Left, Right, and Equal? Mapping Political Ideology and Gender Attitudes in Japan

Japan recently elected a record number of women to the Upper House, as well as its first woman prime minister. Despite the gender progress in politics, Japan has remained traditional in many other aspects. For example, Japan’s family law reflects andro-centric norms where all married couples must share the same surname – the husband’s or the wife’s. In practice, over 95% of married couples take the husband’s surname. A discrepancy between women’s political status and women’s social status seems to exist in Japan. However, few studies examine the relations between one’s political ideology, identity, and association and one’s gender egalitarian attitudes. Using the Japan Barometer, this study investigates the extent to which individuals’ political identity is mapped onto their gender attitudes. Our preliminary analysis shows that individuals affiliated with conservative parties tend to support women adopting the husbands’ surnames. However, our analysis also shows that individuals who take liberal views towards other social issues still remain conservative on gender-related issues, such as surname adoption and gay marriage. This study offers important implications for understanding how left-leaning political ideology is not always correlated with gender egalitarian attitudes. Instead, social norms and cultural expectations can play a major role than individuals’ political identity. The study sheds light on the broader questions of representation and social change in Japan’s evolving democracy.