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Single Mothers and Welfare Restructuring in Japan: Gender and Class Dimensions of Income and Employment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Fujiwara Chisa
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While Weathers highlights structural issues facing working women more generally in Japan, Chisa Fujiwara focuses specifically on the plight of single mothers. Fujiwara analyzes the intersections between gender and class in Japan, especially with regard to factors inhibiting single mothers from achieving self-sufficiency. The author aptly notes that in most studies of Japanese society, poverty and social class receive little to no attention. This oversight may result from assumptions that Japan is an affluent, homogeneous nation with a large comfortable middle class and no poverty. Fujiwara explains that 90% of the Japanese population self-identifies with this “middle class myth.” However, she demonstrates that the everyday realities of many individuals, including single mothers, present a challenge to this constructed notion. Along with ethnic and racial diversity, Japan features a far greater spectrum of socio-economic class differences than is often recognized.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 10 , Special Issue S4: Course Reader No. 4. Women and Japan's Political Economy , January 2012 , pp. 87 - 112
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Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2012

References

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