Asahi editoral on poverty rates in Japan
Health minister Akira Nagatsuma recently disclosed that the nation's relative poverty rate in 2007 was 15.7 percent. What are the implications of roughly one in six citizens living in "poverty"?
Let us introduce a Tokyo man in his 30s, a university graduate, who makes his living as a dispatched day laborer.
He works himself ragged delivering packages or sorting warehouse inventory, and takes home between 6,000 yen and 7,000 yen at the end of each grueling day.
He wants to get married and start a family some day, but knows that is pure fantasy at his income level. "When I don't even know if I'll have work tomorrow, how can I make plans for my future?" he laments.
The era in which nearly all Japanese citizens felt financially secure to consider themselves "middle class" is long gone. Today, there are people who cannot even meet their basic needs, no matter how hard they work. This is what the relative poverty rate of 15.7 percent implies.
The relative poverty rate represents the percentage of people whose income is less than half of the nation's per-capita median income. A 2004 survey by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development put Japan's relative poverty rate at 14.9 percent, which was the fourth highest among the 30 OECD member nations.
But the administration led by the Liberal Democratic Party had continued to withhold such figures from the public. The LDP refused to face the fact that Japan had become a "poor economic superpower."
Significance of disclosure
The fact that the new government headed by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan has disclosed the nation's relative poverty rate means the administration is not shying away from the grim reality.
This is significant in itself, but the act also carries even greater significance, in that the Hatoyama administration can now emulate Britain and other nations by setting a specific numerical target to fight poverty--by aiming, for instance, to "halve the relative poverty rate in five years."
Where do the roots of poverty lie, and what will poverty do to our nation?
During the mid-1990s the progress of economic globalization intensified corporate competition around the world and destabilized employment in advanced nations. In Japan, nonregular workers began replacing full-time workers, and the LDP implemented policies to accelerate this trend. As a result, nonregular workers now account for one-third of the nation's work force.
Traditionally, Japanese companies supported the lives of their employees and their families with a total package that included health care, pension and insurance against unemployment.
The rapid increase in the number of nonregular workers caused numerous people to lose those benefits. Public assistance was available for people who lost their livelihoods due to illness or old age, but since the system was not meant for younger, able-bodied people who were out of work, those people fell through the cracks in the nation's safety net.
It is our belief that the rising relative poverty rate was the result of companies rashly relying on nonregular labor and the government failing to rectify its outdated social welfare system.
With the middle class shrinking and the ranks of the poor swelling, Japanese society is becoming conspicuously "pear-shaped." The dwindling of the middle class enervates the nation and erodes the foundations of society. Poverty's dark shadows can be seen in various social problems--rising cases of suicide, solitary death and child abuse, and languishing birthrates.
Even more troubling is that young adults are now joining the ranks of the poor en masse. This not only deprives them of their opportunities in life, but also shrinks the population base that is needed to sustain the nation's taxation and social welfare systems.
Low incomes for parents of young children mean their offspring are being deprived of their right to decent education and denied their chances to develop their potential as future contributors to society. Poverty is thus "recycled."
This is a malaise that can threaten the very existence of our country. In that sense, fighting poverty is not just about saving needy individuals. It is about shoring up the foundations of the nation for its future growth, and must be recognized as an investment that will benefit all Japanese citizens.
Social security for younger people
Redesigning the social security and employment systems is indispensable to lowering the relative poverty rate. And for that, there must be help for younger people.
There are qualified young people who are perfectly willing and able to work but cannot find a job. Others keep switching jobs in search of greater financial stability but their efforts are in vain because relatively few full-time positions are available.
To lift these people out of poverty's vicious cycle and enable them to become productive, the sort of traditional safety net that only cushions their fall is not good enough.
What these people need is a "trampoline-type" system that will enable them to bounce back. Employment support alone is not enough, nor is financial support alone. Both must complement each other for the system to work.
The prevalent thinking at present is that guaranteeing an income to people who can work will only encourage them to become dependent on the dole. But unless they get financial assistance to help them meet their basic needs while they are looking for work to put themselves back on track, there will be no preventing them from sliding back into poverty.
It is also necessary to introduce employment practices that will not create "new poor." Unless companies stop treating workers like disposable items, the quality of the nation's work force will deteriorate and invite a decline in demand.
To do away with the virtual "caste system" that segregates full-time employees and nonregular employees, companies must pay the same wages to everyone doing the same work and put the concept of work-sharing into practice. This means that full-time workers will have to brace themselves for the "pain" of accepting pay cuts.
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source: asahi