Japan was the first Asian country to become a mature industrial society,
and throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, was viewed as an
'all-middle-class society'. However since the 1990s there have been
growing doubts as to the real degree of social equality in Japan,
particularly in the context of dramatic demographic shifts as the
population ages whilst fertility levels continue to fall.
This book compares Japan with America, Britain, Italy, France, Germany,
Sweden and Taiwan in order to determine whether inequality really is a
social problem in Japan. With a focus on impact demographic shifts,
Sawako Shirahase examines female labour market participation, income
inequality among households with children, the state of the family,
generational change, single person households and income distribution
among the aged, and asks whether increasing inequality and is uniquely
Japanese, or if it is a social problem common across all of the
societies included in this study. Crucially, this book shows that Japan
is distinctive not in terms of the degree of inequality in the society,
but rather, in how acutely inequality is perceived. Further, the data
shows that Japan differs from the other countries examined in terms of
the gender gap in both the labour market and the family, and in
inequality among single-person households - single men and women,
including lifelong bachelors and spinsters - and also among single
parent households, who pay a heavy price for having deviated from the
expected pattern of life in Japan.
Drawing on extensive empirical data, this book will be of great interest
to students and scholars interested in Japanese culture and society,
Japanese studies and social policy more generally.
