In Japan, where equal treatment of employees of different categories of employment has yet to be established, the expansion of "irregular" employees, exposed to greater risks of unemployment and lower wages, has become visible in the current explosion of the working poor population. This is a major issue in Japanese society today. This expansion is making it harder and harder a) for workers to develop vocational skills and pass them down to future generations, and b) to secure a labor force for future generations. Thus, resolving the working poor problem is crucial not just for workers but for employers as well. The report summarizes the reports and discussions of the 117^<th> conference of the Society for the Study of Social Policy, whose theme was problems of the working poor. The summary divides what was presented at the convention into two major categories, the current condition of the working poor and related policies, and also includes this author's opinions. In doing so, in the category of current conditions, the author considers characteristics of the jobs and employment of the working poor and the new potential of the labor movement, in addition to statistical information. Then, with regard to policy, the author seeks to identify approaches to alleviate the problems of the working poor from three perspectives: the relationship between minimum wages and the public livelihood assistance, policies to achieve work-life balance, and gender equality.

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The decline of Japanese-style employment has caused many serious employment problems for Japanese and their children. The poverty rate among working families grew from 12.8% in 1997 to 19.0% in 2007 (the poverty line depends on the standard of public assistance). To begin with, we have to count the increasing number of contingent workers who work full-time hours and at the same time support themselves through their own earnings. Second, we must pay attention to the increasing percentage of low-income male permanent workers, especially in their thirties and forties. Third, the unemployment rate has been very high, but the Japanese government has drastically reduced unemployment insurance coverage. On the other hand, the effect of income redistribution of tax and public social expenditure has been very slight for Japanese working families. Japanese-style employment was the most reliable safety net until the end of the 1990s. Now, Japanese society will have to construct a "welfare state" for the first time.

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Recently, the working poor have emerged as one of the most serious social issues in Japan. Most of the working poor are found among low-waged atypical employees. However, the criteria for determining the working poor need to include not only wage or income level, but also overall labor environment and working conditions such as employment stability, workplace safety, skill development opportunities and social support. Even well-paid workers may be categorized as "another type of the working poor," persons forced to work hard for longer than 3,000 hours a year, matching the criteria for "Karoshi" (death by overwork) recognized by the government with regard to work-related deaths. Over the past decades, "reserve armies of Karoshi" have increased in parallel with the numbers of low-waged atypical employees. Presently, a combination of "reserve armies of Karoshi" and low-waged atypical employees has become a standard employment model in most Japanese firms. Accordingly, it should be emphasized that both the government's structural reform policy and employers' personnel strategies have synergistically promoted employment flexibility. Revising the law in 2003, the government permitted temporary employment agencies to dispatch workers to manufacturing workplaces. The agencies recruited job seekers from high-unemployment regions and supplied them to manufacturers of electric appliances and autos. Manufacturers utilized low-waged temporary workers as an employment adjustment valve and as a means to reduce labor costs.

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Japan is one of the great economic powers and has the largest number of housing starts in the world. However, there are also many "rough sleepers," a Japanese term for persons with unsuitable living accommodations. Since the 1990s, there has been a worsening housing problem as the number of rough sleepers, homeless people sleeping in internet cafes, and agency temporary workers who have lost jobs and accommodations have all increased. The system of securing accommodation had been maintained by rising house and land prices, the lifetime employment and the seniority-based wage system, all backed by steady economic growth. This system brought the mass scraping and building of housing and underpinned economic growth. This system for securing living accommodations had been realized through employer welfare programs and social housing policies. The industrial transformation, change in the employment system, and demographic change through urban transformation have brought housing instability. Consequently, economic, urban and demographic changes have undermined the ability of people to acquire suitable housing, and weakened the structure of social support. We need not only to provide decent housing but also construct a livelihood support system and a decent traffic system.

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The labor market in Japan has undergone structural change since the 1990s. In particular, the number of working poor has increased greatly. For Japanese workers, employment was previously secured through the lifetime employment system of the company and livelihood secured through the nenkou wage system. However, the working poor, whose numbers are increasing, exist outside of the nenkou wage system. This is a cause of their impoverishment. New types of union movements are making the working poor the objects of new member organization.

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This paper researches employment structure and related factors by investigating firms and labor unions in the steel industry. The employment structure varies by firm. In the major steel plants, there are a small number of regular workers and a large number of subcontract workers. In the small steel plants, the ratio of subcontract workers is low, and there are also temporary agency workers. In the subcontract firms, there are direct-hire temporary workers and temporary agency workers, along with other subcontract workers. Factors of employment structure include the steel industry's business conditions-correlations between output and number of workers, skill level, structure and scale of manufacturing, control over subcontract firms, and monitoring by labor unions. A low correlation between output and number of workers and skilled workers means more regular workers in steel firms. A complex structure and a large manufacturing scale can raise the ratio of subcontract workers. Demands of steel firms for rationalization bring diversification of employment in subcontract firms, while the active regulation of labor unions delayed expansion of the numbers of subcontract workers.

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The number of non-regular workers has been increasing in the public sector. The purpose of this study is to examine the working conditions and employment security of non-regular workers through analysis of their work, and to use day nursery in A Ward as a case study to illustrate the issue. This paper proposes a resolution for the following points. (1) There were two types of non-regular workers in the day nursery of A ward in 1993. Some of these were primarily part-time workers who worked subordinate jobs, while the others worked extra hours and demanded opportunities to develop their skills and raise their levels of responsibility. (2) Despite the non-regular workers performing work of equal value, there are wage differentials between regular worker and non-regular workers. (3) The lack of regulation for employment security of non-regular worker led to the dismissal and displacement of non-regular workers.

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The National Survey of Recipients of Public Assistance, conducted by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, is commonly used to estimate the duration of public assistance. The survey measures the duration of public assistance by the number of days from the beginning date of public assistance to the time of the survey among those who have received assistance on July 1 every year. This study, in contrast, estimated the duration of public assistance from the beginning date of assistance to the termination date among those who moved out of public assistance in a municipality. This study produces the following findings. First, there are some recipients whose duration is less than one year and who are not captured by a survey conducted on a particular date once a year. Second, the duration varies by the educational attainment of the head of household and the type of household. Third, the duration depends on the reason for terminating the assistance, e. g., whether the termination is based on the prospect of independence. Finally, the survival analysis which uses both current recipients at the time of the survey and past recipients whose assistance has been terminated suggests variations in duration by household type and gender.

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This paper focuses on working issues of temporary nurses in the United States, especially their employment and wage issues. The study is based on extensive written material and fact-finding field research conducted at Oregon State University in 2008. Temporary nurses were first used in hospital organizations in the 1970s. There are two types of temporary nurses. One is the Agency Nurse, who works short-term. The other is the Traveler, who works long-term. The following are conditions of the temporary nurses. First, temporary nurses are used to cover the nursing shortages in many hospitals. In particular, many temporary nurses work in OR and ICU because of the nursing shortage. Second, the wages of temporary nurse have been very high in recent years. Third, market principles have influenced their high wage levels. In other words, the employment conditions of temporary nurses are connected with the rationalization of hospitals in the 1990's. Their availability encourages use of short-range personnel management practices in many hospitals. However, should hospital managers slight the long-term training of nurses, the quality of care could decline.

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