Abstract
In 2009, RENGO and RENGO-RIALS organized a research team on the Working Poor in seeking a solution to the problem, and carried out a survey. The conclusions are described below. Examining the living conditions for 15-year-olds living in poverty and a precarious family environment, many Working Poor have been relegated to diluted family ties, school/employment imbalance, and the less educated, so that they have not achieved enough "Socialization". The marginality of their jobs and the precariousness of their employment have led to uncertainty in the workplace. Consequently, the strength of the connection to workplace organizations, family, friends, acquaintances, and local communities are also diluted, in some cases among those who were suffering from mental illness. Further, many Working Poor are excluded from the social security system such as unemployment insurance, which was designed for continued employment and temporary unemployment. At the same time, we observed that they have been robbed of the opportunity to describe their thoughts and requests. These results suggest that the problems of the Working Poor are closely related to poverty and social exclusion from childhood, exclusion from the logic of the business community as the foundation of mainstream of Japanese society, and social security as premises for that logic. In other words, we demonstrated that this problem is the most serious problem of discrimination and exclusion within Japanese society, in particular that of working society.
