Just about the time of the 1971 breakdown in exchange rates among world currencies and just before the 1973 oil crisis, Japan seemed to begin a new era of welfare state. Two decades of rapid economic growth had caused new social problems, such as urbanization, environmental pollution and congestion. At the same time, the Japanese society broadened a national sense that growth should somehow lead to improvements in the quality of one's own life. However, Japan began to face an "aging problem" as health care improved and birth control reduced the size of the average family (Shinkawa and Pempel:1996). Therefore, while the Japanese welfare state has to increase the provision of the social services, the total expenditure of the welfare policy has to be reduced because of the financial difficulties. The Japanese welfare state will be in crisis with a contradiction between the reality of the social movements and financial and political difficulties.

Many literature attempted to show the uniqueness of the Japanese welfare state with comparison of other western developed countries. These uniqueness would come from not only political and social aspects of Japan but also cultural and historical discourse such a family value, Confucianism and religion. However, the uniqueness of the Japanese welfare state does not necessarily bring positive effects to Japanese citizens. It is true that the uniqueness of the welfare policy in Japan has some negative points for archiving a civil society especially in terms of aging society. It is important for us to recognize the negative aspects of the uniqueness and reconstruct the political and social structure of the welfare policy process in Japan.

This essay will examine mainly the uniqueness of Japanese style welfare state. The discussion will start from literature review about the welfare state and the historical development of the welfare state in Japan after the World War II. Next, the uniqueness of the Japanese welfare state will be explored by pointing out the problems behind the uniqueness. The uniqueness will be argued in three parts. Firstly, I would like to discuss the cultural discourse and the characteristic of the Japanese welfare state. Secondly, I would like to focus on who benefits from the Japanese welfare state and who does not with some unique features. Thirdly, I would like to investigate whether Japan is a civil society or not in terms of ﾒvoluntarismﾓ and ﾒcitizen participationﾓ. Finally, I will discuss the future direction of the Japanese welfare state with some suggestions to the Japanese welfare policy.

What is the Japanese style welfare state?

Some recent comparative research about a welfare state has attempted to categorise the Japanese welfare state. Because these analyses have tried to fit Japan into one of a variety of preexisting social welfare models with a Western-focused approach, they could not often explain the uniqueness of the Japanese welfare state (Peng and Goodman:1996). The Japanese welfare state has been often regarded as an ﾔexceptionﾕ to the rule rather than as a new pattern. Most previous literature did not explain about why this should be are different in each case and are rooted in differences in culture, political beliefs, industrial organization and religious dogma (Higgins: 1981).

Though Esping-Anderson attempted to make three welfare models by the de-commodification index which includes liberal, conservative and socialist model, these models could not clarify the fact that Japan levies a relatively low portion of the national product in taxation, but it it relatively high in the degree of influence of government on the economy through controls and regulations. It differs form the pure welfare state model and the pure market model (Maruo:1986).

Alan Siaroff attempted to construct a gender sensitive category of the welfare state for the first time in 1994 and succeed to explain some of the uniqueness of the Japanese welfare state. His key points included ﾔfamily welfare developmentﾕ such as family financial assistance, child care facility, maternity leave and ﾔfemale work desirabilityﾕ such as working conditions for women. Japan was placed in the 20th in ﾔfamily welfare developmentﾕ and the 23th in ﾔfemale work desirabilityﾕ among 23 OECD countries. Though her research does not show the extreme strong occupational welfare in the Japanese welfare state and benefits for women, it highlighted the uniqueness and inequality for women welfare policy in Japan (Kita;1997).

Shinkawa and Pempel (1996) argued that neither the dualistic-class based model, nor the bureaucratic-demographic models offer completely convincing explanations for why the Japanese welfare expenditure jumped so rapidly in the 1970s and were cut down dramatically in mid-1980s. Despite Japan is not likely to accept the premises of socialism or social democracy that are pervasive throughout European mixed-economy welfare statesﾕ, life expectancy is among the highest in the world, infant mortality among the lowest, and levels of education and health are very high (Bryson:1992). The unusual mixture of state plus occupational welfare in Japan can be understood in the context of a political-economic model.

Historical development after 1945

In Japan the 1960s saw a small expansion in social welfare for the first time since the war. These included the introduction of the following, national health insurance and national pension system (1961), welfare for the mentally disabled persons (1960) and aged people (1963) (Peng and Goodman:1996). After the oil crisis of 1973, when economic growth fell to a lower level and severe inflation and the sharp decline of the real growth rate(GDP) to minus occurred at a time which economists identified as ﾔstagflationﾕ, the phrase ﾕJapanese type of welfare societyﾕ became popular. A new idea of welfare polity was introduced by the bureaucracy as ﾔthe minimum security by the government plus the spirit of self-helpﾕ. Because family and community support is proceeded as cheap options for the provision of care, it became clear that ﾔwelfare societyﾕ was a code flagging that government spending for social security was unlikely to reach the level implied by the term ﾔwelfare stateﾕ (Peng and Goodman:1996).

