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Paper short abstract

This paper examines the visibility and invisibility of child poverty in contemporary Japan from the perspective of children themselves, focusing on two junior high school students from the author's participant observation in child poverty support activities in Sendai City.

Paper long abstract

This paper will explore child poverty in contemporary Japan, from the perspective of children themselves. In prior research, it has been said that child poverty in Japan is invisible. However, it is often unclear whose perspective is being considered when exploring the visibility of child poverty. This paper starts from children themselves, before examining how child poverty in contemporary Japan is made invisible or visible from other perspectives, such as those of policies and systems, non-participants, and supporters.

I will focus on the case of two junior high school students from my participant observation in child poverty support activities provided by a non-profit organisation in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture. The first case is a child who, at first glance, does not appear to be facing poverty, but has family troubles and financial problems in choosing a career path. Although he joins in club activities and attends cram school, he has only been able to do these activities with significant welfare support. His own vulnerability has not been resolved. The second case is a child who is spatially made invisible, having experienced temporary protection and attended alternative classroom in his school due to family problems and non-attendance. He is connected to multiple support structures, but those are invisible to each other. This has made his situation invisible. The two cases reveal that problems emerge in private rather than public spaces, that welfare support can paradoxically make poverty invisible, and that children focus on their relationships with those around them more than economic rationality.

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Paper short abstract

Japanese day labourers used to look for work in street labour markets called yoseba. Now the yoseba are in decline, but day labouring thrives through online recruitment sites. It is far more convenient, but the loss of a physical gathering place destroys any possibility of solidarity among workers.

Paper long abstract

Day labouring is the most precarious of all the various forms of non-permanent labour. Traditionally they have gathered in street labour day labour markets called yoseba. In the epilogue of my book, Men of Uncertainty (SUNY Press, 2001), I described how the yoseba were gradually losing their function, although the trend in the Japanese economy was moving steadily away from “lifetime employment” and towards various forms of insecure labour. That trend has now continued to the point where insecure labour broadly defined now makes up about 40% of the workforce, while the yoseba have turned into giant low-budget social housing centres, populated mainly by elderly men living on welfare, the bars and gambling dens largely replaced by day care centres and old folks’ clubs. But day labourers have not disappeared from the Japanese labour market. They have deserted the yoseba in favour of online gig economy employment agencies which match workers with employers much like an online dating site. With no real-world gathering place, day labourers have become almost invisible, which may account for the dearth of scholarship on the subject. Legislation in 2012 attempted to outlaw supotto haken (“spot dispatch personnel”, one of the euphemisms for digital day labour), but there are various exceptions, and a range of illegal black-economy operators ensuring that the practice survives. This presentation will discuss the phenomenon of digital day labourers and introduce my recent ethnographic work on them. The digital age has made day labouring more convenient for both employers and workers, but the loss of the physical gathering place has atomized the day labouring population, destroying the possibility of solidarity and organization which used to attract left-wing activists to the yoseba.

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Based on participant observation and interviews, this paper argues that hostess work at a nightclub in London is a precarious but temporary stepping-stone and an opportunity to cope with uncertain life in the UK for young, single Japanese women.

Paper long abstract

This paper argues that hostess work at a nightclub in London is a precarious stepping stone and a tool to cope with uncertain life in the UK for young, single Japanese women. Some single Japanese women work as hostesses overseas in places such as London, Hawaii, New York, Australia and South Asian countries. They sell interaction, intimacy, and femininity to Japanese businessmen, creating a little piece of Japan abroad. Some are university educated and some are not, and they have either working holiday visas or student visas. I have conducted preliminary fieldwork in London, and found that although these women’s life stories show a variety of reasons and motivations to go abroad and work as a hostess, they seem to perceive a hostess job as a precarious but temporary stepping-stone to the next career, unlike some professional hostesses in Tokyo. Under the covid pandemic, this precarious hostess work has become more precarious because of having only a few customers. However, through working as a hostess and observing club systems, it is clear that the precarity of this work does not suddenly appear due to covid. This precarious status comes from a variety of reasons: their visa status, their educational background and language ability, the typical nature of hostess work such as negotiating with rude customers, ways of consuming alcohol, being replaceable and hence accepting lower wages, and being unable to say ‘it’s illegal’ to some parts of their jobs etc. However, fast money, easy work without using English and a feeling of ‘having a job’ seem to make them a little at ease. How, then, do they use hostess work as a stepping-stone for their career? How do they justify their feminine and intimate labour as hostesses for the Japanese men while simultaneously challenging themselves in new overseas environments and seeking better career opportunities for the future? How do they reconcile new experiences abroad with traditional, gendered labour? I will discuss these questions through my ethnographic and interview data collected in London.