*Translated from “Osuro de Kangaetakoto: No Moa Hibakusha wo Uketsugu tameni (Thoughts in Oslo: Inheriting the Legacy of No More Hibakusha),” Sekai, February 2025, pp. 26–33. (Courtesy of Iwanami Shoten, Publishers) Hatakeyama Sumiko, Executive Committee Member of Peace Boat Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo) was awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize. Recently (December 10, 2024, Japan time), the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony was held in Oslo, Norway. To attend the ceremony, more than 30 people, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors (hibakusha) who are executives of Nihon Hidankyo and related parties, traveled to Oslo as an official delegation. In conjunction with this, Peace Boat, in cooperation with Gensuikyo (Japan Council Against A & H Bombs), planned the “Nihon Hidankyo Nobel Peace Prize Celebration Tour” so that many hibakusha, second and third generation atomic bomb survivors, related organizations, and individuals ... ... [Read more]

Hamada Mari, Representative of Stand by Women It is only recently that “harassment in the political field” has become an issue in Japan. One of the triggers was the “Revised Act on Promotion of Gender Equality in the Political Field” enacted in 2021, which mandated the central government, local governments, political parties, etc. to take measures against sexual harassment and maternity harassment (political parties are obliged to make efforts). As a result, the media reported on the issue, local assemblies made efforts to address the issue, and the reality of harassment, which had been made invisible as a cost of participating in politics, began to come to light. According to the Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office (CAO) “Research report on barriers to women’s political participation” (2021), 65.5% of women and 58.0% of men experienced harassment from voters, supporters, assembly members, etc. while considering or ... ... [Read more]

Hisamoto Kizo, Mayor of Kobe It has been thirty years since the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake occurred on January 17, 1995. At the time, the Kobe City Government quickly steered the city toward revitalization, and I think we have been able to recover and rebuild at a fairly fast pace. On March 17, just two months after the disaster, the city implemented the Urban Area Redevelopment Project. There was a lot of criticism because a large-scale urban redevelopment plan was proposed while many disaster victims were still living in evacuation centers. However, Kobe’s decision paid off, and three types of housing — disaster recovery and rental accommodation, as well as units in redeveloped urban areas — were quickly provided. As a result, the need for temporary housing was eliminated in less than five years. Of course, not everything went quickly. Citizens were divided in their ... ... [Read more]

  Are arts and entertainment workers freelance? The answer is yes and no. If people who work like craftsmen in a long-established industry, such as the entertainment industry, were suddenly told, “You are a freelancer,” they would probably feel uncomfortable. The same would probably be true for sole proprietors in agriculture, forestry and construction, seafarers, and people in the transportation industry, such as private taxi drivers and Akabou.[1] After all, traditional self-employment is not a new way of working. In the first place, isn’t it too broad a range of industries to define freelance in one word? It would be more natural to think of it as just one part of the diverse ways of working. In fact, it has been studied under various names, such as employee-like and employment-like work styles. In 2020, the Agency for Cultural Affairs (ACA) surveyed people working in ... ... [Read more]

Definition and Overview of Educational Inequality Educational inequality refers to the disparities in educational outcomes (e.g., academic achievement and overall educational attainment) that vary depending on conditions beyond an individual’s control— including the socio-economic status (SES) of their family of origin or the region in which they grew up. SES encompasses a wide range of social, economic, and cultural factors, including parents’ occupations, educational attainment, household income, the number of books in the home, and other cultural resources and practices. Such SES-based inequality is consistently observed across societies participating in large-scale international assessments, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This is not confined to nations with pronounced economic disparities, like the United States, but is also evident in Japan, often regarded as an egalitarian society. In fact, using fathers’ educational attainment ... ... [Read more]

  “I don’t have 100 billion yen in cash, but if I could acquire a semiconductor-related company, there would be a lot of investors who would want to jump on board. If I could just find an acquisition opportunity, the rest would be manageable. Everyone is desperate.” A Chinese participant at an investment briefing for Chinese people in Tokyo in June 2024 spoke with a smile. The organizer, Fosun International Limited, a major Chinese company, focuses on helping wealthy people invest in Japan. “I have met more wealthy Chinese people in Tokyo in the past year than I have met in mainland China in the past decade. Investment by wealthy Chinese in Japan has reached its peak.” As the organizer said, Chinese investors flocked to the briefing, which was held in a building next to the Imperial Palace. The topic was corporate acquisitions. In ... ... [Read more]

  In 2008, while still a professor at the University of Tokyo, Kabashima Ikuo ran for and was elected Governor of Kumamoto Prefecture. He served as governor for four terms until his retirement in April 2024. The Chuokoron editorial team spoke with him about his eventful 16 years in office, including the huge success of the prefecture’s PR mascot character “Kumamon,” the recovery from the devastating 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake, and the current prosperity following the establishment of a factory by Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC. From agricultural cooperative worker to political scientist through hard work ――After graduating from high school, you worked for a local agricultural cooperative (employee, Inada Village [now Yamaga City] Agricultural Cooperative, Kumamoto Prefecture) and went to the United States as an agricultural trainee. From there, you studied hard and enrolled in the Agricultural College of the University of Nebraska. You then ... ... [Read more]

The editorial staff of Chuokoron interviewed Koyasu Miwa, who travels around Japan to help eliminate the gender gap in rural workplaces and is familiar with the realities of local governments and businesses, about the reasons women leave rural areas and the conditions needed to create communities where women want to stay. Women in rural areas who want to work but cannot The so-called list of “municipalities at risk of disappearing” released by the Population Strategy Council (Chairman Mimura Akio, Vice-Chairman Masuda Hiroya) in April 2024 is commendable because it focuses on the emigration of young women as a cause of population decline, and I often quote it when I give lectures in rural areas. However, let me start by saying that the company I represent, Will Lab Inc., does not conduct business with the goal of preventing population decline. Will Lab’s goal is to ... ... [Read more]

In Okinawa, there have been a number of crimes committed by US military service members, and there are even cases where crime information is not provided or shared with the Okinawa Prefectural Government. All local governments with US military bases in Japan have called for the Japan-US Status of Forces Agreement to be revised. Considering the real strengthening of the alliance, we cannot turn a blind eye to the asymmetry of privilege between the United States and Japan. Policy on which all the Tokyo gubernatorial candidates’ answers agreed In a survey conducted by the Tokyo shimbun newspaper of the six main candidates for the Tokyo gubernatorial election on July 7, 2024, there was one issue on which all the candidates agreed. It was the revision of the Japan-US Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). “There are US military facilities in Tokyo, including the US Yokota ... ... [Read more]

Has Japan’s media really been “democratized” since the end of the war? The notable author, winner of the Uchikawa Yoshimi Memorial Prize, unravels the political machinations hidden in radio broadcasts during the occupation and the truth about postwar Japan. Was postwar Japan a “society where it was easy to speak out”? The media in postwar Japan was democratized by GHQ (General Headquarters). More precisely, it is said to have been democratized. Radio broadcasting was at the forefront of media democratization reform. This was a reflection of the top-down nature of wartime radio broadcasting, such as announcements from Imperial Headquarters[1], and involved “opening the microphone to the public,” actively seeking to incorporate the voices of listeners. In this way, the appeals of the people could be heard throughout the country. After the war, radio broadcasting made a new start as a means of conveying the ... ... [Read more]