Demographics of Japan

# Demographics of Japan

## Abstract

The demographics of Japan include birth and death rates, age distribution, population density, ethnicity, education level, healthcare system of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations, and other aspects regarding the Japanese population. According to the United Nations, the population of Japan was roughly 126.4 million people (as of January 2020), and peaked at 128.5 million people in 2010. It is the 6th-most populous country in Asia, and the 11th-most populous country in the world.

In 2023, the median age of Japanese people was projected to be 49.5 years, the highest level since 1950, compared to 29.5 for India, 38.8 for the United States and 39.8 for China. Japan has the second highest median age in the world (behind only Monaco). An improved quality of life and regular health checks are just two reasons why Japan has one of the highest life expectancies in the world.

The life expectancy from birth in Japan improved significantly after World War II, rising 20 years in the decade between 1945 and 1955. As life expectancy rises further, Japan expects to experience difficulties caring for the older generations in the future. Shortages in the service sector are already a major concern, with demand for nurses and care workers increasing.

The fertility rate among Japanese women was around 1.4 children per woman from 2010 to 2018. From then until 2022, the fertility rate further declined to 1.2. Apart from a small baby boom in the early 1970s, the crude birth rate in Japan has been declining since 1950; it reached its currently lowest point of 5.8 births per thousand people in 2023. With a falling birth rate and a large share of its inhabitants reaching old age, Japan's total population is expected to continue declining, a trend that has been seen since 2010.

Japanese is a major language of the Japonic language family spoken by Japanese people, which is separated into several dialects with the Tokyo dialect considered Standard Japanese. It has around 128 million speakers in total, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese diaspora across the globe.

The sex ratio in Japan in 2021 was 95.38 males per 100 females. There are 61.53 million males and 64.52 million females in Japan. The percentage of female population is 51.18%, compared to 48.82% male population. Japan has 2.98 million more females than males.

## Historical overview

As of 2017, Japan was the world's eleventh-most populous country. The total population had declined by 0.8 percent from the time of the census five years previously, the first time it had declined since the 1945 census.

Since 2010, Japan has experienced net population loss due to falling birth rates and minimal immigration, despite having one of the highest life expectancies in the world, at 85.00 years as of 2016 (it stood at 81.25 as of 2006). Using the annual estimate for October of each year, the population peaked in 2008 at 128,083,960 and had fallen by 2,983,352 by October 2021.

Based on 2012 data from the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, Japan's population will keep declining by about one million people every year in the coming decades, which would leave it with a population of around 70 million by 2060 and 42 million by early 22nd century if the current projections do not change. More than 40% of the population is expected to be over the age of 65 in 2060. In 2021 the population had for fifteen consecutive years declined by 644,000 on this year, the largest drop on record since 1945 and also reflecting a record low of 831,000 births. As of 2013 more than 20 percent of the population of Japan were aged 65 and over.

The population consisted of 47,062,743 households, with 78.7% in urban areas (July 2000). High population density; 329.5 people per square kilometer for total area; 1,523 persons per square kilometer for habitable land. More than 50% of the population lives on 2% of the land. (July 1993). According to research in 2009, the population to land density ratio has gradually increased, now at 127 million per 337 km2. Compared to the findings of July 1993 as well as in July 2000, the population density has greatly increased, from 50% of the population living on 2% of the land to 77%. However, as the years have progressed since the last recordings of the population, Japan's population has decreased, raising concern about the future of Japan. There are many causes, such as the declining birthrates, as well as the ratio of men to women since the last measurements from the years of 2006 and 2010. According to the Japanese Health Ministry, the population is estimated to drop from its current state of 125.58 million to 86.74 million by the year 2060.

Japan dropped from the 5th most populous country in the world to 6th in 1964, 7th in 1978, 8th in 1990, to 9th in 1998, to 10th in the early 21st century, 11th in 2020, and to 12th in 2023. Over the period of 2010 to 2015, the population shrank by almost a million, and Japan lost a half-million in 2022 alone. The number of Japanese citizens decreased by 801,000 to 122,423,038 in 2022 from a year earlier, which was the most severe decrease and the first time all 47 prefectures have suffered a decline since the launch of the poll in 1968. The nation's population reached 128,057,352 Japanese people by early 2010. However, the long-lasting effects of Japanese economic crisis during the Great Recession strongly slowed down immigration rates in Japan in 2010s.

In March 2011, Japan suffered from the triple disaster (earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster, etc.), resulting 20,000 deaths, a reduction of about 1.39 years in the average life expectancy, an ultimate decrease in birth rates, and a marked decrease in immigration rates, worst since the end of World War II.

