Tag Archives: Japan family register

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

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

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

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

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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