Tag Archives: Japan family register

Media watch: Tokyo ward reminds citizens that they aren’t members of the royal family

Posted on March 30, 2025 by philipbrasor

One of the peculiarites of Japan’s family registration (koseki) system is that a citizen can designate any address in the country as their main domicile, or honseki, regardless of where they actually live. A person’s residential address must be registered … Continue reading →

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Media watch: Ministry throws cold water on local government’s registration of same sex couple

Posted on July 14, 2024 by philipbrasor

In May, a same sex couple made news when the city of Omura in Nagasaki Prefecture allowed them to be indicated as the equivalent of a common law couple in their resident certificate, or juminhyo. It is the first time … Continue reading →

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Media watch: My Number card system could be Trojan horse for individual-oriented society

Posted on June 11, 2023 by philipbrasor

The government’s scheme to get everyone in Japan, Japanese national and foreign resident alike, to apply for a My Number card has been plagued by problems. The aim of the My Number system is to assign a unique number to … Continue reading →

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Media watch: What’s missing from the discussion of elective names for married couples?

Posted on April 9, 2022 by philipbrasor

Late last month, Seiko Noda, the state minister in charge of gender equality, remarked that a recent Cabinet Office survey to gauge the public’s opinion on allowing couples to retain separate surnames after marrying was misleading. The survey results seemed … Continue reading →

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Media watch: Secret births wreak havoc on bureaucratic protocols

Posted on February 23, 2022 by philipbrasor

In 2007, Jikei Hospital in Kumamoto installed a “baby hatch” where infants could be deposited anonymously, presumably by parents who are unable to raise them for whatever reason. Since then, the hospital has received about a dozen babies every year … Continue reading →

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Media watch: Justice ministry ties itself into knots attempting to simplify paternity determination

Posted on February 4, 2022 by philipbrasor

One of the purposes of Japan’s koseki (family register) system, if not the main purpose, is to provide the authorities with some control over what constitutes a family, which naturally leads to grey areas and points of contention, since it’s … Continue reading →

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The family register, ca. 1996

Posted on July 16, 2013 by philipbrasor

While researching this week’s Media Mix about figure skater Miki Ando and the upcoming Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of the Inheritance Law as it applies to children born out of wedlock, we tried to find out if writer … Continue reading →

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