A December 2025 report by the Mainichi Shimbun revealed that Japan’s Ministry of Education had not included graduates of special-needs schools in its official count of the “18-year-old population,” a key denominator used in calculating higher education participation rates. This omission does not appear to reflect deliberate exclusion. Rather, it stems from the way administrative statistics have historically been structured and have failed to fully adapt to institutional change.
Importantly, the 18-year-old population is not a census category, nor is it calculated on the basis of upper secondary school graduation. Instead, the Ministry of Education has long used the number of students who graduated from lower secondary school three years earlier as a proxy, precisely in order to include those who did not proceed to high school or who dropped out before completion. In this respect, the indicator was explicitly designed to avoid equating the “18-year-old population” with high school graduates alone.
Statistical exclusion carries both symbolic and practical consequences
Over time, graduates of newly established institutions—such as students from newer types of schools introduced through education reforms—were incorporated into this calculation. By contrast, graduates of special-needs schools at the lower secondary level were consistently excluded, reflecting the fact that special-needs education has historically been administered through a separate institutional and statistical framework.
At the same time, this statistical treatment has increasingly diverged from the realities of Japan’s education system. Over the past two decades, the Japanese government—particularly through reforms led by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and implemented by local boards of education—has expanded inclusive education. As a result, a growing number of students with disabilities now attend mainstream schools, supported either through pull-out support, in which students temporarily leave regular classrooms to receive specialized instruction or therapy, or through individualized accommodations within the classroom. Improvements in diagnostic practices and sustained municipal investment have contributed in particular to the rise in students with developmental and learning disabilities enrolled in mainstream settings.
Against this backdrop, the exclusion of special-needs school graduates from population statistics should be interpreted as a legacy of historical categorization rather than as evidence of intentional marginalization. Nevertheless, statistical exclusion carries both symbolic and practical consequences. By omitting these graduates from the population of 18-year-olds, official indicators implicitly position them outside the boundaries of the “general” population, even if unintentionally. This symbolic positioning matters because demographic indicators do more than describe populations; they help define who is recognized as a standard subject of social policy and public concern. Being counted constitutes a form of recognition, while not being counted risks reinforcing the perception that certain life courses are peripheral or exceptional.
The practical implications are equally significant. Approximately 12,000 students graduate from special-needs schools each year, and many follow post-school pathways that differ substantially from those of general high school graduates. Their transitions often involve vocational support centers, welfare-based training programs, or supported employment schemes that span the domains of education, welfare, and labor policy. When these young people are absent from baseline population statistics, it becomes more difficult to estimate demand for transitional support, to evaluate policy effectiveness, or to conduct longitudinal analyses of early adulthood outcomes.
Japan’s youth population is more diverse than traditional policy frameworks have assumed
The Japan Disability Forum (JDF), an umbrella organization that brings together major disability advocacy groups such as the Japan Disability Council (JD) and Disabled Peoples’ International Japan, has repeatedly raised concerns in international monitoring processes. It has pointed out that the limited collection and availability of data on persons with disabilities in official statistics and administrative records hinder both the assessment of rights implementation under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the evaluation and improvement of public policy.
From this perspective, the absence of systematic data should be understood not merely as a technical or administrative shortcoming, but as a factor that obstructs an accurate understanding of the actual provision of necessary support and services, and may consequently lead to delays in policy responses and to limited societal recognition of the challenges and barriers faced by young people with disabilities.
Internationally, most OECD countries include all 18-year-olds in population counts regardless of school type, disability status, or educational attainment, because these figures serve as the starting point for analyses of social inequality, educational participation, and workforce entry. In other words, Japan’s omission constrains analytical comparability and obscures emerging forms of heterogeneity within the youth population.
The recent media coverage therefore highlights a broader reality: Japan’s youth population is more diverse than traditional policy frameworks have assumed. The long-dominant model of a uniform academic trajectory culminating in university enrollment no longer captures the full range of transitions to adulthood. Whether young people advance through general high schools, mainstream schools with accommodations, special-needs schools, or more irregular educational routes, they belong to the same generation confronting demographic decline, labor market transformation, and shifting expectations surrounding adulthood. Reflecting this diversity in demographic statistics does not in itself resolve policy challenges, but it provides a more accurate and inclusive foundation for debate.
Correcting the 18-year-old population indicator should thus be understood not as a dramatic reform, but as a recalibration that enhances Japan’s capacity to understand its changing society. Ensuring that all young people entering adulthood are visible in foundational statistics allows policymakers and researchers to move beyond exceptionalism toward a more systematic understanding of youth transitions. In an era marked by intensified debates over inclusion, demographic contraction, and labor force participation, such recognition becomes not only a technical matter, but also a reflection of whose lives are considered integral to Japan’s collective future.
Ryo Konishi holds a PhD in Regional Innovation Studies from Mie University, Japan, and is currently a Research Fellow at the same institution. His research specializes in the sociology of education and family sociology, with a particular focus on educational inequality, family background, and the formation of young people’s attitudes and aspirations in Japan. His recent research focuses on perceptions of relative inequality rooted in family background, the formation of beliefs about effort and merit, and the well-being of children and young people.
