USA gets bashed a lot on employment front, but only because we are way more transparent about our problems than Japan. Yes, the extreme work culture causing karōshi is a big issue. However, Japan also has serious workplace discrimination issues that never get talked about.
For example, how many here have ever heard of Burakumin[1]? It's a taboo subject to talk about in Japan, so it is rare you'll hear of it through mainstream news.
Basically, in many places in southern Japan, when you apply for a job, employers will look up your surname to see if your ancestors were burakumin (held "impure" occupations in the feudal era like butcher, tanner, etc). If so, they won't hire you.
The extent to which burakumin discrimination still exists is itself a hotly debated topic. One of the two main buraku rights groups disbanded in 2004 because they felt the issue had been resolved, and (IMHO) at least in Tokyo literally nobody cares anymore.
I won't say all, but good portion of buraku discrimination is driven actually by these buraku rights group. There are bit of concessions exist (via affirmative action for instance) and there are some incentive that some of those groups want keep this issue alive for the sake of that, rather than try to actually resolve the issue somehow.
Like you said, a lot of people don't care, especially in urban regions, because the concept of buraku itself is fairly foreign to people living there. Maybe this is but more prominent in rulal areas.
Blood types in Japan are very analogous to astrological signs in the US. There are a lot of people who believe your blood type says things about you, and a small fraction who say rude things about them or make important decisions based on them, but to call it "discrimination" implies a level of prevalence which isn't really there.
It's actually exceedingly difficult. The family registry, koseki, is steeped in a thousand years of tradition. You can't simply walk into the nearest city ward office and fill out a form.
There are also restrictions on the kinds of names you are allowed to choose, if for example you are naturalizing. The list of allowed names clearly distinguishes you and your family from "true" Japanese.
That seems a bit crazy? When I married I also had the option of taking my wife’s (Japanese) name, so that would make me indistinguishable from a native.
Actually only by surname you can only guess; there are some demographic distribution which some name are more common among. But this is not very accurate as people have moved around and with marriages and such, it's not always the case any more. (Japanese law still requires wives to convert to husband's in a conventional marriage.)
Source of information that often cited as is a 本籍 (honseki -- a location of where national registry is filed and hence, stored.) This information used to be required for a lot of the places (including driver's license, job application, among others) but because of this abuse, this is no longer a commonly collected information unless it is required. (And also you can change honseki, too.)
I don't think it's a question of the existence of racism in Japan (or wherever), but of it's relative impact. Sucks to be a member of a small minority being discriminated against in a mostly homogeneous country, but the scale of the problem is very different than in US/Canada/Singapore/wherever.
Not sure, but add 2 percentage points? Still off by an order of magnitude.
The point is when 30% of people are discriminated against, it’s extremely noticeable, compared to when <1%, or at most 2-3% are. No point in awarding transparency points for that.
For example, how many here have ever heard of Burakumin[1]? It's a taboo subject to talk about in Japan, so it is rare you'll hear of it through mainstream news.
Basically, in many places in southern Japan, when you apply for a job, employers will look up your surname to see if your ancestors were burakumin (held "impure" occupations in the feudal era like butcher, tanner, etc). If so, they won't hire you.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin