Basic Income in Japan Prospects for a Radical Idea in a Transforming Welfare State

by Vanderborght, Yannick; Yamamori, Toru

• ISBN13: 9781137356574
• ISBN10: 113735657X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-10-09
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

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.

Author Biography

Yannick Vanderborght is Professor of Political Science at Saint-Louis University, Brussels, Belgium, where he currently directs the Research Centre in Political Science.

Toru Yamamori is a Professor at Doshisha University, Japan, and currently (2013-2015) a visiting fellow at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Table of Contents

Foreword; Ronald Dore

1. Income Security and the 'Right to Subsistence' in Japan; Toru Yamamori and Yannick Vanderborght
2. A Comparative Look at the Feasibility of Basic Income in the Japanese Welfare State; Yannick Vanderborght and Yuki Sekine

3. Transforming Japan's Bismarckian Welfare State: Basic Income versus Inclusive Social Insurance; Takashi Suganuma

4. Is There a Future for a Universal Cash Benefit in Japan? The Case of Kodomo Teate (Child Benefit); Aya K. Abe

5. The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Basic Income; Toru Yamamori

6. The Future of the Public Assistance Reform in Japan: Workfare versus Basic Income?; Hayato Kobayashi

7. Beyond the Three Selection Principles of Welfare Policy (Work, Family and Belonging): Towards a Reconsideration of the Fujin Hogo Jigyo (Women's Protection Project) in Japan; Kaori Katada

8. The Impact of Basic Income on the Gendered Division of Paid Care Work; Junko Yamashita

9. Basic Income and Unpaid Care Work in Japan; Sakura Furukubo

10. Beyond the Paradigm of Labor: Everyday Activism and Unconditional Basic Income in Urban Japan; Julia Obinger

11. The Tensions between Multiculturalism and Basic Income in Japan; Fumio Iida

12. What Do People Think about Basic Income in Japan?; Yoshio Itaba

13. What Needs to Be Considered When Introducing a New Welfare System: Who Supports Basic Income in Japan?; Rie Takamatsu and Toshiaki Tachibanaki

14. The Financial Feasibility of Basic Income and the Idea of a Refundable Tax Credit in Japan; Shinji Murakami

15. The Potential of Introducing Basic Income for the 'New Public' in Japan: A Road to Associational Welfare?; Hiroya Hirano