According to studies from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, from January 2020 to the end of September 2021 as a direct effect of COVID-19 pandemic, Japan registered at least 112,000 excess deaths with six times higher, a reduction of about 2.6 years in the average life expectancy, a noticeable decrease in birth rates and a marked decrease in immigration rates, the overall effect being a record natural population decline of 798,214 units in that year, although the excess mortality rate for all causes has been estimated at between 100,000 and 130,000 deaths. It is the largest ever recorded since 1914 (at the time of World War I, Spanish flu pandemic, and the Great Kanto earthquake).

According to a demographic study conducted by Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japanese population (including foreign residents) has declined from 128 million people in 2010 to 124.3 million people in 2023, with a decrease of almost 511,000 people in one year.

## Population

### Population Projection

### Census

Japan collects census information every five years, with censuses conducted by the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The latest population census reflects the situation as of 2020.

### Population density

Japan's population density was 336 people per square kilometer as of 2014 (874 people per square mile) according to World Development Indicators. It ranks 44th in a list of countries by population density. Between 1955 and 1989, land prices in the six largest cities increased by 15,000% (+12% per year compound). Urban land prices generally increased 40% from 1980 to 1987; in the six largest cities, the price of land doubled over that period. For many families, this trend put housing in central cities out of reach.

The result was lengthy commutes for many workers in the big cities, especially in the Tokyo area where daily commutes of two hours each way are common. In 1991, as the bubble economy started to collapse, land prices began a steep decline, and within a few years fell 60% below their peak. After a decade of declining land prices, residents began moving back into central city areas (especially Tokyo's 23 wards), as evidenced by 2005 census figures. Despite nearly 70% of Japan being covered by forests, parks in many major cities—especially Tokyo and Osaka—are smaller and scarcer than in major West European or North American cities. As of 2014, parkland per inhabitant in Tokyo is 5.78 square meters, which is roughly half of the 11.5 square meters of Madrid.

National and regional governments devote resources to making regional cities and rural areas more attractive by developing transportation networks, social services, industry, and educational institutions to try to decentralize settlement and improve the quality of life. Nevertheless, major cities, especially Tokyo, Yokohama and Fukuoka, and to a lesser extent Kyoto, Osaka and Nagoya, remain attractive to young people seeking education and jobs.

### Urban distribution

Japan has a high population concentration in urban areas on the plains since 75% of Japan's land area is made up of mountains, and also Japan has a forest cover rate of 68.5% (the only other developed countries with such a high forest cover percentage are Finland and Sweden). The 2010 census shows 90.7% of the total Japanese population live in cities.

Japan is an urban society with about only 5% of the labor force working in agriculture. Many farmers supplement their income with part-time jobs in nearby towns and cities. About 80 million of the urban population is heavily concentrated on the Pacific shore of Honshu.

Metropolitan Tokyo - Yokohama, with its population of 35 million residents, is the world's most populous city. Japan faces the same problems that confront urban industrialized societies throughout the world: overcrowded cities and congested highways.

### Age structure

Japan's population is aging faster than that of any other nation. The population of those 65 years or older roughly doubled in 24 years, from 7.1% of the population in 1970 to 14.1% in 1994. The same increase took 61 years in Italy, 85 years in Sweden, and 115 years in France. In 2014, 26% of Japan's population was estimated to be 65 years or older, and the Health and Welfare Ministry has estimated that over-65s will account for 40% of the population by 2060. The demographic shift in Japan's age profile has triggered concerns about the nation's economic future and the viability of its welfare state.

### Life expectancy

Sources: Our World In Data and the United Nations.

1865–1949

1950–2015

Source: UN World Population Prospects

### Fertility

As of 2022, Japan's total fertility rate was 1.26, among the lowest in the world and far below the replacement rate of 2.1. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has pledged to take urgent steps to tackle the country's declining birth rate, calling it "now or never" for Japan's aging society, and plans to double the budget for child-related policies by June and set up a new government agency in April.

## Vital statistics

Live births, birth and death rates, overall fertility rate, and net change in Japan from 1899 to present. The statistics below do not include foreign nationalities.

### Current vital statistics

## Migration

### Internal migration

Between 6 million and 7 million people moved their residences each year during the 1980s. About 50% of these moves were within the same prefecture; the others were relocations from one prefecture to another. During Japan's economic development in the twentieth century, and especially during the 1950s and 1960s, migration was characterized by urbanization as people from rural areas in increasing numbers moved to the larger metropolitan areas in search of better jobs and education. Out-migration from rural prefectures continued in the late 1980s, but more slowly than in previous decades.

