Organizer: Ken Haig, Bard College, USA Discussant: Yumiko Mikanagi, New School, USA Few countries have faced socioeconomic and demographic changes as drastic as Japan has in recent years. This interdisciplinary, international panel (composed of sociologists and political scientists from Japan, South Korea, and the U.S.) addresses how (or whether) policymakers have responded to some of the most glaring social challenges facing Japan today, analyzing the politics and efficacy of various policy solutions through mixed methodological and theoretical approaches. Eunmi Mun uses long-term, large-scale organizational data to examine why Japan’s generous maternal leave policies have not had the intended effect of encouraging Japanese working women to have more children. Matt Marr draws on ethnographic fieldwork to explore the variation in and limitations of local responses to homelessness from the perspective of those who use these services. Through historical analysis, Yumiko Shimabukuro gauges the effect that the Koizumi administration’s cuts to public assistance for the poor had in galvanizing new interest groups and pushing opposition parties to campaign around shoring up Japan’s failing social safety net. Using case studies from Hokkaido, Ken Haig examines why Japan’s rapidly aging rural communities have responded to the common problem of depopulation in different ways, and why some policy approaches have worked better than others. An audience-participatory discussion will follow the panelists’ brief presentations and commentary by discussant Yumiko Mikanagi. Given the various disciplinary approaches involved and conclusions reached, as well as the timeliness of the problems discussed for Japan and elsewhere, we expect that this will be a lively and rewarding panel session for all involved.
As Japan confronts one of the world’s most rapidly aging populations and declining birthrates, soaring deficits and rapid turnover in political leadership have hampered national responses, leaving Japan’s most severely depopulating rural areas to fend for themselves. The impacts of the demographic crisis on Japan’s rural areas have been far-reaching: people in their nineties being taken care of by relatives in their seventies; villages full of abandoned houses and fields; and even in still relatively healthy communities, the consolidation and/or closing of schools, public transportation, and healthcare facilities. In addition to adjusting to these realities, local officials have sought ways to stem or reverse population declines.
In Hokkaido, Japan’s most rural prefecture, more than 2/3 of municipalities are shrinking, with the smallest towns and villages depopulating so quickly that 1 in 10 are expected to vanish by 2020. Hokkaido’s municipalities have tried various policy responses, including subsidies to child-rearing families and enticements for new residents to migrate from other parts of Japan, subsidizing or even providing land for free to those willing to farm and develop it, as well as technical guidance and initial financial support for work in agriculture, forestry, or fisheries. Local governments and agricultural cooperatives have even acted as match-makers, trying to lure brides for unmarried farmers from Japan’s urban areas or even from overseas. Using Hokkaido municipalities as case studies, this paper seeks to categorize and explain variation in Japanese local-level ‘repopulation’ policies, as well as establish criteria for measuring and evaluating their effectiveness.
Low fertility in Japan is not a new social problem, but no solution has proved working. Since the shock of 1.57 (i.e. 1.57 babies per a couple) in 1990, its fertility rate has been one of the lowest in the world. In order to encourage women to have more babies, the Japanese government proposed various maternity or childcare leave policies, and as a result, Japan currently provides generous leave polices. Despite these policies, there has been little to no increase in the national fertility rate for the past decade. This paper attempts to answer the question of how and why these policies are of little effect.
Previous studies on fertility tend to focus on the economic aspect of the decision at the household level. They argue if the costs of children, such as the wages women could have earned during the leave and the child-related expenses, are high to the household, women postpone childbearing. Maternity and childcare polices rely vastly on this perspective, providing time and monetary benefits to compensate for the costs of children. This perspective, however, misses out the other side of the life sphere, the workplace. The decision to have a child is made on conditions of both work and family, and we attempt to incorporate the workplace into the equation. We find that the use of maternity and childcare leave policies increases when women have a higher prospect to be managers, can stay longer with the company, and work in a less sex-segregated workplace.
Low fertility in Japan is not a new social problem, but no solution has proved working. Since the shock of 1.57 (i.e. 1.57 babies per a couple) in 1990, its fertility rate has been one of the lowest in the world. In order to encourage women to have more babies, the Japanese government proposed various maternity or childcare leave policies, and as a result, Japan currently provides generous leave polices. Despite these policies, there has been little to no increase in the national fertility rate for the past decade. This paper attempts to answer the question of how and why these policies are of little effect.
Previous studies on fertility tend to focus on the economic aspect of the decision at the household level. They argue if the costs of children, such as the wages women could have earned during the leave and the child-related expenses, are high to the household, women postpone childbearing. Maternity and childcare polices rely vastly on this perspective, providing time and monetary benefits to compensate for the costs of children. This perspective, however, misses out the other side of the life sphere, the workplace. The decision to have a child is made on conditions of both work and family, and we attempt to incorporate the workplace into the equation. We find that the use of maternity and childcare leave policies increases when women have a higher prospect to be managers, can stay longer with the company, and work in a less sex-segregated workplace.
Like most cities in wealthy countries, urban locales across Japan have seen widening inequality and surges of dislocation and poverty as evidenced in the growth in number of persons experiencing homelessness. What have been the measures used to address this issue implemented by national and local governments, as well as by civil society actors such as NPOs? To what extent have these efforts succeeded in securing long-term stable housing for individuals? Also, how have these approaches changed over time and varied according to different locales within Japan? In this paper, I address these questions through interview research with individuals using programs and living on the streets, administrators and staff of programs, and policymakers. I find variation in local measures to address homelessness, but a general convergence to a two tier model—welfare benefits and subsidized housing for the elderly and disabled, and transitional services for the able bodied and young. Also, programs administered by NPOs rather than pseudo-governmental bodies (e.g. shakai fukushi hojin) are more holistic and flexible, producing more favorable outcomes. However, as welfare offices have widened access to benefits amid rising need and turned to non-governmental bodies to provide housing and services, this has caused concern about misuse of this wider access by “poverty businesses” that profit off of users’ benefits. My findings demonstrate a need for a nuanced balance of reliance on non-governmental actors and governmental oversight of program delivery in order to maximize policy effectiveness and minimize misuse of public outlays.
The past decade was filled with reports of deteriorating socio-economic conditions in Japan. From the news of growing poverty to starvation deaths, anxious citizens demanded social protection during hard times. This did not deter the Koizumi-led LDP from launching a series of cuts in social welfare programs. Poor Japanese were a particular target of cutbacks as supplementary welfare payments were pared and stringent workfare policies were introduced to trim benefits and limit access to assistance. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that views retrenchment as a difficult political enterprise, reducing resources allocated to income support programs for the poor did not prove difficult. Despite the fact that pubic assistance programs were already underfunded and it was highly unpopular to take away funds from the neediest and most vulnerable segment of the population, the LDP pushed through these reforms with very little opposition. Nevertheless, swift and decisive retrenchment policies created a new political climate in the aftermath of the reform in which civil society actors went on the offensive in pushing for a larger and more comprehensive safety net. As a result, in the aftermath of the cuts, opposition parties became more likely to not only attempt to reverse the process of retrenchment but actually press for the creation of new programs. This finding suggests that the politics of social welfare retrenchment and expansion must be understood as being intimately related, rather than as being discrete, distinct processes.
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