The transformation of community living for the persons with disabilities:

The uneven trajectories of the expansion  of service users and the exercise of citizenship

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to lay out how the disability policy since 2000 in Japan has affected the lives of persons with disabilities in the community. For that purpose, this paper 1) identifies the changes in the disability policy systems, 2) reviews the events that acculturated the relationship between persons with disabilities and the society, and 3) examines the shift of the number of users and the budget of the Act on the comprehensive support for the daily and social life of persons with disabilities. By means of 1) and 2), it reveals that the disability movements acquired citizenship and resulted in some positive outcomes including a transition from institution to community-based living while the eugenic stream to evaluate human beings as a work force has consistently progressed since 2000. From the work of 3), it shows that the legal and financial bases such as the Long-term Care Insurance Law and the Act on the comprehensive support for the daily and social life of persons with disabilities have been established, and the supply of social care services has surely increased. On the basis of these results, it concludes that the expansion of social care service supply by social welfare corporations and NPOs has succeeded in enabling the people with disabilities to become clients living in the community, nonetheless, that it has not yet succeeded in letting them exercise citizenship and actively participate in the community as citizens.