In Fukui Prefecture, the proportion of three-generation households and the rates of fertility, female regular workers, and women’s labor participation are all higher than the average in Japan. These conditions are highlighted as the ‘Fukui model’. This paper examines how the form of households is related to men’s and women’s work and daily life in Fukui using the micro data set ‘Survey on hope and social life in Fukui’ which was conducted by the Institute of Social Science at Tokyo University in 2014.I find that （１） there is a statistically significant correlation between women’s work and three-generation households that include the woman’s but not the husband’s parents ; （２） Men and women are likely to do less housework when three generations live together ; （３） Men living with their parents are not likely to do childcare.Now that the Abe government is encouraging the formation of three―gener­ation households, it is likely to encourage gender inequality within households.

Fukui prefecture serves as an excellent model for the resolution of many social problems in Japan. We focused on the issue of women being able to continue working. These three points express the aim of this study.1. We investigate the situation of the domestic labor hours of employed wives and the sociali­zation of domestic labor in households.2. We examine the effect of the socialization of domestic labor in two household types （three-generation households and two-generation （parents and children） households）.3. We examine the influence that the degree of socialization of domestic labor has on gender equality in households.The results of our time-use survey and questionnaire show that the domestic labor time of wives is about 2 hours 30 minutes on weekdays and 6 hours 45 minutes on holidays. We selected dishwashers, washers and dryers, and robotic cleaners to represent socialization of domestic labor. In Fukui, the ownership rate of these three household appliances is higher than the national average.The domestic labor time of wives in three-generation households is longer than that of the wives in two-generation （parents and children） households. The study found that the higher the degree of socialization of domestic labor, the fewer the domestic labor hours worked by men.

The poverty level varies from prefecture to prefecture, and progress has been made in analyzing the factors causing differentials in the severity of poverty. Therefore, I first analyzed the factors causing the differentials in child poverty rates from prefecture to prefecture using multiple regression analysis. The depend­ent variable was child poverty rates. The independent variables were minimum wage, take-up rate of public assistance, rate of temporary workers, rate of dual income households, rate of three-generation households, unemployment rate and female labor participation rate. The results of the analysis proved that factors influencing child poverty rates were, in descending order of influence, the unemployment rate, rate of three-generation households minimum wage, dual income rate, and rate of temporary workers. The factors having a positive influence on child poverty rates were unemployment rate, dual income rate, and rate of temporary workers. The factors having negative influence on child poverty rates were the rate of three-generation households and the minimum wage. Next, I examined independent variable data on Fukui Prefecture to explain why the prefecture has the lowest child poverty rate, and to better understand the impact of those variables.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the reasons why elderly persons who have become public assistance recipients fall into financial distress, and to discuss what the national minimum assistance for the elderly should be.The number of recipients of public assistance has recently risen, as has their ratio, and the rising number of impoverished elderly persons has been a major factor in these increases. It is believed that this is not only an economic problem, but results also from the failure to conduct social structural reform. It cannot be denied that the decrease in pension payouts and increases in both social insurance premiums and users’ fees for medical and nursing care have contributed to the deterioration in the quality of life for the elderly.This research, based on surveys of households receiving public assistance, attempts to analyze the factors underlying falling living stand­ards for many persons in order to explore the important issue of what the national minimum level of assistance should be.

The analyses in this report are based on a survey of members of Zenroren （National Confederation of Trade Unions）, and the estimation of the minimum cost of living is conducted utilizing a market-basket method system. This study notes a correlation between income and employment, housing type, neighbourhood relationship, and social participation. However, regardless of their incomes, having private means of mobility is a necessity for the elderly, and many participate in formal family occasions even though they cannot afford to do so. In addition, the lowest level of living expenses for the elderly living alone （70-year old women in Niigata City） was found to be approximately ¥157,000 （including tax and social insurance fee） per month. This figure is more than ¥20,000 greater than the average pension received by this demographic. The study also provides a glimpse of the lifestyle structure of the elderly, who cannot afford to cut back on daily necessities.

