Shifts From a Sibling to a Parent With Mental Illness
Insights & Analysis
Fraud Losses in Japan Rose 98% in a Year While Cases Cleared Stood Still — Most Reports From People in Their 30s, Most Money From Those in Their 70s
Insights & Analysis
The Opinion Is There, the Reason Is Not — 28.4% Correct on Japan's National English Item, With 43.6% Giving the View and No Reason
Insights & Analysis
28 Firms Raided Over Suspected Bid Rigging in Condominium Repairs — Japan Named the Method Nine Years Ago and Published the Going Rates From 944 Projects
Labs
Japan's Structural Reproduction of Climate Skepticism (How Doubt Circulates)
Labs
The Statistical Absence of Femicide (The Structure of Deaths That Cannot Be Counted)
Labs
The Monthly Labour Statistics Scandal and the Reproduction of State Ignorance — When the Numbers 'Did Not Exist'
Labs
Selective Description in Educational Curricula and the Filtering of Knowledge
Labs
"I Have No Recollection" — The Institutionalization Mechanism of Political Memory Denial
Insights & Analysis
Japan's Comprehensive Support Act for Persons with Disabilities — Two Years into the Operational Phase
Labs
What Is Silence-Structuring? — The Architecture of Pluralistic Ignorance
Insights & Analysis
Securing Crew in Japanese Fisheries — A Primary-Sector Labor Crisis and the Risk of Structural Shutdown
Insights & Analysis
When Sick-Child Care Fails on the Day of Fever: Japan's Social-Security Gap
Insights & Analysis
Japan's April 2026 Welfare Reform: What Changed, and What Didn't
Practice Guides
Data Literacy for Social Impact: A Practical Guide to Japan's e-Stat and RESAS
Insights & Analysis
Japan's Late-Elderly Medical Premium Cap Raised from ¥800K to ¥850K (FY2026): Pinpoint Increase on the Top 1.2% and Its Spillover to Middle and Lower Incomes
Insights & Analysis
Financial Income in Insurance Premiums by FY2028 — Fixing the Anomaly Where Filing a Tax Return Raises Your Premium
Insights & Analysis
The Fragility of 'One Million Furusato Residents': Can Numerical Targets Qualify as EBPM?
Insights & Analysis
Public Shortage, Private Deficit, Exit, Re-Rush — The Structural Loop of Private After-School Programs and Japan's 'Fourth-Grade Wall'
Insights & Analysis
The Day Income Stops — Reading Japan's Social Insurance Gap in Platform Delivery Work
Insights & Analysis
What Are the Seven Axes of SDI (Social Design Index)? — A Guide to Scoring Logic and Interpretation
Insights & Analysis
Reclaiming "Social Vision" from the Language of State Policy — How ISVD's "Social Vision Design" Differs from the Digital Agency's "Digital Society Vision Council"
Insights & Analysis
353,970 Non-Attending Students: What Japan's 12-Year High Conceals
Insights & Analysis
The Reality After Japan's Digital Textbook 'Formalization': How the Three-Option System Entrenches Regional Inequality
Insights & Analysis
Japan's Civil Court Digitalization, May 21, 2026 — mints Mandate and the Problem of the 7% Pro-Se Litigant
Insights & Analysis
The Blind Spots of 'Free' Private High School Tuition: How Removing the Income Cap Widens Inequality
Insights & Analysis
The End of Real Estate Tax Avoidance: Japan's Inheritance Tax '5-Year Rule' and the Structural Closure of Intergenerational Wealth Transfer Routes
Insights & Analysis
The Emergency Revision of Long-Term Care Reimbursement Rates and Its Structural Limits: The Government's Own Confession That the Ordinary System Can No Longer Keep Up
Insights & Analysis
The Blind Spot of Japan's Minimum Wage 'Effective Date Disparity': Real Wages Diverge by 181 Days Within the Same Year
Insights & Analysis
