Japan’s Survey on Violence Between Men and Women (2023)

Asking only whether somebody has been hit can miss control over money, social relationships and sexual autonomy. The Japanese Cabinet Office’s Gender Equality Bureau distinguishes physical, psychological, economic and sexual acts in its fiscal-2023 survey of violence between men and women, then asks separately about seeking help. Released on 26 March 2024, the report is available through an official page that also supplies corrected text.

Identify the sample before reading percentages

Conducted in November–December 2023, the survey sampled 5,000 people aged 18–59 nationwide and obtained 2,950 valid responses, a 59% response rate. These are questionnaire data, not police registrations. Experiences never reported to police can be included, while nonresponse does not establish that no violence occurred.

The spouse-violence questions concern 1,838 ever-married respondents: 1,050 women and 788 men. Spouse includes de facto marriage, separated couples and former spouses. At least one listed form of spousal violence was reported by 27.5% of these women and 22.0% of these men. Those are not direct percentages of all Japanese women and men. The condition of marriage experience must survive any retelling. The report and tables make denominators part of the substantive argument.

Being counted in one category does not make harms equivalent

Examples of psychological aggression include humiliation, close monitoring of communications and friendships, prolonged ignoring and threats. Economic pressure includes withholding living expenses, appropriating wages or savings and obstructing paid work. Sexual coercion also extends beyond a single kind of physical act. Asking about specific behaviors makes controls sometimes represented as family affairs or affection identifiable as harm.

Similar aggregate percentages cannot establish equal circumstances or severity. Among the same ever-married respondents, 10.6% of women reported sexual coercion, compared with 1.1% of men. Forms of violence can overlap. Their percentages cannot simply be added, and an indicator of at least one form cannot substitute for severity, repetition or effects on daily life.

Telling somebody is not entering the justice system

Among 462 respondents reporting spousal victimization, 52.8% had disclosed it or sought help from at least one person or organization. These included friends, relatives and professional services: the figure is not a police reporting rate. Experiencing harm, confiding in someone, accessing support and making a formal report are distinct steps.

Reasons given for not seeking help included considering the experience insufficiently serious and believing that enduring it would allow life to continue. Such answers raise questions about normalization and help-seeking thresholds. They do not establish one psychological explanation governing everybody’s behavior. Safety analysis should examine access to support rather than turn nondisclosure into a reason to blame victims.

No effortless international trend line

This round sampled ages 18–59, unlike earlier rounds covering people aged 20 and above. Comparisons across years require attention to age composition and questionnaire design. A nationwide survey does not represent every age or experience outside its coverage.

Read with France’s 2024 administrative report to examine how surveys and registrations differently reveal or miss harm, rather than directly ranking their percentages. Saffioti’s paper adds a political question: when family and intimacy are presumed naturally private, which forms of control become entitlements, and which requests for help are dismissed as interference?