The odds are long on the prospect that legislation will be passed that advances LGBTQ rights in Japan.

That is a tragedy for Japanese members of that community who continue to be denied the legal rights and protections that other citizens enjoy. It is something of an embarrassment for the host of this year’s Group of Seven summit, especially after the group’s foreign ministers reaffirmed at their April meeting that they would promote the welfare of sexual minorities.

The failure to make progress on a headline issue is also an important reminder of just how conservative Japan is. For all the hustle and bustle, the constant construction and churn, there is a resilient and enduring core in Japanese society. Of course, it evolves, but it’s invariably more slowly than expected.

LGBTQ rights has been a hot-button issue for a couple of years and understandably so. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Japan ranked 34th out of 35 countries in terms of LGBTQ inclusion legislation in 2019; it was 22nd in 1999. It’s the only G7 country that doesn’t recognize same-sex marriages or offer gay people protection from discrimination.

Hosting the 2021 Olympics and Paralympic Games pushed that deplorable state of affairs into the limelight, although efforts to fix the problem stalled. It surfaced again earlier this year when a (now former) close aide to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made crude, discriminatory remarks about sexual minorities. As host of this year’s G7 meeting, Japan’s shortcomings are even more striking, especially given last year’s announcement by the group's leaders of their “full commitment to protecting sexual minorities from discrimination and violence.”

But, as Satoshi Iizuka reported in the Japan Times last week (in a story echoed in other media outlets), prospects for that legislation are again receding because of opposition within the Liberal Democratic Party. The public is supportive of such action — most polls show that more than one-half of respondents back same-sex marriage, even though numbers vary considerably — but not their elected representatives.

Other social issues face similar obstacles. The role of women in society, long lamented, continues to be ... lamented. In 2022, Japan ranked 139 among 156 countries for women's participation in management positions. According to The Economist’s “glass ceiling” index, a measure of women’s role and influence in the workforce, Japan was second from last among developed nations for the seventh straight year. It was last for the number of women in a lower or single house of parliament at 10%.

In a 2021 Kyodo poll, more than 60% of people in Japan thought gender equality was a distant dream; among women, the figure was 70%. Over 80% of all respondents said men are given preferential treatment in politics and in connection with social norms. That matches a Cabinet Office poll, published in March, in which just 14.7% percent said men and women are “treated equally” in society; 78.8% said men are “treated better” than women.

Less than half the respondents in the Kyodo poll — some 45% — said that the best division of labor for a family in which both adults work is one in which the one with more leeway does the housekeeping or childrearing. If that number feels low — it does to me — there is some good news: Only 7% chose a situation where the husband works and the wife does the housekeeping or childrearing.

There seems to be support for change. Recent polls put support for LGBTQ rights between 64% and 72%. According to the Stanford Japan Barometer (SJB), a public opinion survey codeveloped by Stanford sociologist Kiyoteru Tsutsui and Dartmouth political scientist Charles Crabtree, there is support for shifting roles in the home at least. They found considerable backing for more men taking parental leave and helping with child care, registering 6.3 on a scale of 0-10 (5 being neutral and a number larger than 5 indicating support for the statement), and less support for statements about traditional gender roles, such as “Men should work outside the home and women should stay home” (3.8). They found a statistically significant difference between male and female respondents, however, with men showing greater support for traditional gender roles, although there appears to be an overall shift away from traditional gender roles even among men.

There are some quick answers to the resistance. The easiest one is that Japan is the oldest, “grayest” country in the world and old folks tend to be more conservative — and they vote. The SJB authors sort of agree, concluding that “overall, the Japanese public supports women’s advancement in society” but “the slow pace of change in women’s advancement in Japan might be attributable to the behavior of gatekeepers, who are mostly older men ... rather than to a lack of public support.”

Another explanation is that younger voters who tend to back these rights are more often supporters of opposition parties. This is tricky, though. After the 2021 elections, there were reports that this age cohort was turning to the LDP; after last year’s ballot, the conclusion was that they were turning off politics entirely.

Gender roles aren’t the only redoubt of Japan’s conservatism. The failure to make meaningful progress on structural economic reform, the “third arrow of Abenomics,” reflects a deep and abiding commitment to the existing social and economic order. That reflects entrenched political interests of course, but those interests are rooted in a still-stronger bedrock. Previous reform efforts foundered on the same shoals. It’s also evident in concern about rising numbers of foreigners in Japan or push back against government proposals to fight the falling birthrate.

I’ve long been struck by the priority given to Japan’s “rich culture and traditions” in national security documents. In the first National Security Strategy, published in 2013, Japan is called a country with “a rich culture and tradition” in the very first sentence of the very first section explaining the “principles Japan upholds.” Those are among the first of Japan’s national interests in the 2022 National Security Strategy.

It’s impossible to quantify the importance of that sense of history — and it’s tempting to just dismiss it as cultural folderol — but that language is deliberate and it reflects a real mindset. It’s the product of a sustained effort to build a national identity based on Japan’s distinctiveness and its separation from the world around it. Japan truly values its past and seeks to conserve it — the very essence of “conservatism.” Perhaps the most important conclusion of “Peak Japan” is that the conservative impulse in this country is so strong that even deep, painful, shocks to the system, such as the March 2011 “triple catastrophe,” aren’t enough to loosen its grip.

Japan’s is not a belligerent conservatism like that of Hungary or Russia, but a quiet determination to conserve society against the forces of change — an effort often obscured by the ever-present construction throughout its largest cities. It’s manifested in respect for traditional arts and culture and the determination to preserve them, although that can be sometimes hard to see amid the flash fashion that chokes streets in Shibuya, Harajuku and Omotesando.

It is evident as well in the power of traditional conceptions of economic activity — such as making things — rather than just making money, as in Western economies. One result of this mindset is growing unease with widening social and economic gaps; conservatism in Japan prefers a country that is egalitarian and middle class. Forget the term: Kishida’s “New Capitalism” is one expression of that enduring impulse.

This is not a plea for neoliberal economic reforms, although equal rights and opportunities for all citizens seems like a no-brainer to me. Rather, my concern is, as always, the potential gap between expectations of Japan and its reality. The outside world should not be beguiled or misled by exaggerated claims about a “new Japan.” There are changes — no society is stuck in amber — but far far more remains the same.

Histories of the last decade will highlight the many changes that Japan has undergone. Shinzo Abe is already — and will continue to be — applauded for being a transformative prime minister. But the novelties and the course corrections must not overshadow the enduring Japan.

Brad Glosserman is deputy director of and visiting professor at the Center for Rule-Making Strategies at Tama University as well as senior adviser (nonresident) at Pacific Forum. He is the author of “Peak Japan: The End of Great Ambitions” (Georgetown University Press, 2019).