This paper discusses the well-being of children and families in relation to child poverty, for which a definition and overview are provided. The challenges of child poverty, the development of policies to address these challenges, and the prospects for such policies are then discussed. This paper emphasizes the importance of two main points. The first is the necessity to support the family, which is the foundational context in which children are born and raised, and their guardians. Support for both children and families will contribute to their well-being in the context of child poverty. The second is the principle of supporting all households with children, not just households suffering specifically from poverty, abuse, or other disadvantages and difficulties, because issues such as poverty have been identified as a source of stress and isolation when raising children in all households.

Many people live in Japan who can be defined as immigrants, but they are not easy to visualize. There is growing concern about issues surrounding children in Japan, particularly related to young caregivers, child poverty, and social isolation, but there is little awareness that immigrant children are also included in these issues. This paper gives an overview of the situation of immigrant children living in Japan and identifies three barriers faced by immigrant families: linguistic, socioeconomic, and cultural barriers. Specifically, this paper pointed out that when there is a difference in Japanese language ability between parents and children, the roles of parents and children are reversed and children are forced to take care of their parents; that many immigrant families live in poverty because of the precarious employment of parents; and that the strong pressure of assimilation in Japanese society makes it difficult for parents to pass on their culture to their children. Local governments, schools, non-profit organizations, and ethnic communities support immigrants, but many challenges remain. To build a system that guarantees their well-being, it is necessary to conduct careful research to understand the situation of immigrant children and their parents.

This paper claims that public management should shift its way of thinking from a deductive approach to an inductive one. First, based on the perspective of the social constructionism of social problems, this paper notes that the discourse that child abuse in Japan is the worst ever is misleading. Using a normative image of the family, countermeasures against child abuse in Japan consider certain attributes of the family to be “abuse risks” without sufficient evidence and trivialize the problem of inadequate social systems into a “family problem”. This is not fair to children and their family. The discussion of social care reform, which has been developed in a way that idealizes the family, is also problematic in that it is based on a false perception of the current situation and promotes discrimination against children in social care. An inductive approach, includes an accurate understanding of the actual situation and an examination of the consequences of past cases and policies, is strongly required to provide better support for the prevention of and more appropriate responses to child abuse.

To achieve children’s well-being, we must focus on improving their life satisfaction and social skills. An inability to express their own opinions is thought to be one reason for children’s low life satisfaction. It has also been confirmed that, to support children’s social skills, it is essential to create an environment that fosters cognitive skills from an early age. Kunitachi City in Tokyo is promoting projects that respect children’s independence and support early childhood education. On April 1, 2023, we opened a new facility, Yagawa Plus, to realize these projects. The facility is currently heavily used by children and families. In this article, we analyze the relationship between the popularity of the facility and children’s well-being.

The essence of well-being lies in respecting the diversity among individuals. The perspective of individual diversity is also important when considering well-being achieved by children and their parents by using urban public spaces. This paper applies Sen’s capability approach as a framework to examine the achievement of well-being among individuals to examine the use of urban public spaces by children and parents. This yielded two main results. First, achieving well-being among diverse individuals is more challenging than the minimum life assurance considered essential for everyone. Second, it is difficult to reconcile the achievement of well-being among diverse stakeholders with the characteristics of urban public spaces. Therefore, the development of operational policy techniques to enhance the possibility of achieving well-being is thus crucial; these techniques include implementing hazard elimination and risk management, developing diverse parks, implementing play assistance, lending tools, and attending children’s activities.

Public theaters established by local governments play an important role not only for cultural promotion but also as an “open space” for assembly of local residents. However, they have been under great pressure to reduce costs and increase benefits to residents, and the damage caused by the recent COVID-19 pandemic has further increased the pressure. This study examines in detail the costs and social benefits of a leading local theater, the Hyogo Cultural Center in Hyogo Prefecture. The Center was established as a symbol of reconstruction after the 1995 Kobe earthquake, and attracted more than 500,000 visitors a year before the COVID-19 pandemic. The total willingness-to-pay (TWTP) of the citizens of Hyogo Prefecture to maintain the activities of the Center is estimated to be more than 11.3 billion yen annually, which far exceeds the present annual budget allocated by the Prefecture to the Center. WTP is correlated with age, gender (male), and income, and those who appreciate the Center as a hub for artists, and outreach programs, have high likelihood to support the Center. It is desirable to establish a system to invite persons who have a large WTP to contribute to the support of the Center.

This study investigated the consumer behavior impact on users of the “Go To Eat Campaign,” a public-private demand stimulus policy implemented in Okayama Prefecture in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior with perceived risk as a variable, we conducted a structural analysis of covariance using single-source data collected from the same subjects, covering the actual behavior beyond intention to the purchase and use of meal tickets. The results confirmed that perceived risk had a negative impact on the time of purchase, and that the use of meal coupons was a regionally conscious behavior. The results suggest that the project was effective in terms of its objective of stimulating local demand for food and beverages. Furthermore, simultaneous multi-population analysis confirmed that the policy had an effect on both high and low income segments, and that the more conservative segment in terms of consumption was more purchase conscious, and therefore more attracted by the premium nature of the product.