This paper aims to explain why Osaka-Ishin-no-Kai (Osaka Restoration Association: ORA) maintains a relatively high level of voter support, despite promoting support for attracting Integrated Resort (IR), since IR development often triggers negative reactions from voters. So far, this support has been attributed to voters perceiving ORA as being representative of the “overall interests of Osaka.” However, the reason for the party’s continued high support while advancing the controversial IR project remains unclear. Using data from the 2020 “Social Survey on Political Attitudes and the Referendum in Osaka City,” this study examines how voters’ orientation toward Osaka’s overall interests affects their support for ORA, with support for attracting IR as a moderating variable. A multiple regression analysis with interaction effects revealed two key findings: (1) Voters with a strong orientation toward the overall interests of Osaka has a positive effect on support for ORA. (2) The interaction effect (marginal effect) indicates that the positive impact of voters’ orientation toward Osaka’s overall interests on support for ORA varies depending on their level of support for attracting IR. Specifically, voters who oppose attracting IR place greater emphasis on ORA as a representative of the overall interests of Osaka, resulting in stronger support for the party. These findings suggest that unless opposition groups are perceived by voters as more suitable representatives of Osaka’s overall interests, they will struggle to gain substantial voter support.

This study investigates the discourse of labor management that supported corporate intervention in the personal lives of workers living in employee dormitories, focusing on the period from the 1960s to mid-1970s. During this time, dormitory management adopted a method known as “human management,” which extended corporate control beyond the workplace into workers’ daily routines. At the heart of this approach was “Guidance,” which was designed to shape workers into individuals who could contribute effectively to corporate productivity. However, these practices clashed with post-war social norms that emphasized the protection of workers’ private lives and rejected corporate intrusion.

A key justification for these interventions lay in the depiction of young workers as immature and in need of guidance. This perception provided a basis for corporate involvement, which was framed as necessary for the personal and professional development of these workers. The study identifies this rationale as the “logic of education,” which utilized the youth of group-recruited employees as a resource to enable and justify interventions in their personal lives, thereby potentially circumventing societal norms.

The research further reveals that this “logic of education” has the potential to transform the way dormitory management is understood. Instead of being viewed as a form of disciplinary control, it could be reframed as a developmental initiative. Dormitories were presented as spaces in which personal growth and corporate values could coexist, thus differentiating these practices from traditional labor-management relationships. This reframing positioned dormitory management as a form of educational relationship.

By examining these dynamics, the study shows how dormitory management practices sidestepped societal norms against employer interference and legitimized a model that subtly aligned workers’ private lives with corporate interests.

This paper examines the processes involved in maintaining and adjusting romantic relationships, focusing on the influence of gender norms. The analysis is based on narrative accounts from heterosexual couples in their 20s and 30s who are in committed relationships with marriage in mind.

While there is a noticeable trend toward gender equality in the romantic relationships of contemporary youth, concerns persist regarding the challenges of sustaining these relationships, influenced by enduring modern family ideals and the pressures of individualization. Although formal knowledge of communication has been shared through the media, its limitations and problems have also been emphasized.

To focus on the dynamics of everyday communication in romantic relationships, this study utilized semi-structured interviews with heterosexual couples and conducted a structural narrative analysis of data from three couples. The analysis centered on three contexts: work, housework, and expressions of affection.

As a result, in the process of ‘doing intimacy,’ each couple maintained and adjusted their relationship by interpreting each other’s actions and situations in the context of social trends and their past relationships, and of the accumulation of their mutual interactions to date. The findings indicate that, although the couples did not explicitly endorse traditional gender norms, they often found themselves constrained by gendered divisions of labor and gender-asymmetric social structures. Nonetheless, they critically examined existing gender norms in different contexts. Importantly, the couples avoided imposing their desires on one another, instead prioritizing each other’s “wants.” They also communicated their dissatisfaction without escalating into significant conflicts, ultimately deepening their intimacy through accumulation of these interactions. Despite the limitations of the data, this paper represents an initial step toward exploring the concept of ‘doing intimacy.’

Previous research has shown that public support for the welfare state in Japan is the lowest among developed countries, but the strengths of opinions on Japan’s welfare state have not been examined. Similarly, whether opinions based on social attributes are more pronounced in Japan than in South Korea has also not been studied, although it has been shown that income does not influence support for redistribution in South Korea. This article used data from the 2016 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) to compare the mean, variance, and effects of independent variables on support for the welfare state in Japan and South Korea, and to clarify the characteristics of public opinion on the welfare state in the two countries. Multigroup analysis showed that the mean level of support for the welfare state in South Korea was high with small variance, indicating that there is a consensus in South Korea on the importance of the welfare state. Conversely, the mean level of support for the welfare state in Japan was low with large variance, indicating sharp divisions over the welfare state in Japan. Furthermore, the extent to which opinions on the welfare state were based on social attributes, such as employment status and income, was higher in Japan than in South Korea. Previous research suggests that views on the welfare state in Japan are not clear-cut. Our findings indicate that the welfare state is a political issue and that there is a no consensus on the importance of the welfare state in contemporary Japan.

