Authors: Jessica Alder, Sofie R. Waltl, Kate Konatsu Nishigai, Helen X. H. Bao
Year: 2026
Status: Under Review
PDF: Download
Research line: Exclusion and spatial inequality in housing markets
Project folder: Perceived Ethnic Discrimination in Japan — the dashboard, outline, notes, codes, data, figures, bibliography, and journal-submission subfolders live there.
Abstract
This paper studies perceived ethnic discrimination as a market-access friction in Tokyo’s rental housing market. We first show that Japan’s private rental market offers limited statutory protection against nationality-based exclusion, leaving discriminatory screening weakly constrained. We then use a name-based survey experiment in which native Japanese and foreign-born residents evaluate whether otherwise identical applicants would receive a viewing invitation. Both groups expect non-Japanese applicants to face lower access probabilities than Japanese applicants. Foreign-born respondents’ evaluations capture group-level auto-stereotypes of minority disadvantage; native Japanese respondents’ evaluations capture hetero-stereotypes. Native Japanese respondents perceive larger penalties, indicating a Group-Group Discrimination Discrepancy. Among foreign-born respondents, prior everyday discrimination predicts more pessimistic access expectations, yet respondents rate their own prospects more favourably than those of their broader nationality group, consistent with the Personal-Group Discrimination Discrepancy. Platform evidence showing visible nationality-related screening links these perceptions to an institutional setting in which exclusion remains publicly observable.