Utilizing a set of archival data, this paper describes the status of home-workers and the enactment of administration for home-work, focusing on Kanagawa Prefecture around 1980. The postwar Japanese administration for home-work centers on intermediation between businesses and home-workers, and intends to exclude malicious outsourcers and protect home-workers from exploitation. Simultaneously, organizing home-workers and the provision of job training are deemed to enhance the condition of home-workers. However, structural instability and underpayment of home-workers have remained untouched. Some women perform home-work as a hobby-cum-benefit. A confounding and unexpected result is that handicraft-like home-work, such as embroidering or knitting, which pays wages that are obviously too low for their meticulous practice, has survived, even in the declining phase of home-work. The latter section utilizes the previously unexamined records of consultation for home-workers and examines their condition, the administration of intermediation between outsourcers and home-workers, and the relationship between a consultant and home-workers in Kawasaki city around 1980. Many would-be home-workers were wives of low-income households and tended to obtain relatively well-paid machine-sewing or fabrication home-work. The consultant considered home-workers’ wishes and circumstances, stood in their shoes, and made frequent contact with them after the intermediation. However, within a short period of time many home-workers quit home-work; complaining of the difficulty of the operation itself, the double bind between managing work and childcare, disagreement with family members (mostly the husband), health problems, and other issues.

Recently, overseas studies have focused on the interaction effects between accessibility to open spaces and individual-level poverty (e.g., income) as a factor of social inequalities in health. These studies have reported that people with a higher degree of individual-level poverty are more likely to be vulnerable to negative health effects due to inferior accessibility to open spaces, which may contribute to social inequalities in health. However, few studies have focused on the interaction effect between accessibility to open spaces and area-level poverty. We hypothesized that individuals living in areas with a high degree of area-level poverty are more likely to experience negative health effects due to inferior perceived accessibility to open spaces. We conducted the following study using data obtained through a mailed questionnaire survey in the Densely Inhabited District of Osaka Prefecture, Japan. Initially, we tested for health disparities related to subjective health, subjective well-being, and frequency of exercise. Next, we examined which of the above-mentioned interaction effects had a more significant impact on health. Our results showed health disparities in subjective health and subjective well-being. The interaction effect between perceived accessibility and area-level poverty had a more significant health impact than the other interaction effects on subjective health. None of the two interaction effects had any significant effects on subjective well-being and frequency of exercise. Policy implications for reducing social inequalities in health may include measures to improve the perceived accessibility to open spaces of residents in areas with a high degree of area-level poverty.

The Great East Japan Earthquake caused a huge tsunami that devastated the Sanriku coastal area by inundating fields, destroying houses and buildings, and depriving the local residents of everyday life. Local municipalities formulated and implemented regional reconstruction plans and the local residents engaged in the self-reconstruction. Consequently, the traditional landscape was transformed, social organizations that maintained local communities were reorganized, and tsunami risks were reduced. The resettlement of residents who moved out of the devastated coastal community caused new concentrations of population in the inland that escaped disaster. This paper examines the formation process of residential suburbs, the resettlement of residents from the coastal area, and the decision making of self-reconstruction. A case study was conducted in the Higashi-Shinjo district, Kesennuma City, after the Great East Japan Earthquake. The resettlement of tsunami victims caused the movement of people out of the devastated lowlands to the high ground by way of group relocation programs and the public housing facilities. At the same time, new concentrations of population were spontaneously formed by self-reconstruction in the inland suburbs. Many sufferers resettled in the Higashi–Shinjo district, where vacant housing lots were available after the land readjustment program, which was conducted in the 1990s due to economic decline. The land use and landscape of the Higashi-Shinjo district were substantially modified due to the resettlement. The decision to resettle and the choice of destination were affected by a combination of factors that include aging of the residents, a need to promptly resettle, land ownership prior to resettlement, and human relations.