On the other hand, in 1970s the spending for social services showed more than 30% increase and welfare expenditure has reached 16.9% of GDP because of the increase of unemployment rate and the introduction of free medical services for elderly people. Therefore, finance bureaucrats started to advocate ﾔreconsider welfareﾕ and caused the new neo-conservative backlash against the welfare state by criticizing the Western experience (Anderson:1993). In Japan, the bureaucrats introduced the welfare state in crisis as warning of failed examples in the West, both in the economic and the moral sense. It is often stated that excessive investment in social security systems in the Western welfare states make workers become lazy and deteriorate the family institution (Takahashi:1997).

In July 1975 The Life Cycle Plan was submitted to the cabinet of PM Miki Takeo as a no-official proposal by a research institute of policies. The Life Cycle Plan points out that Japanese society is at stage of transition from the era of high economic growth to the next stage of establishment of welfare society and have to seek a new approach for social development based on their own views instead of the West-oriented approach. The idea of Japanese-model welfare society should be based on the freedom and vitality of the private sector of individuals, families and enterprises. Individuals protect their life through savings and by ensuring support from family and relatives. Some social systems by states should help them through insurances when beyond and individualsﾕ capacity (Takahashi:1997).

In 1980s the pension and health care system was largely reformed to stop the increase of welfare expenditure. However, the total expenditure for welfare policies continued to increase because of new social movements such as the rapid aging and environmental problems. 1986 white paper stated that vitality of the economy and society should be maintained without offering excessive support or service. Also, the society should be supported primarily by individualsﾕ independence and self-help, then by family and local community and thirdly by the public sector (Takahashi:1997). However, excessive dependence on the family care for elderly people and lack of public services caused the mental pressures for carers, mainly women and the increase of bedridden people in the hospitals.

Japanﾕs welfare mix might have moved decisively toward a more institutionalized system of high state spending on welfare benefits which was based on social citizenship rights, and the de-commodification of welfare. in such a case, occupational welfare might have been reduced in its overall significance and given way to more fully institutionalized benefits to all Japanese citizens as a matter of right, rather than as a matter of oneﾕs position in the workplace. In turn it might well have weakened managementﾕs control over employees and the wide differentials in the availability of social welfare to different groups of employees (Shinkawa and Pempel:1996).

The uniqueness and the problems of the Japanese welfare state

What is the cultural discourse in the Japanese welfare state?

Firstly, the large dependence on the family care for elderly people is one of typical unique feature in the Japanese welfare policy. In fact, 55.3% of elderly people live with their children in 1994 which is higher than in other developed countries. Also, The ratio of elderly who think "it would be good if I could always live together with my children and grandchildren" is 53.6% , second only to Korea. In contrast, the ratios in other industrialised countries are comparatively lower at 15.4% in Germany, 3.4% in the U.K. When married women were asked whether ﾒit would be good for elderly parents to live together with their sonﾕs familyﾓ, the ratio of those agreeing exceeds 50% regardless of their age group. This illustrates the strong cultural trend for many women who often bear the burden for long-term care to live together with their husbandﾕs parents (White paper 1997).

The welfare policy that society should be supported primarily by individualsﾕ independence and self-help, then by family and local community and thirdly by the public sector has kept the strong tendency of dependence on the family care in 1970, 80s because neo-conservative economic policies in the Japanese welfare state is likely to restrict government expenditure. Welfare servicing in Japan has remained highly patriarchal, as the family is emphasized as a site for the provision of care, particularly for the elderly, at cheap rates or no cost to government (Bryson:1992). I believe it is very difficult to continue this tendency in 1990s because family structure and social structure rapidly changed. In 1995 the birth rate dropped into 1.43. Therefore, the society pushes women into labour forces. In fact, the percentage of women who work in double harness is predicted to rise from 45% in 1993 to 68% in 2020, with the result that the function of family welfare would decrease rapidly (Shinkawa:1997, Peng and Goodman:1996).

Religious doctrine has established the rationale for many social welfare activities. Many aspects of social work and social policy in Japan have clearly been shaped by the teachings of Buddhism with its emphasis of the virtues of ﾔthoughtfulness, sympathy, gentleness, kindness, mercy, pity and benevolenceﾕ(Higgins: 1981). The village society which is associated with the authority of temples has influenced to the maintenance of the community welfare support systems. Actually, Japan had no comprehensive social security provisions until 1960s. However, after the rural community began to disappear from urbanised Japan, in contemporary Japanese society, we should not persist on the old welfare discourses but make efforts to reconstruct the conceptional framework of community at governmental and non-governmental levels (Takahashi:1997).