In the 1980s, government policy provided support for new urban development away from the large cities, particularly Tokyo, and assisted regional cities to attract young people to live and work there. Regional cities offered familiarity to those from nearby areas, lower costs of living, shorter commutes, and, in general, a more relaxed lifestyle than could be had in larger cities. Young people continued to move to large cities, however, to attend universities and find work, but some returned to regional cities (a pattern known as U-turn) or to their prefecture of origin (referred to as "J-turn"), or even moved to a rural area for the first time ("I-turn").

Government statistics show that in the 1980s significant numbers of people left the largest central cities (Tokyo and Osaka) to move to suburbs within their metropolitan areas. In 1988, more than 500,000 people left Tokyo, which experienced a net loss through migration of nearly 73,000 for the year. Osaka had a net loss of nearly 36,000 in the same year.

With a decreasing total population, internal migration results in only eight prefectures showing an increase in population. These are Okinawa (2.9%), Tokyo (2.7%), Aichi (1.0%), Saitama (1.0%), Kanagawa (0.9%), Fukuoka (0.6%), Shiga (0.2%), and Chiba (0.1%).

### Emigration

About 663,300 Japanese were living abroad, approximately 75,000 of whom had permanent foreign residency, more than six times the number who had that status in 1975. More than 200,000 Japanese went abroad in 1990 for extended periods of study, research, or business assignments. As the government and private corporations have stressed internationalization, greater numbers of individuals have been directly affected, decreasing Japan's historical insularity. By the late 1980s, these problems, particularly the bullying of returnee children in schools, had become a major public issue both in Japan and in Japanese communities abroad.

Cities with significant populations of Japanese nationals in 2015 included:

- Los Angeles, United States: 68,689

- Bangkok, Thailand: 48,700

- Shanghai, China: 46,115

- New York, United States: 44,636

- Singapore: 36,963

- London, United Kingdom: 36,721

- Sydney, Australia: 30,448

- Vancouver, Canada: 26,999

- Hong Kong: 26,869

- San Francisco, United States: 18,777

- Toronto, Canada: 13,410

Note: The above data shows the number of Japanese nationals living overseas. It was published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan and relates to 2015.

### Immigration

According to the Japanese immigration centre, the number of foreign residents in Japan has steadily increased, and the number of foreign residents exceeded 3 410 992 people in December 2023.

In 2020, the number of foreigners in Japan was 2,887,116. This includes 325,000 Filipinos, many of whom are married to Japanese nationals and possessing some degree of Japanese ancestry, 208,538 Brazilians, the majority possessing some degree of Japanese ancestry, 778,112 Chinese, 448,053 Vietnamese and 426,908 South Koreans. Chinese, Vietnamese, Koreans, Filipinos and Brazilians account for about 77% of foreign residents in Japan.

The current issue of the shrinking workforce in Japan alongside its aging population has resulted in a recent need to attract foreign labour to the country. Reforms which took effect in 2015 relax visa requirements for "Highly Skilled Foreign Professionals" and create a new type of residence status with an unlimited period of stay.

According to the Civil Affairs Bureau of Japan's Ministry of Justice, the number of naturalized individuals peaked in 2003 at 17,633, before declining to 8,800 by 2023. Most of the decline is accounted for by a steep reduction in the number of Japan-born Koreans taking Japanese citizenship. Historically the bulk of those taking Japanese citizenship have not been foreign-born immigrants but rather Japanese-born descendants of Koreans and Taiwanese who lost their citizenship in the Japanese Empire in 1947 as part of the American Occupation policy for Japan.

Japanese statistical authorities do not collect information on ethnicity, only nationality. As a result, both native and naturalized Japanese citizens are counted in a single group. Although official statistics therefore show homogeneity, other analyses describe the population as “multi-ethnic”.

## Languages

In addition to the Japanese language, Ryūkyūan languages are spoken in Okinawa and parts of Kagoshima in the Ryūkyū Islands. Along with Japanese, these languages are part of the Japonic language family, but they are separate languages, and are not mutually intelligible with Japanese, or with each other. All of the spoken Ryukyuan languages are classified by UNESCO as endangered.

In Hokkaidō, there is the Ainu language, which is spoken by the Ainu people, who are the indigenous people of the island. The Ainu languages, of which Hokkaidō Ainu is the only extant variety, are isolated and do not fall under any language family. Ever since the Meiji period, Japanese has become widely used among the Ainu people and consequently Ainu languages have been classified critically endangered by UNESCO.

The Japanese society of Yamato people is linguistically homogeneous with small populations of Koreans (0.9 million), Chinese / Taiwanese (0.65 million), Filipino (306,000 some being Japanese Filipino; children of Japanese and Filipino parentage). This can be also said for Brazilians (300,000, many of whom are ethnically Japanese) as well as Peruvians and Argentineans of both Latin American and Japanese descent. Japan has indigenous minority groups such as the Ainu and Ryukyuans, who generally speak Japanese.

