Public Voluntary Social Welfare Interaction And Relationship In Japan Today

First published in 1985, this book analyses social welfare in the major countries of Asia, at that time. For each country it considers the ideological framework underlying the social welfare system and describes the historical development of both the system and the political and socio-economic context. Contributions examine the nature of the different parts of the welfare system, surveying social security, personal social services, and the treatment of the following key target groups: the aged; those with disabilities and handicaps; children and youth; disadvantaged families; the unemployed; and the sick and injured. Each chapter concludes with an assessment of the effectiveness of the system considered.

First published between 1985 and 1992, this set of books analyses social welfare in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, highly developed economies and socialist countries at the time. Each title considers the ideological framework underlying the social welfare system for each country and describes the historical development of both the system and the political and socio-economic context. Each chapter looks at the structure and administration of the systems in place and how these are financed. Contributions examine the nature of the different parts of the welfare system, surveying social security, personal social services, and the treatment of the following key target groups: the aged; those with disabilities and handicaps; children and youth; disadvantaged families; the unemployed; and the sick and injured. Each chapter concludes with an assessment of the effectiveness of the system considered. This set will be of interest to those studying international social welfare and development.

The voluntary and non-profit sector is an important and emerging feature of Japanese society. It is a response both to the changing nature of this society and to political and social trends that have encouraged the Japanese government to see this sector as a potential provider of public services. It is also part of the emergence of 'civil society' in Japan. This book explores the roots of the societal challenges that voluntary and non-profit organisations face in Japan and evaluates their future impact on Japanese society. Containing contributions from leading researchers, internationally as well as from key practitioners from Japan, this book is essential reading for any student of Japanese studies or the international non-profit sector.

Civil Society and Japan's Foreign Aid examines the changing relations between the Japanese state and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in promoting effective aid policies and analyzes the changing nature of policy making and governance in Japan. It is based on extensive research in Southeast Asia and Japan, investigating the role of Japanese aid in fields such as education, health care, environmental protection, and economic development. It analyzes the key players in aid policymaking, including donor governments, multinational organizations, international and local NGOs, the business community, and aid recipients.

Who tends to volunteer and why? What causes attract certain types of volunteers? What motivates people to volunteer? How can volunteers be persuaded to continue their service? Making use of a broad range of survey information to offer a detailed portrait of the volunteer in America, Volunteers provides an important resource for everyone who works with volunteers or is interested in their role in contemporary society. Mark A. Musick and John Wilson address issues of volunteer motivation by focusing on individuals' subjective states, their available resources, and the influence of gender and race. In a section on social context, they reveal how volunteer work is influenced by family relationships and obligations through the impact of schools, churches, and communities. They consider cross-national differences in volunteering and historical trends, and close with consideration of the research on the organization of volunteer work and the consequences of volunteering for the volunteer.

This book describes the origin, development and current state of volunteerism in Asia and Hong Kong. It also presents a field-tested model of empowering through volunteerism (namely, the CYEP at City University), that involves youth, governmental and non-governmental agencies and their clients in a rapidly changing society. Volunteerism is then described as a "win-win" situation for all stakeholders/actors. Volunteerism converges the needs, the struggles, the personal motives and the aspirations of the volunteers, together with the dreams and the difficulties of the clients, the expertise of the professionals and the (lack of) resources of the agencies, the new values emerging in society, the effects of globalization and the new policies. This book presents actual Asian case examples with the voices of the people involved on the CYEP (volunteers, officers, service recipients) who explain how volunteering changed their lives, their values, their attitudes toward social, civic and political participation, their ethics and sense of individual responsibility. These stories from the frontlines can be adopted and/or adopted for use by other institutions, but it is also the chance for understanding the emergence of volunteering in Asia overall, and its future direction.

Healthcare in most developed countries face a complex and partly contradictory mix of financial, social and political challenges. Fiscal strains combined with New Public Management agendas have caused severe cutbacks and calls for greater efficiency in public healthcare, resulting in a growing concern about service quality. Co-production and Japanese Healthcare explores a possibility to address these issues from a new perspective that emphasizes greater collaboration between the staff and patients. Here professionals and patients/clients act as ‘partners to co-produce healthcare through their mutual contributions’. Japan has a unique system of two user-owned healthcare providers with nearly 200 hospitals, 500 clinics and 50,000 beds. However, they differ from each other and from public hospitals, in terms of their work environment, service quality, governance models and social values. This volume compares cooperative and public healthcare providers at ten hospitals across Japan with survey data from the staff, as well as from the patients and volunteers at four hospitals. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, and students in the fields of healthcare management, public and non-profit management, human resource management.

Based upon a survey of five faith-based volunteer groups, Promising Practices offers valuable insights and fresh perspectives into the ways women’s participation in religious civic organizations may work as a gateway toward participatory democracy. By approaching women’s faith-based volunteering as a social practice, the book engages with three of the most important dimensions of civil society: gender, religion, and democracy. Cavaliere teases out the complexity of interactions among these three dimensions of civic life through stories of individual women who volunteer for three different religious organizations. The volume examines how faith-based volunteering is experienced by women in contemporary Japan and how it becomes a site of empowering and disempowering practices through which women balance the benefits and the costs of personal shifts, socio-economic changes and democratic transformation.