Who benefits from the Japanese welfare state?

The surveys by the PMﾕs office shows that the Japanese have a unique sense of class consciousness because more than 90% of the Japanese consider themselves ﾔmiddle classﾕ(Takahashi:1997, Peng and Goodman:1996). Japan hardly fits the standard conservative, dualistic system in which social welfare benefits are delivered to citizens unequally and is apart form other dualist countries such as Australia, U.S, Britain (Shirakawa and Pempel:1996). However, this positive consciousness among the Japanese does not mean 90% of them receives the enough benefits from the welfare policy and feel happiness in their life. On the contrary, the suffer of women, elderly people, people with disabled are frequently hidden behind the occupational and family welfare.

In Japan the private sector of welfare is often highly developed, and occupational welfare schemes are large scale. It is also true in Japan the benefits of occupational welfare are concentrated unfairly upon only an elite corps of workers benefiting from the ﾔprivileges of life-long employment, seniority wage system and large retirement allowancesﾕ. It gives benefits to only those employed by large-scale enterprise with more than one thousand employee. Mostly, men have considerably higher wages and better occupational welfare benefits than women (Bryson:1992, Takahashi;1997). Besides, in the Japanese employment structure, discrimination is most extreme against women, the elderly and people with disabled. However, income statistics are kept by family, not by individual. Because usually the husband's substantial benefits from work would be available for the entire family unit, those who can not receive occupational welfare such as women, the elderly and people with disabled are usually ignored by the whole welfare structure of the society (Shinkawa and Pempel:1996).

In the welfare expenditure for elderly people in Japan 76.7% of the total cost are spent for pension and 20.9% of those for medical services. Surprisingly, only 2.4% of the total expenditure are spent for social services. It means elderly people are cared by informal care especially family care instead of using public social services. Considering the change of family structure and social structure in Japan, women in households are likely to take the whole responsibility for caring elderly people in their households (Yamanoi and Saito:1997). In the near future of aging society in Japan family welfare will not work satisfactorily, and these structural changes magnify the disadvantages of women and elderly people unless the welfare policy is renovated.

Is Japan really a true civil society?

The concept of the welfare state coordinates with the value of citizenship in the modern state, including freedom, tolerance, fraternity, affluence, and autonomy in a citizenﾕs life. The welfare society can be compatible with the concept of the participatory democracy. On the other hand, The welfare state has created the government bureaucracy as a consequence of the stateﾕs welfare policies because it employs a large hierarchical structure of civil servants and expanded government control from the political and economic policies to welfare administration (Shiratori:1986). In the case of the welfare state in Japan, the power of bureaucracy attempts to dominates and even control the power of the citizenship because the majority of the Japanese people can hardly participate in the process of welfare policy decision and implementation.

After village-centred rural communities as existed in prewar Japan disappeared because of industrialisation and urbanisation, it is expected to create a new type of community on the basis of non-hierarchical solidarity and spontaneous participation. The National Council of Social Welfare (Zenkoku shakai fukushi kyogikai) was established as an umbrella organizations which were organized under the 1951 law for social welfare services in each prefecture though the former prefecturesﾕ welfare commissioners only changed the name (Anderson:1993). These welfare organizations which are called voluntary organizations are established with the leading of the bureaucracy. and the strong control from prefectural governments and the central government. Therefore, voluntary organizations in Japan has a contradiction because of the mix between non-hierarchical and hierarchical framework in the organizational structure.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare in 1993 volunteer work in welfare society is not only given through charity but also based on participation in local community, self-realization, mutual help and reciprocity among residents. Ministry expresses respect for spontaneity and creativity of citizens/participants, it has already prepared an official guidance for proceeding with this project mostly on its own initiatives. Minsei iin seido(community welfare commissioner system) exist and function in contemporary Japan as the semi-official volunteers appointed by the prefecture governors with delegated capacity form the Ministry of Health and Welfare (Takahashi:1997). However, this community welfare commissioner system are created by the bureaucracy and have not function with a true volantarism.

In the Japanese welfare state, the government and bureaucracy have created rules and social atmosphere that would encourage voluntary work including donation, charities in the social services without enough discussion about the impacts of changed social environment on families and individuals in Japanese society (Takahashi:1997). Though citizens in local neighbourhoods do provide many voluntary activities supplementing those of the government, local voluntary activities can not adequately meet the complexity of the social services needed for large urban developments (Anderson:1993). These volunteer activities for social services should not be an agency of the government but be supported by the government with a sensitivity which does not disturb their volantarism.