This paper examines whether Japan’s social protections for the aged are adequate, and whether or not they merit being called a “national minimum”. The 2007 Revision of the Minimum Wage Law was intended to raise regional minimum wage levels above those of public assistance. On the other hand, public pensions, which should function as a national minimum for the aged, have not been yet adjusted. Existing research has mainly comparatively analyzed the levels of payments of public Livelihood Assistance and the Basic Pension. But most pensioners, even those who are concurrently public assistance recipients, are actually receiving not only the Basic Pension but also a graduated pension. However, health insurance, elder care and housing support are also necessary policies, along with the income protection and the public pension included in social protections for the aged. Therefore I will examine the degree of sufficiency of Japanese social protections for the aged, comparing public pensions and other social protection policies with minimum stand­ards.

This paper examines Kazuo Okouchi’s interpretation of Max Weber, focusing on the relation between Okouchi and Neo-Kantianism. There are two points to note in this interpretation of Weber.Firstly, Okouchi believed that Weber inherited Neo-Kantianism, which maintained a distinction between being and oughtness. Based on this thought, Okouchi criticized Weber’s concept of Wertfreiheit, which contains the assertion that empirical sciences cannot tell people what they ought to do.Secondly, Okouchi understood that Weber allowed, and in fact called for, people to make value judgments outside of the sciences. Okouchi paid high regard to this aspect of Weber’s thinking.The analysis aims to clarify the relationship between the above-mentioned points and Okouchi-riron （Okouchi’s theory）, and thereby to reinterpret Okouchi, taking his philosophical aspects into consideration.

To cope with an increasingly serious aging problem, the Chinese government has introduced private and foreign investors’ participation in the development of elderly social welfare services and now encourages the effective use of marketing services. This paper focuses on the marketization of welfare in China, seeking to understand the development of the market for elderly care and to explore the characteristics of the marketization of welfare. The results of the investigation show that the trend toward marketization in China’s welfare has developed from “Family to Market”, and that private providers include a high proportion of elderly care providers, so that marketization has advanced through “privatization”. In addition, the market features of selection, price and competition are supplied in China’s welfare market, but administrative regulation and supervision are weak. Therefore, this paper argues that the current state of the welfare market in China is nearly that of a free market. However, this situation results in serious problems, such as unequal competition among service providers, and disparities in service usage due to high costs.

Cash for care schemes have been introduced with the development of the marketization of care in many developed countries, with important implications for the regulation of care work. In both Korea and Japan, however, cash benefits have not developed into a major benefit option with the rise of marketization because of the introduction of long-term care insurance systems. In spite of this similarity, there are major differences between Korea and Japan with regard to payments for care work undertaken by family members. This article compares Korea and Japan by focusing on their cash for care schemes, especially payments for care provided by family members. Firstly, by referring to previous studies, the article addresses analytical frames regarding cash for care schemes as a form of regulation of care work under marketization. Secondly, based on field work conducted in Korea in 2016, a comparative analysis is conducted on institutional settings, performance, and issues regarding payment for care work handled by family members under long-term care insurance. Lastly, the article discusses similarities and differences in the regulation of care work between Korea and Japan, and the resulting implications for international discussion on the regulation of care work under marketization.

This paper examines the trend in public attitudes towards high-benefit/high-cost practices in social benefits. From the results of a four-time repeated cross-sectional survey on support for social benefits, the trend of increasing support for a high-benefit/high-cost social welfare system （bigger “welfare state” orientation） is verified through the 2000s. However, we find a reversal trend in the 2015 survey. The result is robustly confirmed when applying post-stratification weights, which adjust the proportions of sex and age to correspond to those in national censuses.In addition, logistic regression analysis shows that the effects of social economic status on support for the high benefit system was weaker in 2015 than in 2000. In particular, the effect of age is not statistically significant in the 2015 survey, which is a result contrary to a positive and linear association with the 2000 survey data. These results are reconfirmed by a birth cohort analysis with the four data periods. In this analysis, we find that while basic trends in public attitudes are similar between each age and birth cohort, there are gaps in average and variance in the surveys. Most importantly, the relative degree of support for the high-benefit/high-cost system from the younger cohort and age group was stronger in 2015 than in 2000.