2 現代日本のポバティラインを考える(I 共通論題=「格差社会」のゆくえ)

抄録

We hear that there have been rapid increases in economic and social inequalities in Japan. This is a consequence of the long depression of the 1990s. However, we also experienced various economic and social inequalities prior to the decade of the 1990s. Needless to say, various social policies were employed to tackle such problems, and for this reason the inequality issue has been a familiar one to social scientists. Although we pay attention to new inequalities, it is necessary to grasp them in the context of the history of social policy in Japan. If we do so, we can better recognize the differences between new and old inequalities. This paper deals with the poverty line issues in Japan after the Second World War. Certainly, the high rate of economic growth drastically changed Japanese society and seemed to reduce poverty. Throughout the early postwar era, the social security system was expanded through the extension of social insurance coverage and benefits. It was enough that we believed that economic and social inequalities would gradually decrease. In the early 1980s, the central government stressed the need to establish a national minimum as a safety net. It is not unusual for nations to think that the poverty problem lessens as the percentage of beneficiaries on public assistance falls. In other words, we can see declining poverty as the result of social policy. However, the 1990s constituted a turning point in Japan. From the second half of the decade, the ratio of persons receiving public assistance began to increase. Moreover, the national pension system caused a fiscal crisis. Finally, because of the increasing numbers of part-time workers, the minimum wage became a prominent issue. Thus, in the 1990s, debate about the poverty line spread to the fields of public assistance, public pensions, and the minimum wage. It is difficult to determine an appropriate poverty line due to differences in benefit levels by family size, age, and so on. Thus, we need to establish a new standard in benefit levels. This paper aims to make proposals regarding current issues in social policy through the insights gained from examining the history of poverty line determination in Japan.