The Society for the Study of Social Policy was established in 1897. It is one of the oldest academic societies for the social sciences in Japan. However, its activities were terminated in 1924 because of political conflict in the Society. In 1950 it was re-established and recommenced academic activities. By the 1990s the Society had become inactive, and so reform was begun in 1994. Consequently the Society's research fields were enlarged and the number of members has been increasing. Many scholars other than economists joined the Society, making it increasingly interdisciplinary. The crisis of the Society occurred because of its mal-adaptation to changes in actual social policy. Though social policies can function to promote decommodification at the stage of welfare state, the dominant theory of the Society does not recognize this. As a result, there are no social policy scholars working in the existing social policy areas in Japan. Reforms since the mid-1990s have enabled the Society to make progress in policy studies, but this improvement has not brought results in advancing the existing social policies. It is necessary to continue the reform and make efforts to apply research results to actual social policies.

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Poverty is a 'fact' measurable by scientific poverty studies. Anti-poverty policies have directly responded to this 'fact'. This naive understanding is just a one-sided picture. Another view is that poverty is a product of the broader social policy context in which poverty has been dealt with directly and indirectly. What we perceive as poverty or whom we regard as impoverished today is greatly influenced by the social policy contexts of the past and the present. Thus grasping the characteristics of social policies inevitably accompanies poverty studies in a specific society. However little attention has been given to this point in either poverty and social policy studies in Japan. This paper takes up three important issues of social policy in Japan, which are supposed to obscure a poverty line or conceal some types of poverty. The first is the issue of complex and uncoordinated minimum standards of living in different policies. The second issue is that 'bypass' policies have been developed for some types of poor people outside main policies. The third is that the poor in need of care have been dealt with within the social service framework.

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People's daily livelihoods can be ensured in a sustainable way and opportunities for social participation secured when government social policy measures such as social security, tax systems and labor market regulations are closely articulated with institutions, including family, enterprise, and not-for-profit organizations and their practices. I refer to this mechanism as a whole as the "livelihood security system." Conversely, the dysfunction or reverse function of the livelihood security system engenders social exclusion. This paper argues that social exclusion in Japan is serious as an extra-legality related to social insurance schemes and labor market casualization, which have caused increasing income inequality and relative poverty. Youth and women are excluded both within and outside the labor market, while the casualization of employment is widely used by management to avoid the burden of social insurance premiums. And social insurance offices have not only tacitly permitted but actually encouraged employers to erase pension records, and unlawfully engaged in making "exemptions" from pension premium payments and "absentee registrations," in order to raise the contribution ratio. This indicates that the Social Insurance Agency, as an organization that is supposed to exercise jurisdiction over the pension scheme, was a leading party to extra-legal practices.

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It is often said that Japanese traditional institutionalism in labor studies (JTILS) isn't necessarily useful for analyzing current problems, like inequality and poverty among workers. This kind of obsolescence in JTILS is caused by two blind spots: inattention to the renewal of theories about institutions and the breaking of relations with welfare studies. In order to conquer this weakness, theories about institutions of employment and their evolution in the 20th century are reconsidered, and the nexus of employment and welfare is shown in this paper. On the basis of this reconsideration, I discuss three problems currently confronting Japanese workers and propose four hypothetical propositions: (1) The institution of employment itself is still robust in the 21st century. (2) The employment system of the last century is changing, and can be transformed flexibly. (3) The new employment system will not be legitimated without overcoming the negative side of the old employment system. (4) For JTILS, cooperation with welfare studies is indispensable to analyzing current labor problems. Lastly, I briefly address some research agendas.

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Since the mid-1990's, the comparative study of welfare states and social policy in Japan has been strongly influenced by international research trends. However, these comparative studies are now at a turning point because severe criticisms have been aimed at them. The aim of this paper is to clarify what comparative study has accomplished and what remains undone, and what challenges face us still. First, I examine the unsolved problems during the fifteen years that have passed since the appearance of Esping-Andersen's Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Especially, it is stressed that it is crucial to develop a 'dynamic' analysis of welfare states and social policy with eliminating the previous static typology. Second, by examining arguments about the East Asia Welfare Regime, I advance the argument that many East Asian states remain 'productivism' welfare regimes. In conclusion, it is stressed that comparative research in the future must contribute to fruitful debates about policies that influence the future trajectories of Japan and other East Asian states.