This study examines the role of Islamic centers in today’s multicultural Japanese society, the people who attend these centers, the relationship between the increasing number of Islamic centers and the surrounding residents, and their impact on the local community. We examine the process of acceptance and establishment of new cultural influxes and the transformation they bring to the worlds of the communities and residents involved.

The Nishiyodogawa Ward of Osaka City, the subject of this study, has historically been an area in which Zainichi Koreans have lived. In recent years, the residents have become increasingly multinational, including Brazilian, Peruvian, Filipino, Vietnamese, Pakistani, and Sri Lankan people. Two of the four Islamic centers in Osaka City have been established in Nishiyodogawa Ward. This study examines these two centers, focusing on the process of their establishment, the roles of the centers, the attendees, the relationship with surrounding residents, and the impact on the local community, especially as a place for Muslimahs and for support and interaction for children.

In the two Islamic centers, in addition to their roles as places of worship and festivals, mutual support, education, a place to stay, and a place to interact with Muslims, the Osaka Masjid has become a place of relaxation and encounter for Muslimahs. The Osaka Islamic Center has created a place for Muslimahs, especially Japanese women converts, and a place of support and interaction for children.

Two visions of the future of the Japanese family and population were conceived in the 1990s. One was the diversification of families and life courses, and the other was the arrival of a society with a low birth rate and an ageing population. The diversification of families and life courses did not develop, but the low birth rate and ageing society did arrive as predicted, and Japan entered a new era of depopulation. After the modern era, the population, which had been increasing steadily, entered a period of rapid decline in 2008 without passing through a period of stability, and Japan entered a depopulation period that it had never experienced before the modern era. In this paper, we attempt to draw a new self-portrait of Japan from the perspectives of family and population, as a country that has entered a new era of depopulation, by placing this development in the historical context and in the context of the larger global population. We will also consider the significance and potential of studying sociology in the world’s most advanced aging and depopulation society.

This paper examines how the parental leave system in Japan addresses challenges in a society with a declining population. While the male parental leave uptake rate exceeded 30% in 2023, challenges remain, including the short duration of leave, the lack of impact on reducing interruption of women’s careers, and insufficient integration with public childcare systems. These issues highlight the need for improved policy design.

Furthermore, the parental leave system is funded by employment insurance and has limited coverage, excluding self-employed individuals and same-sex couples. In addition to this lack of inclusiveness, the increasing uptake rate and duration of leave among men are likely to further escalate the total expenditure on parental leave benefits, raising sustainability concerns.

In contrast, European countries have advanced gender equality through measures such as a “daddy quota” and the integrated design of parental leave and childcare systems. This paper concludes that Japan must enhance inclusiveness while restructuring its parental leave and childcare systems comprehensively to achieve gender equality and social sustainability.

This paper presents an ethnographic analysis of the intersection of “good care” and “good work” within eldercare organizations in Finland. As a social democratic welfare state, Finland has historically upheld high standards in care services alongside robust labor protections, notably through its comprehensive leave system. However, in the context of a care market characterized by a severe shortage of human resources, the dual goals of high-quality care and secure working conditions are becoming harder to sustain. The growing emphasis on work optimization, in particular, has placed significant strain on care workers. Through detailed ethnographic observations, this study explores how these shifts are affecting both the quality of eldercare and the working conditions of home care staff. Additionally, the paper investigates how the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the deterioration of working conditions, further devaluing care labor itself. Care workers are often caught in a dilemma, having to balance provision of adequate care with preservation of their own working environment, a tension that is negotiated daily in individual workplaces. Through this analysis, the paper reflects on the nature of care as labor and examines the broader societal framework within which labor protections, such as the leave system, are embedded.

