The Noto Peninsula Earthquake that struck the northern part of Ishikawa prefecture in March 2007 inflicted enormous damage in a depopulated area with an extremely elderly population. Based on periodic interviews with the disaster victims conducted by the life, residence and welfare research teams of Kanazawa University's Noto Peninsula Earthquake Research Committee, this study discusses changes in the victims' circumstances from the time of the earthquake to the present. In the affected areas, there have been occurrences or intensifications of a wide variety of livelihood problems (medical, welfare, employment, income and residence) to which social security programs should be applied. However, these problems have not been resolved even in the current situation in which the victims have already returned to live in their own residences and special public housing facilities. Surveying these facts, the study examines the significance of introducing the social science-based perspective of guaranteeing disaster victims' livelihoods and the significance of developing social security programs during peacetime. Lastly, the study presents lessons and challenges for the reconstruction of earthquake-hit areas, such as Noto Peninsula and Tohoku district, which are burdened with problems of depopulation and extremely elderly populations.

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The fatalities caused by the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake number approximately 14,000, with more than 90 % caused by drowning by tsunami. Breaking down the age-specific distribution of total fatalities, approximately 77 % of the deceased were over 50 years old, approximately 65 % were over 60, and so on (these rate are 2-3 times higher than usually observed rates). This composition ratio of total fatalities is very similar in all three of the afflicted prefectures. Furthermore, this similarity in ratios is found not only at the prefecture level but also in most municipal areas, despite geographic differences that produced different overall fatality rates among the disasterstricken municipalities. Otherwise, the age-specific percent distribution of inhabitants living in high-aging regions researched in 2008 has strong similarities to the age-specific ratios of fatalities. This strong affinity has been verified by linear regression analysis (in which we formulate a regression equation and input the value of age-specific ratios obtained from the national census). It could be that the distribution of fatalities reflects the situations of regions with aging populations.

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Many oral history projects have been organized since the mid-1990s. Historians who trained to be specialists in oral history have interviewed various public figures, and the published results have become part of Japan's national heritage. Several books and reports on labor history have also been published as a part of the oral history projects. Interviews of ordinary people have achieved many results as oral records, reports, and nonfictional accounts, but in order that they be recognized as legitimate historical research it is important to examine the methods used by oral history projects conducted since the 1990s to compile histories about ordinary people. This special feature is based on the speeches and discussions in the session organized by Labor History Group at the 122nd General Meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Policy.

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This paper considers oral history as a method, and examines the possibility that the use of oral history might produce new results in labour history research. Oral history has attracted attention as a new technique in not only the history of labour but in general historical research and institutional research. There has been criticism of historical research over-reliant on written documents, and the role of oral statement data has been reappraised. This is the reason why oral history has recently begun to attract attention. However, since oral documents contrast with written documents, the range of considerations is limited. In this paper, oral history has been positioned within the entirety of social research theory, including quantitative investigation, and the quality and quantity of acquisition information in various investigations are examined. It is found that oral histories prompt researchers to observe the contextual information in data, and to expand the analytic potential of various data.

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This paper clarifies the contribution to labor study of the oral history method by examining the Hope Project research on the Kamaishi Iron and Steel Works. By conducting oral interviews with an engineer, an HR manager, and a union leader, we were able to concretely understand the functioning of the management system in the workshop, the process of technological development, the restructuring process, the corporate culture, and the mindset of the employees involved. In addition, there was a competition mechanism between Kamaishi and other works in Nippon Steel Corporation which, in the era of the restructuring, influenced the Kamaishi employees who wanted the plant to remain in operation. The close relations of the employees with the local community in Kamaishi intensified the attachment of the employees to the plant. Such awareness and behavior affected the restructuring process of the postwar Kamaishi Works. From the above-mentioned results of research, I pointed out that oral interviews are important to elucidating the background factors of an organization and its system, and, through such inductive analysis, the interviews were able to widen the possibilities for clarifying the dynamism of the organization.

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This Special Issue consists of three articles based on Minimum Income Standard (MIS) research in Japan. The authors are members of the MIS-Japan research team. The MIS approach has recently been developed in United Kingdom to define what level of income is necessary to provide a minimum acceptable standard of living. It brings together two approaches to setting budget standards: the "consensual" negotiation of budgets by panels of ordinary people, and budgets based on research evidence and expert judgments. In this introduction, we explain why we decided to conduct MIS research in Japan, and indicate the significance of the minimum standard of living in reconstructing the Japanese welfare system.

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Since the 1990s, the measuring of minimum living costs has gained renewed interest among researchers outside Japan. Recently, in Japan as well, there have been various research projects on minimum living costs. In this situation, we conducted an MIS survey which emphasizes the participation of ordinary people and the participants' consensus. In this paper, we compare MIS to other research methods and forms of social assistance, and find that the MIS rates slightly higher. These results reflect differences in the methods of measuring minimum living costs. The most distinctive feature of the MIS method is that it draws out a kind of "common sense" by leaving the decision on what constitutes a "minimum" to ordinary people. Our MIS survey has only just begun. We need further research to investigate the contents and means of determining minimum living costs.

