Japanese Modernity and Welfare

Japanese Modernity and Welfare PDF Author: R. Vij
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 023028714X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
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.

Japanese Modernity and Welfare

Japanese Modernity and Welfare PDF Author: R. Vij
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 023028714X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Get Book

Book Description
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.

Welfare through Work

Welfare through Work PDF Author: Mari Miura
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801465923
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
High economic growth and relatively equitable distribution were among the most conspicuous characteristics of the postwar Japanese political economy. The lure of the Japanese model, however, has faded since the 1990s. Growth is in short supply and equality a thing of the past. In Welfare through Work, Mari Miura looks in depth at Japan's social protection system as a factor in the contemporary malaise of the Japanese political economy. The Japanese social protection system should be understood as a system of "welfare through work," Miura suggests, because employment protection has functionally substituted for income maintenance. A gendered dual system in the labor market allowed a high degree of labor market flexibility, which enabled Japan to achieve high employment rates as well as strong legal protections for regular workers. In recent years, conservatives gradually replaced the productivism and cooperatism that had resulted from earlier party politics with neoliberalism, which, in turn, hampered the effectiveness of the welfare through work system. In Miura's view, the dynamics of partisan competition fostered ideational renewal, just as the political visions and ideologies of the governing party strongly affected the design of the social protection system. In the scenario Miura describes, the partisan dynamics since the 1990s resulted in the policy change that further undermined the social protection system, and the ensuing disruption has been felt throughout Japan.

The Emergence of Welfare Society in Japan

The Emergence of Welfare Society in Japan PDF Author: Mutsuko Takahashi
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
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.

One World of Welfare

One World of Welfare PDF Author: Gregory J. Kasza
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501726633
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
One World of Welfare offers a systematic, comparative examination of Japan's welfare policies and a critical assessment of previous research. Gregory J. Kasza rejects the view that the Japanese welfare system is unique; he challenges the nearly universal belief that the postwar Japanese state neglected welfare to promote rapid economic growth; he rejects the claim that there is a regional welfare model in East Asia; and he uses the Japanese case to question the dominant framework for comparative welfare research. The author explores the relevance of both convergence and divergence theories for understanding the Japanese record and spotlights the importance of international influences on the timing and content of Japan's welfare policies. This book offers a fresh comparative template for research on Japanese public policy. Case studies of Japan have often exaggerated its distinctiveness. Comparative research documents points of similarity as well as difference; it unearths the foreign models that have swayed Japan's policymakers; and it reveals what others might learn from Japan's experience. Most of the welfare challenges that Japan has faced over the last century have resembled those confronting other nations, and the Japanese have often patterned their welfare policies after those of Western countries. Japan's welfare system must be understood within a broader pattern of global policy diffusion.

Passages to Modernity

Passages to Modernity PDF Author: Kathleen S. Uno
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824863887
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Contemporary Japanese women are often presented as devoted full-time wives and mothers. At the extreme, they are stereotyped as "education mothers" (kyoiku mama), completely dedicated to the academic success of their children. Children of working mothers are pitied; day-care users, both children and mothers, are faintly disparaged for their inadequate home lives; hired babysitters are virtually unknown. Yet historical evidence reveals a strikingly different picture of Japanese motherhood and childcare at the beginning of the twentieth century. In contrast to today, child tending by non-maternal caregivers was widely accepted at all levels of Japanese society. Day-care centers flourished, and there was virtually no expectation of exclusive maternal care of children, even infants. The patterns of the formation of modern Japanese attitudes toward motherhood, childhood, child-rearing, and home life become visible as this study traces the early twentieth-century rise of Japanese day-care centers, institutions established by middle-class philanthropists and reformers to provide for the physical well-being and mental and moral development of urban lower-class preschool children. Day-care gained broad support in turn-of-the-century Japan for several reasons. For one, day-care did not clash with widely accepted norms of child care. A second factor was the perception of public and private policymakers that day-care held the promise of social and national progress through economic and moral betterment of the urban lower classes. Finally, day-care offered working mothers the opportunity to earn a better livelihood with fewer worries about their children. In spite of emerging notions that total devotion to child-rearing was a woman's highest calling, Japanese nationalism, a signal force in the genesis of the modern Japanese state, economy, and middle-class culture, fed a deep wellspring of support for day-care and fostered significant reshaping of motherhood, childhood, home life, and view of the urban lower classes. Passages to Modernity is an important and original contribution to our understanding of the institutional and ideological reach of the early twentieth-century state and the contested emergence of a striking new discourse about woman as domestic caregiver and homemaker.

Basic Income in Japan

Basic Income in Japan PDF Author: Y. Vanderborght
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137348089
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Basic Income in Japan is the first collective volume in English entirely devoted to the discussion of Japan's potential for a basic income program in the context of the country's changing welfare state. Vanderborght and Yamamori bring together over a dozen contributors to provide a general overview of the scholarly debate on universal and unconditional basic income, including a foreword by Ronald Dore. Drawing on empirical data on poverty and inequality as well as normative arguments, this balanced approach to a radical idea is essential reading for the study of contemporary Japan.

Poverty and Social Welfare in Japan

Poverty and Social Welfare in Japan PDF Author: Masami Iwata
Publisher: ISBS
ISBN: 9781876843878
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
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.

Japan Study as a Public Good in Asia

Japan Study as a Public Good in Asia PDF Author: Lin Huang
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811363366
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 65

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Book Description
This book describes and clarifies how certain problems can be resolved in Japan and Asia. For the future, the focus should be on Japan, which can provide "common knowledge" as a public good. The book collects the results of researchers in Japan, China, South Korea, and Indonesia on declining birthrates and aging, rapid technological innovation and societal changes, and recovery from natural disasters. Chapter 1 covers Japanese social welfare system reform and transformation of social governance. Chapter 2 deals with the decreasing birthrate and national security. Chapters 3 to 5 discuss three aspects of the impact of modern technology on Japanese society. Chapter 6 and 7 include the research results on recovery from the earthquake disasters in Indonesia and East Japan. Through reading this book, the increasingly necessity to capture Japanese studies in Asia as a public good can be understood. The authors believe that sharing of knowledge as a public good is of great help in solving problems for the future.

Welfare and Capitalism in Postwar Japan

Welfare and Capitalism in Postwar Japan PDF Author: Margarita Estevez-Abe
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139471929
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
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.

Welfare and Capitalism in Postwar Japan

Welfare and Capitalism in Postwar Japan PDF Author: Margarita Estévez-Abe
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780511414718
Category : Japan
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
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.