Comparative Livelihood Security Systems from a Gender Perspective, with a Focus on Japan

Abstract

This chapter explores the development of livelihood security systems since the early 1980s in major industrialized countries with a particular focus on Japan. As Esping-Andersen mentions in his ‘Preface to the Japanese edition’ of The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (1990), Japan is a difficult case to classify, to the extent that it has served as a touchstone for his typology. The Japanese welfare state, as of 1980, exhibited the lowest expenditure among OECD countries, and was of a ‘liberalistic’ nature in the sense that its ‘highly selective’ social policy offered insufficient family support, and that its low degree of ‘de-commodification’ compelled the individual to participate in the labour market. Meanwhile, the division of its social insurance schemes by occupation and social stratification (due to disparity created by the size of the enterprise, etc.) demonstrated its more ‘conservative’ nature.