Future direction of the Japanese welfare state

Japan is the most rapidly aging society in the world. In 15 years from now, around the year 2020, Japan will have the highest aging rate (ratio of the population 65 and over) in the world (Takahashi:1997). This impact of the population change will influence the total welfare system in Japan. Though the Japanese government will introduce a new national insurance of social services for elderly people and people with disabilities in 2000, the system will still have unclear points about how the actual coordination and provisions of services will be provided in the community. If this system will be implemented with bureaucracy-centred procedure, the system itself will not work effectively and fairly. Community members, especially women, elderly people, people with disabilities should demand opportunities to discuss and express their needs and opinions and the openness of the information.

Historically the welfare state in Japan have been changed by the initiative of bureaucracy as I discussed above. Because of the bureaucratic procedure the main discussion about the welfare state in Japan concentrated not on the humanitarian quality but on financial and management issues. Therefore, the benefit of welfare state for women, elderly people and people with disability were often ignored in the name of ﾒJapanese style welfare stateﾓ. In terms of a civil society, the central concerns of welfare policy in Japan will have to be people-centered in the 21 century. Each individual will have to think what he or she needs from the public services and what he or she can do by themselves for creating a true civil society. In this sense, the new existence of non-profit community organizations will become significant to renovate the welfare structure and improve the citizen participation in the implementation of welfare policy in Japan.

Recent increase of the unemployment rate and the economic recession in Japan shows the limit of economic growth of Japan and a negative prospect for maintaining the welfare expenditure. Besides, environmental problems will also stop continuing the mass production and consuming and obviously influence the living standards of the Japanese society. It seems that the quality of the Japanese welfare state will fall in the following decade. However, if the large amount of money that have been spent wastefully for the bureaucracy-centred administrative procedure in all levels of government will be used fairly and equally with human-centred administrative procedure, new community activities and citizen participations in the welfare services as a partnership with public services will increase dramatically. Furthermore, the Japanese welfare state will be able to produce enough welfare service provisions for meeting the complicated needs of Japanese citizens from this new community movements.

References

Anderson, Stephen J (1993), Welfare Policy and Politics in Japan: Beyond the Developmental State, Paragon house, New York.

Bryson, Lois (1992), Welfare and the State: Who Benefits?, Macmillan, London.

Higgins, Joan (1981), States of Welfare: Comparative Analysis in Social Policy, Basil Blackwell & Martin Robertson, Oxford.

Kita, Akemi (1997), ﾔGender equality: Kazoku seisaku to Rodo seisaku no Settenﾕ in Hikaku Hukushikokka Ron (Welfare State Theory), ed by Norio Okazawa and Taro Miyamoto, Houritsu Bunkasya, Kyoto.

Maruo, Naomi (1986), ﾔThe Development of the Welfare Mix in Japanﾕ, The Welfare State East and West, ed by Richard Rose and Rei Shiratori, Oxford University Press, New York.

Peng, Ito and Roger Goodman (1996), ﾔThe East Asian Welfare States: Peripatetic Learning, Adaptive Change, and Nation-Buildingﾕ in Welfare State in Transition: National Adaptations in Global Economies ed by Gosta Esping-Andersen.

Shiratori, Rei (1986), ﾔThe Future of the Welfare Stateﾕ The Welfare State East and West, ed by Richard Rose and Rei Shiratori, Oxford University Press, New York.

Shinkawa, Toshimitsu and T.J Pempel (1996), ﾔOccupational Welfare and the Japanese Experienceﾕ in The privatization of Social Policy? ed by Michael Shalev, Macmillan Press, Houndmills.

Shinkawa, Toshimitsu (1997), ﾔNihon: Nihongata hukusi no syuen?ﾕ in Hikaku Hukushikokka Ron (Welfare State Theory), ed by Norio Okazawa and Taro Miyamoto, Houritsu Bunkasya, Kyoto.

Takahashi, Mutsuko (1997), The Emergence of Welfare Society in Japan, Avebury, Aldershot.

Ministry of Health and Welfare (1997), White Paper: Annual Report on Health and Welfare, Ministry of Health and Welfare.

Yamanoi, Kazunori and Yayoi Saito (1997), 'Kaigoseisaku to Zaigen: Kouteki Kaigo Hoken wo Megutte' in Hikaku Hukushikokka Ron (Welfare State Theory), ed by Norio Okazawa and Taro Miyamoto, Houritsu Bunkasya, Kyoto.

　　

sfunaki@fpu.ac.jp