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Uproar as same-sex couples to be counted as 'other relatives' in Japan census
A national census, conducted once every five years, will be held this fall to collect information from all residents and households in Japan, but same-sex couples are effectively excluded from it.
When filling a form out for the national census, applicants have to describe the relationship between them and the head of the household. One of the opposite-sex couple can choose "spouse" for the information to be included in the tally, but a person in a same-sex relationship is classified under "other relatives." Such couples and experts are criticizing that the method does not reflect the real situation and is meaningless as a national consensus.
Questions such as ones asking about the working status of household members are included in the census, with the aim to utilize the collected information for policy making by the central and local governments, among other goals.
In the answer sheet, applicants have to fill out the names and sex of all members of the household, as well as choose whether they are the "head of the household," "spouse of the household head" or a "child," among other choices in one section. It can be assumed that one of the couple in a same-sex relationship would choose "head of the household," while the other picks the spouse. However, in such a case, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, when tallying the results, workers check the answer in this section against other items on the sheet because "it could be a simple mistake made in writing." If the answer is judged as "probably not a mistake," workers change the answer to "other relatives." This category refers to uncles, aunts, cousins and such relatives.
If a same-sex couple has established their own household, isn't it a mistake to describe one of them as equivalent to an uncle or an aunt? In contrast, an opposite-sex couple in a common-law marriage the same status as a same-sex couple in terms of not having submitted a marriage registration form and not defined as legally married is treated the same as a legally married couple in the census. It is explained on the section of the answer sheet asking whether the applicant has a spouse or not, which reads, "Please fill in the answer regardless of whether or not you have submitted a (marriage) registration form."
A representative of the Statistics Bureau told the Mainichi Shimbun, "Under Japan's legal system, marriage is between those of the opposite sex. If their relationship is very similar to that of a legally married couple and the only difference is that they have not submitted their marriage registry, it's in line with the objective of the national consensus to treat common-law marriage in the same way as legal marriage." They continued, "Same-sex marriage isn't recognized in Japan, so in the census we cannot recognize them as being in a marital relationship. That is why we are counting them under the 'other relatives' category."
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200821/p2a/00m/0na/014000c