## Citizenship

Japanese citizenship is conferred jure sanguinis, and monolingual Japanese-speaking minorities often reside in Japan for generations under permanent residency status without acquiring citizenship in their country of birth, although legally they are allowed to do so. This is because Japanese law does not recognize dual citizenship after the age of adulthood, and so people becoming naturalized Japanese citizens must relinquish their previous citizenship upon reaching the age of 22 years

In addition, people taking Japanese citizenship must take a name using one or more of the Japanese character sets (hiragana, katakana, kanji). Names written in the Western alphabet, Korean alphabet, Arabic characters, etc., are not acceptable as legal names. Chinese characters are usually legally acceptable as nearly all Chinese characters are recognized as valid by the Japanese government. Transliterations of non-Japanese names using katakana (e.g. スミス " Sumisu " for "Smith") are also legally acceptable.

However, some naturalizing foreigners feel that becoming a Japanese citizen should mean that they have a Japanese name and that they should abandon their foreign name, and some foreign residents do not wish to do this—although most Special Permanent Resident Koreans and Chinese already use Japanese names. Nonetheless, some 10,000 Zainichi Koreans naturalize every year. Approximately 98.6% of the population are Japanese citizens, and 99% of the population speak Japanese as their first language. Non-ethnic Japanese in the past, and to an extent in the present, also live in small numbers in the Japanese archipelago.

## Society

### Lifestyle

Japanese people enjoy a high standard of living, and nearly 90% of the population consider themselves part of the middle class. However, many studies on happiness and satisfaction with life tend to find that Japanese people average relatively low levels of life satisfaction and happiness when compared with most of the highly developed world; the levels have remained consistent if not declining slightly over the last half century. Japanese have been surveyed to be relatively lacking in financial satisfaction. The societal view generally disapproves of out-of-wedlock births and premarital pregnancies.

Social isolation is a problem for a segment of Japanese society, with almost 500,000 young people belonging to this group, they are also known as hikikomori.

The Japanese management working culture in Japan has led some to work-related deaths due to heart attack or stroke, this has led to the term karoshi (lit. "overwork death"). The government has received 200 claims of karoshi related work injuries each year, with some leading to suicide.

Many Japanese lead a sexless marriage. Japan has the lowest level of couples having sex at 45 times per year, well below the global average of 103 times. With reasons of "tired" and "bored with intercourse" usually given as an answer. Despite this, Japan ranks as number two globally on the amount spent on pornography, after South Korea.

## Ethnic groups

Naturalized Japanese citizens and native-born Japanese nationals with a multi-ethnic background are all considered to be Japanese in the population census of Japan.

### Discrimination against ethnic minorities

Three native Japanese minority groups can be identified. The largest are the hisabetsu buraku or "discriminated communities", also known as the burakumin. These descendants of premodern outcast hereditary occupational groups, such as butchers, leatherworkers, funeral directors, and certain entertainers, may be considered a Japanese analog of India 's Dalits. Historically, discrimination against these occupational groups was based on Buddhist prohibitions on killing and Shinto notions of pollution, and it was also a feature of governmental attempts to maintain social control.

During the Edo period, such people were required to live in special buraku and, like the rest of the population, they were bound by sumptuary laws which were based on the inheritance of social class. The Meiji government abolished most of the derogatory names which were applied to these discriminated communities in 1871, but the new laws had little effect on the social discrimination which was faced by the former outcasts and their descendants. However, the laws eliminated the economic monopoly which they had on certain occupations. The buraku continued to be treated as social outcasts and some casual interactions with the majority caste were perceived taboo until the era after World War II.

Estimates of their number range from 2 to 4 million (about 4% of the national population in 2022). Although the members of these marginalized communities are physically indistinguishable from other Japanese, most of them live in urban ghettoes or they live in the traditional special hamlets which are located in rural areas, and as a result, membership in a marginalized group can be surmised from the location of a family's home, a family's occupation, the dialect which a family speaks, or the mannerisms which a family uses when it communicates with people. Checks on the backgrounds of families which were designed to ferret out buraku were commonly performed as a condition of marriage arrangements and employment applications, but in Osaka, they have been illegal since 1985.

Among the hisabetsu buraku, past and current discrimination against them has resulted in lower educational attainments and it has also resulted in a lower socioeconomic status, by contrast, the majority of Japanese have higher educational attainments and they also have a higher economic status. Movements with objectives which range from "liberation" to the encouragement of integration have attempted to change this situation, with some success. Nadamoto Masahisa of the Buraku History Institute estimates that as of 1998, between 60 and 80% of burakumin marry a non-burakumin.

