格差社会と不安定雇用

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The Japanese economy, after more than a decade of depression, is once again growing slightly, although income inequality and relative poverty among the working-age population in Japan have risen to levels above the OECD average. The Gini coefficient measure has risen significantly since the mid 1980s, and the rate of relative poverty in Japan is now one of the highest in the OECD countries. The government says that the aging population, more than anything else, has caused income gaps, and that it is all pretense. But aging alone does not account for the sweeping changes since 1998, the year after the Asian Financial Crisis occured. Widening Economic Gap is essentially explained by labour market dualism. Even as many companies abandoned lifetime employment, laid off regular workers and began tying promotions to performance, and the government lifted most restrictions against hiring temporary workers. These workers are the growing underclass of Japanese, with permanently lower wages, few benefits and little chance of becoming full-time employees. Neo liberalism's policies have focused on deregulation, privatization, spending cuts and tax breaks for the rich. They have helped lift the Japanese economy, but at a social cost that low-income households has been sustained. Major Critics say that Neo liberalism's policies harshly sort people into "winners" and "losers", and describe Japan as a "society of widening disparities". But employees income gaps in Japan does not mean to transform "all-middle class society" into a society marked by a widening disparity between winners and losers. In recent years, not only low-income households but also high-income households were reduced to poverty. There is no winners among employees. Therefore, the main factor appears to be increasing downward dualism in the labour market. The proportion of non-regular workers has risen from 20% of employees a decade ago to over 30%. Part-time workers earn on average only 40% as much per hour as regular workers. Especially, temporary workers has remained single working parents or single households. Temporary workers are too poor to get married in Japan. And their household income tends not to be caught easily by the Statistics. So the increasing proportion of non-regular workers, who are paid significantly less than regular workers, looks like the rate of the ageing of the workforce or the rate of the subdivision of households in the Household Income and Expenditure Statistics.
大妻女子大学の論文

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佐藤洋一
大妻女子大学

格差社会と不安定雇用

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