Modern Japanese society, with its ever-declining population and stagnant economy, can be viewed as a shrinking society in the sense that society is contracting rather than expanding. Kansai, centering on Osaka, which was called the “Manchester of the East” before World War II, is a typical example of a shrinking society with a stagnant economy compared to other regions in Japan. Therefore, this paper first clarifies the characteristics of this society from the perspectives of economic scale and population movement, and shows that Kansai has lost the cultural knowledge that was being produced before the war. Next, we examine the nature of this lost cultural knowledge, focusing on the birth of an autonomous society as the foundation for generating cultural knowledge and the introduction of sociology as knowledge related to that society. We then examine the conditions required for emergence of new cultural knowledge in the shrinking society of Kansai. These conditions differ from the expanding society in which a centrifugal force is at work, which sought new knowledge outside of Kansai. Finally, we show that the extent to which a centripetal force is at work is important, since there is a potential place for generating new cultural knowledge based on already accumulated knowledge and products.

More than 30 years have passed since the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake on January 17, 1995. This paper is an introduction to depicting the ethnography of the city, using the “dawn” as a metaphor that vividly captures the principles of the city that made up Kobe after the earthquake and the phase of its transformation. Dawn is a natural daily phenomenon that is time and space at the boundary where the darkness of night and the light of morning mix. Especially on the day of the earthquake, we are able to get a glimpse of the dynamics of the “souls” crossing the boundary and being formed by all throughout the society. In considering the dynamics of the city society that became apparent after the earthquake, we focus on the imagination of the people who imagine the city as public spaces, and re-examine the kind of transformation this city has undergone in relation to the souls. Specifically, this paper focuses on “Souzouteki-Fukkou [Build Back Better]” and “Tabunka-Kyousei [Multicultural Coexistence]” as public imaginaries with roots in developmentalism and nationalism that have been organized throughout the modernization process of Kobe as a port city. In discursive understanding, including existing research, these have usually been discussed separately. However, reconsidering the context of the city surrounding Kobe after the earthquake, especially with the view of the experiences of people moving through the inner-city area, these are complementary and fundamental imaginations in reimagining public spaces. It is necessary to reconsider them as creative imaginations. Based on sociological imagination theory after the thoughts of post-colonialism, we reconsider the cognitive problems of these imaginations and re-examine the societal logic that constitutes the domination of the “souls”. Looking back on the process of my fieldwork, this paper implies that alternative imaginations that emerged from events allowed us to reconsider this logic.

According to recent research on active labor market policies (ALMPs), it is effective to involve employers in ALMPs for supporting vulnerable people in the labor market. This paper examines how Japanese local governments have established policy implementation systems to encourage employers’ engagement in a national programme for “Support for Self-Reliance of Needy Persons”, based on data from a questionnaire survey and interviews targeting local governments in Osaka Prefecture. We set the following two research questions: [RQ1] How many local governments in Osaka Prefecture are implementing employment policies that involve employers? and [RQ2] What innovative methods have local governments utilized to get employers engaged in employment policies? Regarding RQ1, although many local governments in Osaka Prefecture have adopted a ‘vacancy-centred approach’ to employment support services, a significant number of local governments are also implementing employment support projects in cooperation with local employers. Regarding RQ2, we analyzed a case in Toyonaka City at a Dash Work Creation Centre. Our results show that a ‘candidate-centred approach’ can bring multiple benefits to both job seekers (candidates) and employers. The number of local governments that have adopted this approach is limited, but the beginnings of the approach were observed in one other local government. Finally, we discuss the potential of the ‘candidate-centred approach’ and the challenges of expanding this approach to other local governments.

This paper is an edited version of a report given at the 75th Annual Meeting of the Kansai Sociological Association symposium, “Discovering Society in Kansai and the Creation of Free Knowledge”. Toyooka City in Hyogo Prefecture has developed its own unique environmental and economic policies, using the opportunity of a project to reintroduce the Oriental White Stork, which was on the verge of extinction in the wild. In addition, with the aim of creating a “town of theater with depth”, the city has opened a professional College of Arts and Tourism, and holds a theater festival every year, working to promote immigration of young people and tourism using theater. In order to understand the progressive significance and difficulties of these policies in Toyooka, it is necessary to grasp the values that are being nurtured there, and the social and cultural mechanisms that support these values. To this end, this paper refers to Keiichi Sakuta’s theory of value. In Section 1, we examine Sakuta’s theory of value and then reconstruct it for the purpose of analyzing local culture. In Section 2, we analyze Toyooka’s environmental economic policy and community development through theater from this theoretical perspective. The following two points emerge as being important for realizing the creation of local culture and value. Firstly, it is important to create a new value system (empathy value+principle value) that can resist the dominance of utility value by making use of “excessive wealth” and local resources. Secondly, it is important to create a story that sublimates “excessive passion,” to achieve a state of equilibrium in which empathy value, principle value and utility value coexist, and to reach “holistic harmony” among individuals, culture and society through a multifaceted “motivation adjustment”.