The Year of the Fire Horse 2026 and the Truth Behind Japan's Declining Birthrate: When Superstition Has No Room Left to Move
Insights & Analysis
Single-Parent Poverty at 44.5%: The Structure Behind 'Working but Still Poor'
Insights & Analysis
A Country Where Politicians Win Without Elections — 26% Uncontested and 2,000+ Seat Shortfalls Question the Meaning of "Representation"
Insights & Analysis
Is Foreign Crime Really Rising in Japan? — The 1.36x Adjusted Rate and the Invisible Sanction System
Insights & Analysis
High School Tuition Gaps by Prefecture — Osaka ¥630K, Tokyo ¥490K, Rural Areas ¥457K
Insights & Analysis
A Data Analysis of the 744 'At-Risk' Municipalities — The Structure That Tokyo Siphons
Insights & Analysis
Generational Pension Disparities Visualized by Birth Year — What Differs Between Those Born in 1940 and 2000
Insights & Analysis
Tokunoshima TFR 2.25, Higashiyama 0.76 — Mapping Birth Rates Across 1,741 Municipalities
Insights & Analysis
Causes of School Non-Attendance in Japan 2023 — 1 in 15 Junior High Students, 346,000 by Grade and Region
Insights & Analysis
What Is Cognitive Debt? — The Hidden 'Thinking Loan' Accumulating in the AI Era
Insights & Analysis
What Is Agnotology? — How Manufactured Ignorance Corrodes Society
Insights & Analysis
¥15 Billion Fraud in Type-A Employment Support — Inside Kizuna HD's '36-Month Project' Addition-Cycling
Insights & Analysis
What Is Social Inclusion? — The Four-Dimensional Mechanism of Exclusion and Japan's Current Position
Insights & Analysis
Personal Space and Urban Density — Physically Close Yet Psychologically Distant: Japan's Paradox of Distance
Insights & Analysis
Why We Can't Stop Checking Other People's Comments — The Brain That Seeks Agreement and the Self-Disgust of Self-Awareness
Debates
Can Basic Income Replace Social Security?
Labs
Literature Map: From Agnotology to 'Structural Invisibility'
Insights & Analysis
The Intersection of Climate Change and Social Inequality — Who Emits and Who Bears the Harm?
Insights & Analysis
The Structure and Limitations of Japan's Disability Employment Quota System — What Happens Inside the Legal Rate of 2.5%
Labs
The Intellectual Coordinates of Social Design — Six Academic Roots Decoded
Insights & Analysis
Suicide Is a 'Preventable Death' — Structural Approaches from Platform Doors, Generative AI, and Genetic Research
Practice Guides
Practical Guide to Social Vulnerability Mapping During Disasters — Lessons from the Noto Peninsula Earthquake
Practice Guides
Gender Mainstreaming Practical Guide for NPOs — How to Integrate Gender Perspectives into Organizations and Operations
Insights & Analysis
The Structure of Japan's Youth Mental Health Crisis — 340,000 School Refusals, Worst Youth Suicide Rate in the G7
Insights & Analysis
Acoustic Boundaries — The Structure of 'My Sound Is Freedom, Your Sound Is a Nuisance'
Insights & Analysis
'Fund Museums with Public Money' — What's at Stake in a Country Spending 0.02% of GDP on Culture
Insights & Analysis
'Not Enough Time' Is Not a Personal Problem — The Structure of Time Poverty Produced by a 5.5-fold Gender Gap in Unpaid Labor
Insights & Analysis
Is Noise 'Invisible Violence'? — Health Risks Warned by the WHO and Japan's Regulatory Vacuum
Practice Guides
The Common Structure of 'Unreached Populations' — What a 20% Take-up Rate Reveals About Policy Design
Debates
What Does Expanding Foreign Worker Admissions Bring to Japanese Society?
Insights & Analysis
The Structural Contradiction of the 1-Meter Overtaking Rule — Can 'Safe Clearance' Be Achieved on Roads Only 3.5 Meters Wide?