### Ryukyuans

One of the largest minority groups among Japanese citizens is the Ryukyuan people. They are primarily distinguished by their use of several distinct Ryukyuan languages, though use of Ryukyuan is dying out. The Ryukyuan people and language originated in the Ryukyu Islands, which are in Okinawa prefecture and Kagoshima Prefecture.

### Ainu

The third largest minority group among Japanese citizens is the Ainu, whose language is an isolate. Historically, the Ainu were an indigenous hunting and gathering population who occupied most of northern Honshū as late as the Nara period (A.D. 710–94). As Japanese settlement expanded, the Ainu were pushed northward, by the Tokugawa shogunate, the Ainu were pushed into the island of Hokkaido.

Characterized as remnants of a primitive circumpolar culture, the fewer than 20,000 Ainu in 1990 were considered racially distinct and thus not fully Japanese. Disease and a low birth rate had severely diminished their numbers over the past two centuries, and intermarriage had brought about an almost completely mixed population.

Although no longer in daily use, the Ainu language is preserved in epics, songs, and stories transmitted orally over succeeding generations. Distinctive rhythmic music and dances and some Ainu festivals and crafts are preserved, but mainly in order to take advantage of tourism.

### Hāfu

Hāfu (a kana rendition of "half") is a term used for people who are biracial and ethnically half Japanese. Of the one million children born in Japan in 2013, 2.2% had one or two non-Japanese parents. According to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, one in forty-nine babies born in Japan today are born into families with one non-Japanese parent. Most intermarriages in Japan are between Japanese men and women from other Asian countries, including China, the Philippines and South Korea. Southeast Asia too, also has significant populations of people with half-Japanese ancestry, particularly in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

In the 1940s, biracial Japanese children (Ainoko), specifically Amerasian children, encountered social problems such as poverty, perception of impurity and discrimination due to negative treatment in Japan. In the 21st century, discrimination against hāfu occurs based on how different their identity, behavior and appearance is from a typical Japanese person.

## Foreign residents

In 2021, there were 2,887,116 foreign residents in Japan, representing 2.3% of the Japanese population. Foreign Army personnel, of which there were up to 430,000 from the SCAP (post-occupation, United States Forces Japan) and 40,000 BCOF in the immediate post-war years, have not been at any time included in Japanese foreign resident statistics. Most foreign residents in Japan come from Brazil or from other Asian countries, particularly from China, Vietnam, South Korea, the Philippines, and Nepal.

A number of long-term resident Koreans in Japan today retain familial links with the descendants of Koreans, that either immigrated voluntarily or were forcibly relocated during the Japanese occupation of Korea. Within this group, a number hold Special Permanent Resident status, granted under the terms of the Normalisation Treaty (22. June 1965) between South Korea and Japan. In many cases special residents, despite being born in Japan and speaking Japanese, have chosen not to take advantage of the mostly automatic granting of citizenship to special resident applicants.

Beginning in 1947 the Japanese government started to repatriate Korean nationals, who had nominally been granted Japanese citizenship during the years of military occupation. When the Treaty of San Francisco came into force many ethnic Koreans lost their Japanese citizenship from April 28, 1952, and with it the right to welfare grants, to hold a government job of any kind or to attend Japanese schools. In the following year the government contrived, with the help of the Red Cross, a scheme to "repatriate" Korean residents, who mainly were from the Southern Provinces, to their "home" of North Korea. Between 1959 and 1984 93,430 people used this route, of whom 6,737 were Japanese or Chinese dependents. Most of these departures – 78,276 – occurred before 1962.

All non-Japanese without special residential status (people whose residential roots go back to before WWII) are required by law to register with the government and carry alien registration cards. From the early 1980s, a civil disobedience movement encouraged refusal of the fingerprinting that accompanied registration every five years.

Opponents of fingerprinting argued that it was discriminatory because the only Japanese who were fingerprinted were criminals. The courts upheld fingerprinting, but the law was changed so that fingerprinting was done once rather than with each renewal of the registration, which until a law reform in 1989 was usually required every six months for anybody from the age of 16. Those refusing fingerprinting were denied re-entry permits, thus depriving them of freedom of movement.

Of these foreign residents below, the new wave started in 2014 comes to Japan as students or trainees. These foreigners are registered under student visa or trainee visa, which gives them the student residency status. Most of these new foreigners are under this visa. Almost all of these foreign students and trainees will return to their home country after three to four years (one valid period); few students extend their visa. Vietnamese makes the largest increase, however Burmese, Cambodians, Filipinos and Chinese are also increasing.