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The objective of this paper is to investigate the validity of MIS (Minimum Income Standard) surveys in Japan. The MIS survey, which was originally developed by a research group at Loughborough University in the UK, is a method utilizing focus group interviews to define minimum acceptable living costs through 4-stage discussions conducted by ordinary people with checks by experts. We conducted a MIS survey in Mitaka City in Tokyo from 2010 to 2011. The targeted groups of this survey were working-age single men, working-age single women, and children. The cost of bringing up children was discussed by adults raising children. The monthly minimum living cost was set at 193,810 yen for a single man and 183,235 yen for a single woman. The monthly cost of raising children was 42,000 yen for a 5-year old child, 34,000 yen for a 5^<th> grader in elementary school, and 58,000 yen for a 3rd grader in junior high school. The amount of discretionary expenses (e. g., leisure costs, payments for self-development programs) determined by the MIS was more compressed than that extracted from the household expenditure survey. These results indicated that the MIS survey is a valid method for measuring minimum living costs in Japan.

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This paper compares minimum income standards (MIS) between Japan and the UK, with a view to understanding the special characteristics of Japan's MIS. Firstly, we aim to clarify the standard and contents of the minimum cost of living agreed upon by the general public in Japan, through comparing the MIS budgets for single working-age adults in Japan and the UK. Secondly, we examine the distance between the levels of social assistance and minimum wages and MIS, and identify differences in that distance between the two countries. Our findings are as follows. (1) There is no significant gap in the minimum standard of living agreed upon among the general public in Japan and the UK. (2) The MIS budget in 2010 comes out at very similar levels for both countries. (3) Social assistance levels and minimum wage rates fall far short of levels that guarantee the MIS in both countries. However, Japan may be facing even greater challenges than the UK in ensuring the livelihood security of low wage workers. While the minimum income threshold is similar in both countries, the UK's attempts to utilize MIS evidence have important implications for Japan.

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Social policies related to single mothers have shifted from emphasizing income security through the child-rearing allowance to emphasizing financial independence through work. The policy was changed to reduce recipient's allowance after five years because it was understood as serving to provide assistance during the abrupt changes that follow divorce and other events. In order to verify whether the incomes of single mothers increased in during the five-year interval, this paper examines income change and occupational mobility among single mothers using the data from a local government regarding eligible recipients of the child-rearing allowance. Our analyses show that the income distribution of eligible recipients is skewed to the left, with 82 percent not reaching the level of the minimum living standard under public assistance. The income level changed very little among 50 to 60 percent of households, and reproduction at the lowest income level has increased in recent years. Those whose incomes increased in five years are few, and the proportion of people who experienced a reduction in income was highest among the low-income group. The policy to reduce or eliminate the child-rearing allowance based simply on the number of years the allowance has been received is likely to increase the reproduction of poverty and should be reassessed.

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Assistance for women who work while raising children is a major issue related to measures of low fertility and efforts to achieve a Gender-Equal Society. This includes support by parents for child-raising couples as well as support in the form of assistance by government and firms. In this paper, the effects of mothers of parenting couples on women's employment are analyzed. In this analysis, mothers living near child-raising children are distinguished from those living together with child-raising children, and a multi-logistic regression is used to determine the effects on regular and non-regular work in comparison with full-time housewives. The results showed that having a child who is less than six years old decreases the probability of women's employment. However, the probability for women to be employed as regular workers reaches almost the same level for women who have children under six years old if they are living in proximity to their mothers. Conversely, living with their mothers is not significantly related to women's employment. In conclusion, with regard to women's employment, living in proximity to mothers is more important than living together.

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This paper focuses on comparing livelihood security systems for the unemployed in Germany and Japan from the standpoint of income security. Germany was chosen because the structure of its unemployment security system shares many common features with that of Japan. There is already much international comparative research on unemployment security, but most has been limited to comparing unemployment benefit amounts and periods. Nevertheless, these are not the only important aspects of unemployment income security; also important is whether there are any reductions or exemptions to taxes paid while employed and to social welfare insurance. This paper examined the OECD's replacement rate problem, and analyzed the income security of unemployed persons both subject to and not subject to unemployment insurance. As a result, in Japan's case it was shown that even when unemployment insurance is applied for, unemployed persons in their 40's see reductions in the amounts they receive due to taxes and social welfare insurance premiums; in other words, they run the risk of having to use their savings. It was clear that Japan's unemployment security system was at an even lower standard than Germany's, internationally considered to be the lowest level.

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A major characteristic of historical research on modern social work is the emphasis on discourse analysis under the assumption that discourses on social work are the direct cause of social work development in Japan. This study examines the historical significance of the establishment of the Osaka Prefectural Homen-Iin (Elberfelder) System, taking the perspective that the analysis of social work itself is more significant than discourse analysis. This study focuses on social work implemented by Osaka Prefectural Police prior to the creation of the Osaka Prefectural Homen-Iin System, and conducts a comparative analysis of these two approaches to social work. Police social work on one hand was limited because of its inability to deal with various causes of poverty. For example, under this scheme, the recipient corporations of social work services were forced to save and deposit a standard amount of money. However, the Osaka Prefectural Homen-Iin System could overcome such limitations. If police social work can be characterized by its bureaucratic, uniform, and enforcing controls, the Osaka Prefectural system may be characterized as a new type of system that is "flexible, emotional, and individualistic."

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