This is a record of the discussion that took place during the plenary session of 145th Biannual Conference of JASPS titled “Labor and Social Policy during the Coronavirus Pandemic : What is the policy to support workers’ lives ?”. After stating the purpose of the common theme, the relationship among the four papers are explained. Subsequently, the challenges of social policy after the coronavirus disaster, as revealed by the four papers, are discussed from the perspective of care and community.

Working hours in Japan considerably fluctuated during the COVID-19 pandemic. From April to May 2020, the working hours substantially decreased, especially among women with children, nonregular employees, certain industries, and regions, such as the Tokyo metropolitan area. The decline in overtime hours continued during the pandemic, and it was estimated that regular employees worked fewer hours. Regarding changes in monthly income, the trend was consistent with that of working hours in that there was a large decrease during April-May 2020. As for changes in the annual income, a certain percentage of middle-income earners saw a decrease in the annual income in 2020 compared with 2019. This decline in the annual income may have resulted from a decrease in the number of hours worked and reduction in bonus payments. The reduction in bonus payments during the pandemic may have led to a decline in the annual income for those who had received bonus payments before the pandemic, such as regular employees and middle-income earners. It is suggested that employment adjustments by firms through working hours and bonus payments can affect the income and livelihood of employed workers.

Supporting the “ice age of employment” generation has been an employment policy issue since 2018. As a countermeasure against unemployment, after the collapse of the asset-inflated bubble economy in the mid-1990s, efforts were made to expand the labor market for non-regular workers. Non-regular employment among young people, especially among those in the “ice age of employment” generation, is becoming more common, with their numbers increasing and revealing their poverty. In the 1980s, the main group of non-regular workers with fixed-term contracts were married middle-aged and older women who worked part-time. Since then, non-regular employment has consistently expanded ; by the 2000s, half of all female employment were non-regular. The FY2020 “Survey of Single Women with Non-Regular Employment” revealed that half of the single women working non-regular jobs earned less than two million yen per year. Even with such small incomes, these women are going to maintain their own households, either by themselves, or with their parents or other persons living with them. They are also likely to receive smaller pensions in old age, and it seems difficult for them to maintain their livelihoods unless they continued working in their old age. However, many single women remain in informal jobs owing to concerns about full-time working conditions and skill formation. The way these women work poses a new challenge : what can social policies do to help unmarried workers form a life of stable work and prospects ?

The current labor movement in the United States is moving toward a social system that integrates “labor policy” and “welfare policy” even before the Covid-19 crisis. This results in a social system that relies on the collective transactional relationships between institutions presented by Commons （1934） and on the interinstitutional power relationships by coordinating interests in Dunlop （1958）. Along with the emergence of local communities in addition to traditional actors in the industrial relations system of labor unions, governments, and enterprises, new institutions such as the Alphabet Workers’ Union, which encompasses prime contractor-subcontractor relations, are emerging. This situation is different from Japan, which came to regard “labor policy” as superior to the welfare state or “welfare policy.” This paper attempts to structurally reconsider these changes in the United States within the context of inter-institutional transactional relationships.

We propose a system design to bring Japan’s social insurance system closer to universalism. During the pandemic of the covid-19, Japan conducted an emergency and temporary expansion of its livelihood security system on a large scale, a kind of a social experiment in universalizing the system. Based on this experience, we will develop measures to bring the unemployment insurance system and health insurance system closer to universalism. The goal is not only to extend employee insurance coverage to short-time non-regular workers, but also to establish a system that would cover employment-like self-employment and self-employment. A difficult issue in doing so is that the source of income for leving insurance contributions differs between employed workers and self-employed workers. To address this issue, we proposed a method in which premiums are preferentially levied on employment income and also on business income before deduction of necessary expenses. We proposed a system in which sickness benefits are transferred from health insurance to employment insurance, and employment insurance can provide sickness benefits to self-employed workers and others as income stabilization insurance for workers. We also proposed that the health insurance system be gradually integrated into the prefectural national health insurance system, and that employed workers and self-employed workers be enrolled in the same health insurance system, while the employer’s obligation to pay social insurance contributions be retained.

Considering that parental poverty is often the cause of child poverty, measures such as financial support and employment support for parents are extremely important. Although the 2019 General Principles of Policy on Child Poverty includes the indices of economy and parental employment, those indices are only outcome indices and there are no indices for activity and output. Therefore, it is difficult to evaluate the implementation status and the effect of related measures.

In this study, we examined the current economic indices for child poverty alleviation and attempted to evaluate the existing poverty alleviation measures. When proposing the new evaluation indices, we built a framework which included the process from the application to the use of the system while referring to the logic model. In addition, focusing on the “employment and independence support project for single-parent families”, we suggested economic evaluation indices and investigated the effectiveness of the project.

In recent years, the problem of young carers has come to the fore. The actual situation of young carers is becoming clear through the investigation conducted by the government and academic researchers in Japan.

Since the actual situation is being elucidated, the next step is to discuss whether the existing support system can correspond to the needs of young carers. This is essential in discussing the solution to young carers’ problems. However, most existing studies focus on grasping the actual situation.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the limitations of the existing welfare policy and service system on the corresponding young carers’ problem. Specifically, firstly, we examined the definition of young carers, which has no legal description.

Secondly, we analyzed the characteristics and the needs of young carers who were categorized into three types by using actual condition surveys.

Based on the above analysis, the support system was discussed from two perspectives. ⑴ enhance support for clients who have needs, ⑵ support for young carers.

This study aimed to explore a unique aspect of the American Welfare State by focusing on the social policy for veterans throughout American history. When the Revolutionary War began the federal government established a national military pension. The post-civil war era, when the federal government began to provide pensions for elderly ex-soldiers, was a watershed moment in the development of the veterans’ welfare system. Furthermore, since the passage of the G. I. Bill of Rights, all veterans became entitled to substantial social benefits.

Most researchers have focused on the role of the federal government. Meanwhile, the state and local governments have provided veterans and widows with several original benefits, such as soldiers’ relief, educational assistance, soldiers’ bonuses, home loans, assistance in filing claims for federal veterans’ benefits, and medical aid. Since World War I, many state and local governments have granted veterans exemptions from income tax, property tax, business license, and poll tax. This research focuses on the veterans’ benefits that state and local governments have provided to clarify the evolution of veterans’ benefits in which federal, state, and local governments have complemented each other since World War I.