Asian migrant wives of Japanese men have also contributed to the foreign-born population in the country. Many young single Japanese male farmers choose foreign wives, mainly from the Philippines, Thailand, China and South Korea, due to a lack of interest from Japanese women living a farming life. Migrant wives often travel as mail-order brides as a result of arranged marriages with Japanese men.

### Foreign residents as of 2015

There was an increase of 110,358 foreign residents from 2014 to 2015. Vietnamese made the largest proportion of these new foreign residents, whilst Nepalese, Filipino, Chinese and Taiwanese are also significant in numbers. Together these countries makes up 91,126 or 82.6% of all new residents from 2014 to 2015. However, the majority of these immigrants will only remain in Japan for a maximum of five years, as many of them have entered the country in order to complete trainee programmes. Once they complete their programmes, they will be required to return to their home countries.

As of December 2014 there were 2,121,831 foreigners residing in Japan, 677,019 of whom were long-term residents in Japan, according to national demographics figures. The majority of long-term residents were from Asia, totalling 478,953. Chinese made up the largest portion of them with 215,155, followed by Filipinos with 115,857, and Koreans with 65,711. Thai, Vietnamese, and Taiwanese long-term residents totaled 47,956, and those from other Asian countries totaled 34,274. The Korean figures do not include zainichi Koreans with tokubetsu eijusha ("special permanent resident") visas, of whom there were 354,503 (of a total of 358,409 of all nationalities with such visas). The total number of permanent residents had declined over the previous five years due to high cost of living.

### Foreign residents as of 2021

The number of foreign residents of Japan reached a high of 2.93 million in 2019 before falling to 2.76 million at the end of 2021. The number of foreign workers was 1.46 million in 2018, 29.7% are in the manufacturing sector; 389,000 are from Vietnam and 316,000 are from China.

On April 1, 2019, Japan's revised immigration law was enacted. The revision clarifies and better protects the rights of foreign workers. Japan formally accepts foreign blue-collar workers. This helps reduce labour shortage in certain sectors of the economy. The reform changes the status of foreign workers to regular employees and they can obtain permanent residence status. The reform includes a new visa status called tokutei gino (特定技能, "designated skills"). In order to qualify, applicants must pass a language and skills test (level N4 or higher of the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test). In the old "Technical Trainee programme" a foreign employee was tied to their employer. This caused numerous cases of exploitation. The revision gives foreign workers more freedom to leave and change their employer.

## Religion

Shinto and Buddhism are Japan's two major religions. They have co-existed for more than a thousand years. However, most Japanese people generally do not exclusively identify themselves as adherents of one religion, but rather incorporate various elements in a syncretic fashion. There are small Christian and other minorities as well, with the Christian population dating to as early as the 1500s, as a result of European missionary work before sakoku was implemented from 1635 to 1853.


Anastasia Gozhva

# Anastasia Gozhva

## Abstract

Anastasia Gozhva or Hozhva (Ukrainian: Анастасія Володимирівна Гожва, born 5 December 2001) is a Ukrainian figure skater. She is the 2019 Jégvirág Cup champion and a three-time Ukrainian national champion (2016, 2023-24).

## Personal life

Gozhva was born on 5 December 2001 in Kyiv. Her sister, Daria (one year older), is also a competitive figure skater.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Gozhva and her family fled to Tallinn, Estonia and moved into a shared apartment.

She is currently a student at the National University of Ukraine on Physical Education and Sport.

She has a pet Beagle named Ronya.

## Career

### Early career

Gozhva began learning to skate in 2004. In the 2015–16 season, she won both the junior and senior Ukrainian national titles. Too young to compete in senior internationals, she was sent to the 2016 World Junior Championships in Debrecen, Hungary. She qualified for the free skate by placing 13th in the short program and finished 17th overall.

In February 2017, Gozhva won the silver medal at the 2017 European Youth Olympic Winter Festival in Erzurum, Turkey. She made her senior international debut in September at the 2017 CS Ondrej Nepela Trophy.

### 2018–2019 season

Gozhva placed fourth at the 2019 Ukrainian Championships. Because none of the medalists met the minimum age or TES requirements, she was named in Ukraine's team to the 2019 European Championships in Minsk, Belarus. Ranked 36th in the short program, she did not advance to the free skate. In February, she outscored Nicole Schott by 1.16 points to win gold at the Jégvirág Cup in Hungary.

### 2019–20 season

Gozhva began her season at the 2019 CS Nebelhorn Trophy, where she finished sixteenth.

She went on to compete at the 2020 European Championships in Graz, Austria, where she placed thirty-fourth in the short program, failing to advance to the free skate segment of the competition.

