Women's pandemic burnout and religions’ responses in Japan

Emerging evidence suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic has often caused burnout in the form of emotional, mental and physical fatigue among Japanese women. However, in a context that tends to stigmatize and medicalize mental distress, women struggle to find emotional and psychological support. Drawing upon an ethnographic survey (2020-2023) on 35 Japanese women aged between 25 and 60 affiliated with different Japanese religious organisations, the results of this phenomenological study indicate that: 1) more women affiliates have favoured non-doctrinal spiritual coping mechanisms in the forms of meditation and body-mind practices to build emotional resilience; 2) more organised religions have been appropriating holistic forms of spirituality to respond to demands of emotional care, especially for younger Japanese women. The discussion will tie issues of persisting conservative gender complementarity ideologies and the pressure of the care economy with women affiliates’ drive toward holistic practices to cope with their burnout.