I wrote the first version of this post in July 2025, just before the upper house election in which the Sanseito party went from one seat to 14. It added more in the February 2026 lower house election, winning 15 seats. Its rise is not a random event. It is a response to real grievances: decades of weak wage growth and a work culture that asks a great deal of people while offering less security than it once did.

My argument is simple. The anger is understandable. The explanation Sanseito offers for it, that foreign residents are the problem, points people away from the institutions and decisions that actually produced it.

How the old bargain broke

Postwar “Japan Inc.” was a close working arrangement between ministries, large companies and banks. It favored exports, protected domestic markets and built a labor system around lifetime employment and seniority pay. For a generation that bargain delivered: stable jobs, rising incomes and a clear path through adult life.

The asset bubble burst in the early 1990s. Rather than forcing restructuring, governments of the period largely protected existing firms and spent heavily on public works. The result was the long slowdown now called the “Lost Decades.” Workers absorbed much of the cost. Lifetime employment survived for a shrinking core, while non-regular work (part-time, contract and dispatch jobs with lower pay and less protection) grew to more than a third of employees.

Wages were the heart of it. Real wages in Japan remain below their late-1990s level, a weaker record than most other large rich economies. Productivity gains that did happen were not shared broadly. When prices finally started rising again after 2022, many households felt it as a squeeze rather than a sign of recovery.

When endurance becomes a management tool

Alongside the economic story is a cultural one. Ganbaru (persevering through difficulty) and gaman (enduring patiently) are real virtues. They helped Japan rebuild after the war. But when companies could no longer offer rising pay or guaranteed security, some leaned on those values to ask for more sacrifice instead.

The result, at its worst, is a culture where visible effort counts for more than results. Long hours, reluctance to leave before the boss and quiet acceptance of harassment all survive partly because shouganai (it can’t be helped) makes resistance feel pointless. That is bad for people and bad for productivity.

The most serious outcome is karoshi, death linked to overwork. The government recognizes hundreds of overwork-related cases each year, including heart disease, strokes and suicides, and researchers generally believe the true number is higher. It is not surprising that many younger workers are skeptical of a system that asks for the same sacrifice their parents made without offering the same reward.

What Sanseito offers

Sanseito was founded in 2020 and built its following largely through YouTube and social media rather than traditional press coverage. Its message draws on a feeling that no existing party speaks for ordinary voters. The platform combines nationalism, opposition to immigration and suspicion of globalization with lifestyle themes such as food additives and health, and the party has drawn criticism for promoting vaccine skepticism.

Under its “Japanese First” slogan, it has called for tighter limits on foreign workers, restrictions on foreign land ownership and stricter naturalization. It also promises tax cuts and fiscal stimulus. Its appeal reaches beyond traditional conservatives to people who were not previously politically active.

The political logic is easy to see. The pain is real and widely felt. A party that names a clear, visible cause can mobilize that pain faster than one explaining wage structures or labor law.

Why the foreigner explanation does not fit

The numbers do not support the story, and neither does the crime data behind recent opinion polls. At the end of 2025 Japan had about 4.1 million foreign residents, a record but still around 3% of the population. That group did not design the seniority wage system, set corporate pay policy or decide how the government responded to the bubble. Many of them work in exactly the sectors, such as care, construction, food processing and convenience retail, that would struggle most without them.

Blaming them does not raise a single wage or shorten a single working day. It does, however, make it easier to avoid the harder conversation about why Japanese workers have been treated the way they have.

The institutional problems behind the anger

Some of the damage started early. The education system has long been criticized for prizing conformity and exam performance over independent thinking. It suited an industrial economy that needed disciplined workers. It is less suited to one that needs people to question how things are done.

The corporate system reinforced it. Lifetime employment brought stability, but it also tied people to one employer, rewarded hours over output and made changing jobs look like failure. Risk-taking was discouraged and mistakes were punished. Much of the talent problem Japanese companies now describe was produced by their own practices, as I argue in more detail in the post on Japan’s political paralysis.

Admitting that is uncomfortable for the people who ran the system. An external culprit is more convenient.

What would help

The frustration fueling Sanseito deserves a serious answer. That answer runs through wage policy, a fairer deal for non-regular workers, enforcement of overtime limits, more mobility between employers and management that values results over visible suffering. None of it is quick or easy.

Blaming foreign residents is quicker and easier. It is also a misdiagnosis, and a country that misdiagnoses its problems tends to keep them.

Further reading: when Japan’s political debate avoids the operating problem · foreign workers, public opinion and the limits of a headline · what the Osaka Expo revealed about Japan’s economy · zombie companies and stifled entrepreneurship in Japan