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Since the collapse of the political consensus on the welfare state, the role of normative analysis in social policy studies has become more important. This article has two objectives: The first is to review how normative analysis applies to this area, and the second is to examine workfare using normative analysis. The main argument drawn from the former objective is that while introducing normative theories is the most popular approach to social policy studies, we should be cautious when using those developed by famous philosophers with regard to particular social policies. The examples in this paper show how theories by Amartya Sen, Robert Norzik and John Rawls are used. In particular, Rawls' advocacy of workfare is closely investigated, but I suggest that justifications for workfare, which are powerful and frequently expressed, are tautological and are based on moral judgments that are usually unspoken. This failure of actually existing discourses for workfare does not connote the impossibility of any justification for either actually existing workfare or fair (but not yet existing) workfare, neither position one which I would try to justify.

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Compared to other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, the labor market participation rate of Thai women is markedly high relative to the degree of economic development. It is common to see a large number of female white-collar workers and mid-level managers in business sites. However, when considering the top management level, the status of Thai women is extremely low. This paper aims to analyze what determinants affect the career development of Thai women by investigating women executives on the boards of family-owned listed companies (603 persons). They include 4 criteria: gender gap, family membership, human capital (education and work experiences), and systems supporting working women. For supporting systems, this paper examines current conditions through interviews focused on laws, family structure, babysitting and housemaid services, and nursery schools. The research indicates that even though gender gaps are slight in Thai business sites in relative terms, in general they remain significant.

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The issue of care workers working for elder persons is becoming increasing important. Since their working conditions and environments have been uncomfortable and sometimes poor, many soon quit, leading to a shortage of care workers. The purpose of this article is to examine the causal process of turnover intention, focusing on factors leading to care worker burnout, and thereby to suggest remedial policies. We issue a challenge to build a new analytical model to investigate care worker intentions and behavior. In this study we conduct research covering 203 care workers in Fukuoka Prefecture and analyze the structure of burnout and the background of turnover behavior by personal credo/value, characters (Big Five), organizational commitment, the gap between expectations and reality, and role conflict with superiors, clients, and coworkers.

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Recently, the number of domestic violence victims has been increasing, while the law for domestic violence survivors was passed in 2001. The law led to the establishment of support systems such as consultation and protection for victims. However, housing assistance for victims who have escaped batterers has not been established. Many victims face serious difficulties in securing stable housing. Many barriers such as economic problems or mental illness hinder efforts to achieve independence. Because most victims are in deep distress, they cannot afford deposit or the rent for a private apartment. Moreover it is difficult for victims to find housing for the short term. In Japan, the government provides public housing for low-income people and gives priority to domestic violence victims. However, there are shortages and the system is not suitable for victims who need housing urgently. Some of them cope by residing in institutions for vulnerable women or staying with parents, but most move several times until they secure permanent housing. Providing victims access to secure, safe and affordable housing is an urgent issue. This study aims to understand the housing problems and housing needs of domestic violence victims.

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This article examines the activities of and discussions within the Charity Organisation Society concerning the introduction of family endowments in early 20th-century Liverpool. The main issue is how the COS worked in the community. The paper focuses on relationships between the Central Relief Society and Charity Organisation Society (CRS), Liverpool's COS and the other organisations in the community. There was a conflict that stemmed from differences in perception of poverty between the executives and 'friendly visitors' within the CRS at the beginning of the 20th century. Actively involved was E. RATHBONE, who made a strong case for family endowments to widows with dependent children, based on her own experience as a friendly visitor and on social surveys she conducted in 1902 and 1907. As a result, the two organisations approached Liverpool's poor law authorities together and the authorities improved the standard of payment. At that stage, RATHBONE's thinking remained within the framework of the poor law. However, another social survey taken in 1913 led her to recognise the importance of a state-financed family endowment scheme. CRS worked as a core group promoting this scheme, thus an origin of family allowances should be traced back to Liverpool.

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In Britain, the institution of employee representation is changing due to the Information and Consultation of Employee Regulation 2004 and the decline of trade union membership. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between trade unions and non-union representative institutions. The relationship is classified into the following two theories; complementary and replacement. There is very broad support for the former amongst commentators in Britain. The leading company in the coal industry, UK Coal, introduced a non-union representative institution, i. e. working party, while the collective bargaining and other consultative systems represented by the trade unions coexists within the firm. Comparing the processes of consultation represented by the working party with those represented by the unions, in regard to flexible shift patterns and redundancy, the working party encouraged cooperative relations, quick decisionmaking and frequent communication within the workplaces, while mutual agreement between the management and the trade unions became less significant. This finding implies that if collective bargaining is decentralized and conducted by trade unions who lose their validity of representation, the relationship between trade unions and other representative institutions will be replacement rather than complementary in the coal industry.

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