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- Convenor:
-
Karen Shire
(University Duisburg-Essen)
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- Stream:
- Economics, Business and Political Economy
- Location:
- Torre B, Piso 3, T11
- Sessions:
- Saturday 2 September, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
The panel focus is the social consequences of market-oriented structural reforms the social protection system: covering the agricultural protection system guaranteeing income and livelihoods in rural Japan, the long-term care system, and the male breadwinner centered corporate welfare system.
Long Abstract:
The panel aims to assess two decades of structural reforms to initiate a stronger market mix in social welfare within three main institutions of the Japanese social protection system - agricultural protection, familial care for the elderly and the male breadwinner orientation of corporate welfare. The three papers, each based on original empirical research, focus on the impact of liberal reforms on these three central social institutions. The study of village institutions questions whether the declining role of JA has meant a decline in village institutions overall in governing market-based reforms. The study of elderly care explores the positive role played by paid market services for enhancing the autonomy of elderly in need of care. Finally, a study of men in non-regular work analyzes the extent to which this is a choice and the consequences thereof for men's family lives. The research in these papers show that there is little evidence of fundamental displacement of the village, the family or the employment system in Japan's social protection system, but fundamental transformations within each of these institutions, with the result being a new mix of market-based protections. Bringing these papers together in one panel will enable the authors to explore differences in the market-based transformations across these institutions. We expect that the weight of market-based protections against social risks has become most significant in the employment system, while communities and cooperatives at the local level play a stronger role in village and family transformations. The panel will be organized to maximize discussion time to allow the authors to collectively consider the links between these institutions and their impact for sustaining relative social integration and security in Japan.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Saturday 2 September, 2017, -Hanno Jentzsch (Leiden University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper investigates the role of social ties and norms on the village level ("village institutions") as resources for local actors in Japan's rural and semi-rural peripheries to alleviate the repercussions of structural reforms in the agricultural sector.
Paper long abstract:
This paper investigates the role of village institutions as resources for local actors in Japan's rural and semi-rural peripheries to alleviate the repercussions of structural reforms in the agricultural sector. Village institutions include social network ties within and between hamlets, local co-ops and local governments, as well as norms and rules governing everyday cooperation and natural resource management.
For much of the postwar era, extensive agricultural support and protection served as a "functional equivalent" (Estevez-Abe 2008) to rural welfare provision. Yet, a gradual shift toward less comprehensive support and the promotion of more "efficient" (corporate) farming has come to challenge this role. The growing emphasis on entrepreneurial agriculture puts pressure on aging smallholders especially in remote areas; and on Nokyo, the powerful organization of agricultural cooperatives. Based on extensive field research in several rural and semi-rural communities, this paper argues that village institutions provide the foundation for crafting defensive local responses to the changing agricultural support and protection regime. For the local branches of Nokyo, being involved in such local responses is vitally important. Their postwar position as "carriers" of village institutions is challenged not only in the realm of agricultural politics, but also by a number of accompanying institutional shifts. The ongoing reduction in the number of Nokyo branches has been disrupting the once tight territorial, social, and political bonds between villages and local co-ops, and fiscal restructuring and municipal mergers pushed once autonomous villages to the peripheries of larger, more heterogeneous, and less socially coherent municipalities. As rural livelihoods increasingly depend on local initiative and entrepreneurship, reviving and reinterpreting village institutions remains crucial. If and to what extent "incumbent" local actors like Nokyo can take the lead in such processes shapes the pace and direction of institutional change in Japan's rural welfare state.
Vitali Heidt (University of Duisburg-Essen)
Paper short abstract:
This paper argues that elderly care in Japan has shifted the role of the family and, additionally, is a facilitator for regional economic and structural development by itself.
Paper long abstract:
As a superannuated society, Japan has to bear the consequences of aging. Besides a tight fiscal situation, the vast aging creates concerns on several other levels: the demographic outlook, the decline of regional economy, and the emergence of social risks through structural reforms. Structural reforms of the social security system at the beginning of the century set the cornerstone for institutional change of the family and the welfare creation within the Japanese society. By introducing the long-term care insurance, a variety of market services emerged in order to increase the aging populations' autonomy and lower the burden on families by emphasizing the reliance on formal care.
This paper argues that elderly care in Japan has shifted the role of the family and, additionally, is a facilitator for regional economic and structural development by itself. Furthermore, the structural reforms of the social security system were continued under the Abe administration in that very same aspect. They further increased the role of regional markets and local communities. The Japanese welfare state forms a dichotomous relationship between rural and urban regions, created through elderly care markets by the availability of and accessibility to welfare institutions. Elderly care markets surfaced as a source of regional vitalization, drawing in enormous financial contributions by the national and local governments and establishing infrastructure and institutional support. The social consequences of elderly care markets lie, besides achieving an increased autonomy of the elderly and improvements of the seniors' quality of life, in the creation of community and marketization of elderly care. As the national government continues to nurture local bottom-up approaches to elderly care needs while keeping the control of regulations and spending, regionally heterogeneous elderly care markets continue to develop.