Trend Analysis

It’s not very often that anyone gets to say they’ve witnessed the dawn of a new era, but on May 1st this year, with the enthronement...

In spite of the well-publicized push by the government to get women to return to work after having children, the fact remains that...

In April 2019, the new labor laws went into effect for large companies. Small companies will follow suit in April 2020. The lead-up...

What’s life like for the average worker in Japan? First, endure a stressful, claustrophobic commute on one or more vacuum-packed trains.

In our 2019 CarterJMRN Japan Sentiment Study, we asked 1000 men and women across all 47 prefectures whether they felt that women are...

When an 18-year old Osaka student filed a $19,000 lawsuit against the Osaka Prefectural Government because her school insisted that she dye her...

Before 1985, you could hardly find a Japanese woman in business doing anything more than “office lady” activities: tea serving, copy making, paper...

The LGBT community of Japan may go somewhat unnoticed by the general public, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been making waves in...

Whether you call it solo katsu, the super-solo life or ohitorisama (“doing things on your own”), living single is big in Japan.

It was already in 2010 when JMRN pointed out that Japan’s online retail market had increased by 17% annually since 2005, At that time, Japanese...

Japan’s cities and office buildings have been gradually squeezing smokers into smaller confines, forbidding puffing away while walking on the street and creating...

It really shouldn’t be this way, but the lives and careers of Japan’s highly educated and capable women are still dictated by how...