Introduction: Challenges of COVID-19 pandemic to Japanese society

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues to affect our daily life. Since its outbreak in early 2020, it has been a primary issue that defines people's lives around the globe. The new virus impacts members of society across the world. Sociologically, it has been an experimental situation under which it is possible to observe how different societies handle the health, economic, social, and cultural risks.¹ This special issue outlines how the social institutions of governance, employment, and work and life arrangement as well as people's lives and existence in Japan are impacted and how societies have responded to the risks caused by the pandemic.

Although the situation resembles an experimental condition, it is necessary to recognize that each region has its own biological and social-historical context. The physical impact of the virus seems to vary across regions. Figure 1 shows an international comparison of death by COVID-19 (cumulative COVID-19 deaths per million people).

It is clear from Figure 1 that the physical impact of the virus is quite different between Western and Asian societies. Considering the difference in the policy responses of Western cultures, where stringent measures were taken such as lockdowns, the higher death toll in Western societies indicates that there should be a biological precondition, factor X, that produces “mysteriously low COVID-19 infection and deaths in Japan and neighboring [countries]” (The Japan Times, December 11, 2021). It is said that the historical experience of exposure to similar viruses made the DNA of Asians resistant to COVID-19. Social and cultural explanations are pointed out, too: mask-wearing, hand-washing, and a strong awareness of public hygiene have been part of Japanese culture since before the spread of the new virus, which may explain the differential impact at least partially (Gordon 2021; The Japan Times, May 28, 2020).

However, for future international comparison, it is still meaningful to evaluate and report how Japan's social institutions and social relations responded to the situation. Since the pandemic is primarily a health problem, the situation tests how the medical and social security policies and institutions protect people's lives. It is an economic problem as the regulations, such as the declaration of a state of emergency,² targeted some economic activities, especially those involving face-to-face interactions, which were forced to slow down. It is also a social problem as the medical and economic crisis put various social relations under pressure. Employment is hurt, quantitatively and qualitatively. Local communities are in crisis; their traditional cultures are in danger of extinction. Some people are put in vulnerable situations where they face an existential threat. This special issue addresses these issues by turning to experts in respective fields of sociology.

The first article deals with the issue of governance of infectious disease control. In “Urban governance of the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan: An urban political sociological approach to the case of Osaka,” Maruyama takes a political–sociological approach to evaluate how Osaka Prefecture, usually considered to represent western Japan, governed the crisis caused by the pandemic. He mainly focused on what issues were raised and which actors were actively involved in the governance process and found that the involvement by the actors, including industrial and medical professionals,³ was particularly salient. Finally, he calls for the necessity of various types of comparative study, including international comparison, to clarify the characteristics of the governance capacity of infectious disease control.⁴

In the second article, “COVID-19 pandemic and non-standard employees in Japan,” Takahashi examines the impacts of the pandemic on labor market performance.⁵ It is an important study as employment is key to managing livelihood and life-course risks in most societies. This is especially the case in Japan, where security is provided on the basis of employment status (Imai 2021; Miura 2012). Takahashi found that, while regular employment is steady, the amount of nonregular employment declines, as do the employees' working hours. It is clear that nonregular employees are used as a buffer for Japanese companies to cope with the crisis. He also points out the discrepancy in the use of the Employment Adjustment Subsidy that should mitigate the negative impacts of the pandemic on employment; the money from the subsidy program has not been adequately paid to the subjects.

Some people have faced severe economic and social difficulties during the pandemic. It is reported that 21 081 people committed suicide in Japan in 2020, increasing for the first time in the past 11 years. Since the number in 2019 was a record low since 1978, the influence of the pandemic is apparent. In “Living with suicidal feelings: Japanese non-profit organizations for suicide prevention amid the COVID-19 pandemic,” Yamada reveals how the pandemic has become a threat to the will to live for some people by investigating the mechanisms behind suicidal feelings among people. She talks to professional counsels who cared for the people who wished to die and found that people have such feelings not just because they have financial difficulty but also because they lost meaning in their lives. She concludes that we need a society where it is possible to talk freely about suicide and suicidal feelings.

However, it is also a concern whether it is possible to maintain such relationships and local communities during the pandemic. For instance, the Association of Regional and Community Studies published a special issue on the impacts of COVID-19 that examined the disruptive effects of the pandemic on community activities (Chiiki Shakai-gakkai 2021). Many community activities were suspended with no plan to revive them, which gave rise to the question, “do the communities survive?” In his article, “The continuation of festivals and resilience of local communities during COVID-19: The case of Nagahama Hikiyama Festival in Shiga Prefecture, Japan,” Takeda tries to answer the question by examining the case of a local festival. He found that a historically inherited sense of honor shared among the people in the community and the bridging capital that links key actors in the community were the primary factors that gave the community the capacity to carry out the festival. The study shares evidence of what makes communities, and other social institutions, risk resilient.

The pandemic can be an agency that brings about change, a positive change to the existing rigidity of social relations. Work–life balance and the gender division of labor are the points of focus in this regard, and there is a growing amount of research dealing with these issues (e.g., Ochiai and Suzuki 2020). Nishimura's piece, “Domestic help and the gender division of domestic labor during the COVID-19 pandemic: Gender inequality among Japanese parents,” is based on the larger panel survey data collected in November 2020 and May 2021 dealing with the changes in work and family arrangements between men and women, particularly focusing on the changes in the arrangement of domestic help for housework and childcare,⁶ as well as domestic outsourcing such as takeaway and delivery meals and kinship service by extended family, typically elderly couples' parents. From the nuanced interpretation of the analysis, she concludes that there were substantial changes that equalized the gender gap. Still, there was a significant class disparity in who could experience change.

The five articles in this special issue eloquently tell how Japanese society and people have dealt with the pandemic in terms of politics, economy, individuals, communities, and households. The readers will find specific strengths and weaknesses, capacity and incapability, resilience, and vulnerability in Japanese institutions and individuals. It cannot be known from these studies how these characteristics differ from those of other societies. In the future, an international comparison should be carried out.

Finally, four editors of this special issue, Yoshihiko Shiratori, Tomohiko Asano, Hideo Nakazawa, and Jun IMAI, believe that this special issue contributes to the discussion about Japanese society from an international comparative perspective in the future. At the same time, let us commemorate the inauguration of the Japanese Journal of Sociology that succeeds the International Journal of Japanese Sociology. We hope that the renamed journal will become an active forum for sociological discussion about Japan and beyond.