### 2020–21 season

Gozhva sat out the 2020–21 figure skating season.

### 2021–22 season

Gozhva began the season with finishing fifteenth at the 2021 Budapest Trophy. She went on to win silver at the 2021 Autumn Talents Club and finish nineteenth at the 2021 CS Warsaw Cup.

She finished the season with a silver medal at the 2022 Ukrainian Championships.

In late February, Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine, as a result of which the International Skating Union banned all Russian and Belarusian skaters from competing. Gozvha was at home in Kyiv during the first attacks. As a result, Gozhva relocated to Tallinn, Estonia, where she began training under Irina Kononova, in addition to continuing to work with her longtime coach, Marina Amirkhanova.

### 2022–23 season

Gozhva began the season with thirteenth-place finish at the 2022 CS Nebelhorn Trophy. She went on to compete at the 2022 Volvo Open Cup and the 2022 Tallinn Trophy, placing fifth and sixth, respectively.

At the 2022 CS Golden Spin of Zagreb, Gozhva placed tenth, scoring a personal best free program and combined total score in the process.

Selected to compete at the 2023 Winter University Games, Gozhva scored a personal best in the short program placed eighth overall.

Competing at her third European Championships in Espoo, Finland, Gozhva placed twenty-second in the short program and seventeenth in the free skate, placing twentieth overall.

Gozhva closed her season by winning her second national title at the 2023 Ukrainian Championships.

### 2023–24 season

Gozhva began the season with a thirteenth-place at the 2023 CS Nepela Memorial.

## Competitive highlights

CS: Challenger Series; JGP: Junior Grand Prix

## Detailed results

ISU Personal best highlighted in bold.


# Lucia v. Securities and Exchange Commission

## Abstract

Lucia v. Securities and Exchange Commission, 585 U.S. 237 (2018), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States on the status of administrative law judges of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Court held that they are considered inferior officers of the United States and so are subject to the Appointments Clause and must be appointed through the President or other delegated officer of the United States, rather than hired. As "inferior" officers, their appointments are not subject to the Senate's advice and consent role.

## Background

Like many other government agencies, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) uses administrative law judges (ALJ) to act as a judge in resolving disputes for the agency related to administrative law, those laws that describe how the agency is run. Prior to this case, through November 2017, the SEC had selected ALJ through an in-house hiring process, without seeking consult of the President or officers.

In 2012, investment adviser Ray Lucia promoted a retirement investment strategy called "Buckets of Money" through several seminars. The SEC believed Lucia was offering misleading information in the presentations and charged Lucia and his investment company under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. SEC ALJ Cameron Elliot was assigned the case, and after hearings, ruled against Lucia, fining him US$300,000 and barring him for life from participating in the investment industry. Lucia appealed the case to the SEC, arguing that Elliot's position was considered an "officer of the United States" under the Appointments Clause, and therefore it was required that he be appointed to that position by the President or other officers. Because Elliot had not been appointed but instead hired through an in-house process, Lucia argued that Elliot was not empowered to issue the ruling.

The SEC rejected Lucia's claim that ALJs were officers of the United States; the ALJs used by SEC may issue decisions with significant ramifications for those charged, but the decisions are reviewed by the SEC Commissioners, who are appointed by the President, before they are approved and implemented. To the SEC, ALJs were only employees of the agency, and therefore did not need to be appointed. For this reason, the SEC dismissed Lucia's appeal.

Lucia appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which also aligned with the SEC in that ALJs did not serve as officers of the United States. Upon an en banc hearing within the Court of Appeals, the full ten-member panel was split, forcing them to issue a per curiam decision that maintained the SEC's stance.

Lucia's argument was not the first time the question of ALJ's status had been raised in courts, but in at least two previous cases, the United States courts of appeals had ruled that the question was a matter of administrative review, not a constitutional question. Lucia's case at the SEC led one of the SEC commissioners hearing the case to question whether ALJ must be appointed or not. The case and the election of President Donald Trump, which put more pressure on the use of ALJs in the government made the SEC formally announce on November 20, 2017, that they would be appointed by its five commissioners to align with the Constitution's Appointments Clause and eliminate the constitutionality questions raised by this case.

## Supreme Court

Lucia petitioned to the Supreme Court for writ of certiorari in July 2017; his petition presented the question of whether ALJs are officers of the United States and so are subject to the Appointments Clause. The Court granted the petition in January 2018 and set oral argument for April 23, 2018.

