Takashima Ryosuke is Japan’s youngest ever mayor

After graduating from Harvard University, Takashima Ryosuke could have gone into consulting or finance, like many of his friends. Instead he embarked on an unusual career path for a Japanese youngster. In 2023, at the age of 26, Mr Takashima was elected mayor of Ashiya, a town in western Japan. “Being a mayor seemed like a career that would allow me to impact society the most,” he says.

Mr Takashima has set the record as the youngest mayor in Japan. He stands out in a country with a gerontocratic government. When Kishida Fumio, Japan’s prime minister, reshuffled his cabinet in September last year, the average age of its incoming members was 64. Across politics, younger people are under-represented: in 2022, the share of national politicians aged 40 and under was 6%, compared with 29% in Germany and 22% in Britain. Low voter turnout among the youth has also worried policymakers; just over 30% of people in their 20s vote in elections, compared with 70% of those in their 60s.

Japan’s political system is not set up to reward the young, reckons Charles McClean, a political scientist at Yale University. The minimum age to be a candidate for all offices is 25. It rises to 30 for governors and the upper house. By contrast, in much of the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries, the minimum age to run for office is the same as the voting age, which is usually 18. Candidates must also pay an expensive deposit, which is set at ¥3m ($19,000) for governors.

According to the Nippon Foundation, a Japanese non-profit, less than half of Japanese teenagers surveyed believe they can “change society through their own actions”. This does not surprise Nojo Momoko, a campaigner: “How could young people be interested in politics when they don’t see people around their age in it?”

Mayors in Japan enjoy relatively strong executive power, with a lot of discretion over social spending. But Mr Takashima has a tough job: as in much of Japan, Ashiya has a demographic problem. Nearly a third of its 94,000 residents are currently over 65. Mr Takashima believes improving the quality of education at public schools could help retain young residents, or encourage them to move back if they have children themselves (though that may be wishful thinking: see our lead note).

Mr Takashima reckons that in Japan’s top-down culture, young people cannot voice their opinions. To try to change this, he came up with an experiment. He met students in their early teens, discussing school rules. These are notoriously strict in Japan: they range from restrictions on hairstyles and clothes, to banning students from riding a bicycle to school. He helped them negotiate with teachers to change these policies in Ashiya. “It’s important for young people to know that they can make a difference,” he says. ■