More Japanese Youths Likely to Vote in Lower House Election: The Nippon Foundation Poll

Japan’s new Prime Minister Fumio Kishida dissolved the House of Representatives on October 14, setting the stage for a general election on October 31.

The former foreign minister was elected president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on September 29. Then, thanks to the party’s comfortable majority in both chambers of the Diet (Parliament) he was appointed prime minister on October 4, succeeding Yoshihide Suga who did not seek re-election as party leader and head of the government after just one year in office.

Will young Japanese go to the polls at the general election and if so, what will determine their voting behavior? The Nippon Foundation conducted a survey from August 12 to 16 on the theme of a “National Election”, covering 916 Japanese who will have turned 18, the legal voting age, by October 31. The poll was based on the assumption that Japan will have a general election this fall after the four-year term of lower house members expires on October 21.

The online nationwide survey found that more than half of respondents (55.2%) said they will either vote or probably vote in the general election, a significantly higher figure than the 40.49% turnout for 18- and 19-year-olds in the previous lower house election in October 2017.

On the other hand, a little more than one in five (22.3%) said they will not vote or probably not vote with almost the same percentage (22.5%) saying they don’t know.

Of those who said they will or probably will vote (multiple answers accepted), more than half (55.5%) said they would do so because it is people’s right to vote, followed by 46.4% who said voting is a civic duty and 20.9% who said election results affect their lives.  

The top reason given by those who don’t intend to vote was that voting is burdensome (51.0%), followed by 22.5% who said they are busy, 16.2%  who said they do not know how to vote and 14.7% who said they are indifferent to politics.

When asked which social issues should be prioritized in the election campaign, the highest mark was given to health and hygiene (6.52 on a scale of 1 to 10), indicating Japanese youths’ keen interest in the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Other issues cited were economic growth and employment (6.30), child rearing and the declining birthrate (6.25), disaster response and rehabilitation (6.22), and child poverty (6.14).

By sex, females place more importance on the rights and protection of children and on LGBTQ rights than men did as campaign issues, while men consider disaster response and rehabilitation, and education and schools to be more important than women.

The respondents were asked about voter turnout among the young generation, which is said to be lower than for other generations in Japan (multiple answers accepted). Almost half (48.1%) said they agree with the view that turnout needs to be higher to make the opinions of young people reflected in politics, with nearly two in five (37.2%) supporting the view that wide differences in turnout among generations might make for policies that favor certain groups. One fourth (25.2%) are of the view that Japanese young people see few or no politicians as having great ambitions.

Queried about what would make them more interested in voting with a view to boosting turnout, being able to vote by smartphone or personal computer ranked highest at 64.1%, followed by receipt of a present or gift as incentives (50.2%), greater availability of easy-to-understand information about politics (49.5%), election issues more related to young people (47.5%), and more young candidates and elected officials (47.3%).

Regarding their sources of information about elections and politics, two in three (66.6%) chose television, more than twice as much as social networks (27.0%), internet news (24.9%), and newspapers (20.6%).

Japan lowered the voting age from 20 to 18 under the revised Public Officers Election Act that came into effect in 2016, which means the October 31 general election will be the second in which 18- and 19-year-olds can vote.

Low turnout among young people of voting age is a serious problem for any country. As stated earlier, the last lower house election in 2017 saw the turnout among 18- and 19-year-olds come to 40.49%. As for the House of Councilors elections, it stood at 46.78% in 2016, but fell substantially to 32.28% in 2019.

Analyzing the findings of the latest survey, I look forward to seeing how the COVID-19 pandemic and the new administration installed earlier this month will affect Japanese youths’ voting behavior in the imminent general election.