During the case's review in lower courts, the United States government had backed the SEC's stance. With the election of Donald Trump as President, the government's stance had changed to favoring the argument that ALJs should be appointed. The SEC had already changed its process of hiring ALJs prior to the Supreme Court decision by requiring appointments to be approved by a vote of the Commission. In its brief to the Supreme Court, the government also held the stance that as ALJs should be appointed and able to be dismissed at the discretion of the President or other delegated officer. The Court did not consider that question during oral hearings and internal debates.

## Decision

The Court announced judgment in favor of Lucia on June 21, 2018, reversing and remanding to the circuit court by 7–2. The decision affirmed Lucia's statement that ALJs are officers of the United States since they are effectively given quasi-judicial executive power and so must be appointed by the President or a delegated officer. The Court ruled that Lucia must have a new hearing before a different, properly-appointed officer from the SEC but otherwise did not comment on any other aspect of the case. The majority opinion was written by Justice Elena Kagan and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch.

### Concurring and dissenting opinions

Justice Thomas also wrote a concurring opinion, joined by Gorsuch. The decision is expected to allow any entity with a pending case before an SEC ALJ to request a new ruling, but the ruling was crafted as to prevent completed cases from being reopened; it is unknown if this case would apply to cases open at other agencies besides the SEC.

Justice Stephen Breyer concurred in part with the judgment and dissented in part, with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor joining in his dissent, which agreed that the appointment of ALJs by SEC staff, rather than the commissioners themselves, was illegal. That was because of a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act and so it was unnecessary to address the constitutional question. In addition, Breyer argued that it was problematic to determine the "inferior Officer" status of ALJs without first deciding the "pre-existing Free Enterprise Fund question— namely, what effect that holding would have on the statutory 'for cause' removal protections that Congress provided for administrative law judges." Finally, Breyer disagreed with the need for a hearing before a different ALJ, as it is not clear that the Constitution requires a hearing before a different "Officer" after an Appointments Clause violation.

Sotomayor also wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by Ginsburg, which stated that ALJs should not be treated as officers as their judgments are not treated as final and binding.

## Later developments

In 2023, the Supreme Court granted the case SEC v. Jarkesy which further challenged the constitutionality of the SEC based on the claim that the use of ALJs instead of jury trials violated the Seventh Amendment. While SEC v. Jarkesy was decided in June 2024, with the majority opinion stating that those accused of civil violations by the SEC or similar agencies are entitled to a jury trial rather than an agency tribunal, the court did not rule on the constitutionality of the SEC itself.


CTDNEP1

# CTDNEP1

## Abstract

In cell biology, CTDNEP1 (CTD nuclear envelope phosphatase 1) is a protein coding gene involved in neural development. It is a member of DXDX(T/V) phosphatase family and is a potential regulator of neural tube development in Xenopus. The gene promotes neural development by inhibiting bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs). The encoded protein is relatively small and only contains 244 amino acids.

## Description

CTDnep1, which stands for CTD nuclear envelope phosphatase 1. It is a protein coding gene, which include phosphatase activity and protein serine/threonine phosphatase activity. CTDnep1 encodes a protein serine/threonine phosphatase and dephosphorylates LPIN1 and LPIN2. LPIN1 and LPIN2 catalyze the reaction of the conversion of phosphatidic acid to diacylglycerol. The reaction can affect and change the lipid concentration of the endoplasmic reticulum and the nucleus.

## Dullard and BNP signaling

Neural development happens in the dorsal ectoderm. In the genus Xenopus, over expression of CTDNEP1 undergoes apoptosis in early development. CTDNEP1 helps promote Ubiquitin by proteosomal degradation. CTDNEP1 mRNA is derived from maternal genes and is localized within the animal neural hemisphere. Functioning negatively for the regulation of Bone Morphogenetic Proteins (BMPs), CTDNEP1 conserves the C-terminal region of NLI-IF, in which is fairly dominant in cellular functions. CTDNEP1 is essential for inhibiting BMP receptor activation during Xenopus neuralization.

## Human Dullard

Human CTDNEP1 has shown that the protein has two membrane spanning regions. One end is the N-terminal end, which helps localize the protein to the nuclear envelope. CTDNEP1 dephosphorylates the mammalian phosphatidic acid phosphatase, lipin. CTDNEP1 participates in a unique phosphatase cascade regulating nuclear membrane biogenesis, and that this cascade is conserved from yeast to mammals. There is belief that CTDNEP1 may have other targets that is not only associated with the nuclear envelope. In recent studies, CTDNEP1 interacts with BMP type 1 to inhibit dependent phosphorylation. This can conclude that it is a potential source for regulating the level of BMP signaling and can affect germ cell specification.

CTD nuclear envelope phosphatase 1 is a protein in humans that is encoded by the CTDNEP1 gene.