As Japan grapples with another record low in births and continuing concern over its poor global ranking on gender equality, new Monash University research suggests public anxieties about inequality are often expressed indirectly rather than named outright.
The study Demographic decline as an idiom of distress: rethinking gender (In)equality in Japan analysed more than 30,000 open-ended survey responses from across Japan and found that while respondents rarely used the term "gender inequality", many voiced concern through the language of shōshi kōreika – the crisis of low birth rates and an ageing population.
Lead author Dr Charles Crabtree, Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences, said the findings reveal a deeper story beneath the way Japanese citizens talk about national challenges.
"Our research shows that concern about gender inequality in Japan has not disappeared – it is often being expressed through a different vocabulary. What looks on the surface like anxiety about demographic decline is often also frustration with unequal gender roles, family pressures, and the social conditions shaping everyday life. That matters because it suggests gender inequality can remain politically underacknowledged even when it is deeply embedded in how people experience national crises," Dr Crabtree said.
The study argues that shōshi kōreika now acts as a national "idiom of distress" – a socially acceptable shorthand through which broader social dissatisfaction is voiced, even when gender inequality is not explicitly named. Respondents frequently blamed women's workforce participation for falling birthrates, while overlooking men's limited involvement in domestic and childcare work and the persistence of the "ideal worker" norm that keeps men tied to long hours and away from home.
The study situates Japan's demographic anxieties within a broader global moment marked by democratic backsliding, rising authoritarianism, conflict, and climate crisis-pressures that can fuel public cynicism and disengagement. In Japan, these global concerns intersect with domestic challenges such as poverty, inequality and geopolitical tension, alongside long‑standing fears about a shrinking, ageing population.
The findings come at a moment of renewed public debate, after the recent reporting that just 705,809 births occurred in Japan in 2025, the lowest number on record. The researchers argue that unless policymakers confront the gendered structures underpinning the fertility crisis – including workplace norms, caregiving expectations and the persistent undervaluing of women's labour – demographic decline will remain difficult to reverse.
Dr Crabtree said the study underscores the importance of listening not only to what citizens name, but how they express their concerns.
"Shōshi kōreika has become a way for people to voice a much wider set of frustrations. If policymakers want to address Japan's demographic challenges, they must also address the gendered inequalities this phrase has come to represent."