Insights & Analysis
The Anatomy of 'Connection Fatigue' — How Platform Design Produces Mental Exhaustion
Labs
The Production Mechanism of Taboos — Who Decides What 'Must Not Be Said'
Insights & Analysis
Why They Keep Gathering Despite Exclusion — The Structural 'Place to Belong' Crisis Revealed by Guri-shita and Tō-yoko
Insights & Analysis
A 'Unification' That Isn't Unified — What the My Number Insurance Card Reveals About Japan's Digital Governance
Insights & Analysis
From 'Sexy Tanaka-san' to 'Manga One' — The Structural Governance Failures Shogakukan Reveals About Japan's Publishing Industry
Labs
The Reproduction of Authority and Ignorance — The Structure of 'No Need to Know'
Insights & Analysis
Why Did the Henoko Boat Capsize Kill Two? Okinawa's Base Burden and Structural Violence
Insights & Analysis
Proving Innocence in a Country with a 99.9% Conviction Rate — A Structural Analysis of Japan's 'Hostage Justice'
Insights & Analysis
Dissolution Ordered, Yet Nothing Truly 'Dissolved' — The Structural Incompleteness of Japan's Unification Church Case
Insights & Analysis
The Day One Complaint Erased 2,100 Meals — The Iwaki Sekihan Disposal Incident and Structural Vulnerability in Public Administration
Labs
Why Predatory Business Endures — Structural Analysis of Converting Information Asymmetry into Profit
Insights & Analysis
Japan's Bicycle 'Blue Ticket' — The Contradiction of Enforcement Without Infrastructure
Labs
Poverty and Epistemic Exclusion — The Structure of 'Being Unable Even to Know'
Insights & Analysis
The Wound of 'Attachment' Pervading Japanese Society — The Structural Problem Produced by Patriarchy, Nuclear Familization, and Intergenerational Transmission
Insights & Analysis
The Structure Behind 38% Food Self-Sufficiency — Rethinking Food Security in an Age of Globalization
Labs
Okinawa and Structural Ignorance — The Politics of Mainland Japan's 'Not Knowing'
Insights & Analysis
When Children's Tables Break Down — The Triple Crisis of Free School Lunches, Solitary Eating, and Kodomo Shokudo
Labs
Why Unreported Issues Are Treated as 'Nonexistent' — Media Agenda-Setting and Invisibilization in Japan
Insights & Analysis
The Pitfalls of 'I Asked AI' — Authority Bias and the Hollowing Out of Knowledge
Insights & Analysis
21 Million Non-Regular Workers — Has 'Equal Pay for Equal Work' Narrowed Japan's Employment Gap?
Labs
'Kūki' and Sontaku — The Japanese Form of Pluralistic Ignorance
Insights & Analysis
Pension Intergenerational Inequality — A ¥60 Million Structural Fault Line
Labs
Why Are the Voices of Persons with Disabilities Not Heard? — The Japanese Structure of Testimonial Injustice
Insights & Analysis
The Structure of Japan's Care Worker Crisis — The 'Invisible Roadmap' to 2040
Insights & Analysis
Behind Japan's 11.5% Child Poverty Rate: The 44.5% Single-Parent Reality
Insights & Analysis
Public Assistance 'Capture Rate' 20% — The Invisible Gaps in Japan's Safety Net
Insights & Analysis
Financial Reality of Japan's NPO Sector — Structural Vulnerabilities Hidden Within a 'Donation Powerhouse'
Insights & Analysis
Cognitive Debt — What Happens to the Brain and Society When We Delegate Thinking to AI
Insights & Analysis
Two Years Since the Act on Loneliness and Isolation — What Has the World's First Comprehensive Law Changed?
Practice Guides
Structural Analysis of Social Issues — Using Systems Thinking to Visualize Why Problems Persist
Insights & Analysis
Questions Posed by U.S. Welfare Retrenchment — Where Is Institutional Trust Heading?
Insights & Analysis
The Acceleration of Global Wealth Concentration — Top 0.001% Hold Three Times More Than Bottom 50%
Insights & Analysis