Eugenic Policies
Ikeda Shigenori (池田 林儀), a journalist who had been sent to Germany, started the magazine Eugenics movement (優生運動, Yusai-undō?) in 1926. In 1928, he promoted December 21 as "Blood-purity day" (junketsu de) and sponsored free blood-test at the Tokyo Hygiene Laboratory.
Nagai, the "Doctor of Eugenics", assumed the position of chief director of The Japanese Society of Health and Human Ecology (JSHHE), which was established in 1930.
By early 1930s' detailed "eugenic marriage" questionnaires were printed or inserted in popular magazines for public consumption. Promoters like Ikeda were convinced that these marriage surveys would not only insure the eugenic fitness of spouses but also help avoid class differences that could disrupt and even destroy marriage. The goal was to create a database of individuals and their entire households which would enable eugenicists to conduct in-depth surveys of any given family's genealogy.
An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus, a secret document for the use of policy-makers, cited eugenics approvingly, calling for the medical profession not to concentrate on the sick and weak, and for mental and physical training and selective marriages to improve the population.
Read more about this topic: Eugenics In Japan
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“Modern women are squeezed between the devil and the deep blue sea, and there are no lifeboats out there in the form of public policies designed to help these women combine their roles as mothers and as workers.”
—Sylvia Ann Hewitt (20th century)