The Emergence Of Welfare Society In Japan

This work begins by covering the historical context of welfare policy in Japan since the end of the 19th century but includes social welfare practices as well as the policy and system itself. The focus of the work is on social relevance in analysing the social discourses on the politics of welfare in Japan, taking into account the broad range of social and political factors implicit in making sense of the politics of welfare.

This book explains how postwar Japan managed to achieve a highly egalitarian form of capitalism despite meager social spending. Estevez-Abe develops an institutional, rational-choice model to solve this puzzle. She shows how Japan's electoral system generated incentives that led political actors to protect various groups that lost out in market competition. She explains how Japan's postwar welfare state relied upon various alternatives to orthodox social spending programs. The initial postwar success of Japan's political economy has given way to periods of crisis and reform. This book follows this story up to the present day. Estevez-Abe shows how the current electoral system renders obsolete the old form of social protection. She argues that institutionally Japan now resembles Britain and predicts that Japan's welfare system will also come to resemble Britain's. Japan thus faces a more market-oriented society and less equality.

Due to the chorus of admiration that recognizes Japan having become the world's second largest economy in the latter half of the 20th century, the awareness of poverty in Japan has been concealed. This collection of papers by twelve specialists in poverty research unravels the ways in which the poor have been socially excluded in contemporary Japan. The book examines how this reality derives from the structure of inequality in social resources, life chances, and power relations. It scrutinizes the extent to which Japan's social welfare policies have disseminated and consolidated particular types of understanding about poverty. It reveals their contradictions by highlighting the lives of the homeless, new-comer foreign workers, residents in poor housing areas, and many other socially excluded groups.

Challenging conventional thought on the nature of welfare and civil society in modern Japan, Ritu Vij offers an original theoretical and historical interpretation of both. Drawing upon a neo-Hegelian understanding of the formation of modern subjectivity in political economy, this book uncovers a specific pattern of welfare provision in Japan.

Adopts a critical perspective on contemporary social welfare policies in East Asia. This volume reflects on welfare theories and challenges the dominant productivist ideology that over-emphasizes the influence of work and family.

In a period of rapid change for welfare states around the world, this insightful book offers a comparative study of three historically small welfare states: the US, Japan, and South Korea. Featuring contributions from international distinguished scholars, this book looks beyond the larger European welfare states to unpack the many common political and institutional characteristics that have constrained welfare state development in industrialized democracies.

This book explores the social and cultural dimensions of Japan's global presence as an economic giant. Areas examined include Japanese multinational corporations, popular music and perceptions of Japan in France and Korea.