Poor Children and Poor Women in Japan

Poor Children and Poor Women in Japan

The poverty rate of Japanese children was about 10% in 1985.  But it rose to more than 15% in 2009.

The poverty rate of single-parent households has been over 50% in Japan in these decades.

So, in Japan the chain of poverty over generations has become a big issue.  Especially school social workers in Japan are posed difficult tasks to in handling those poor children.

In Japan traditionally children have been treated well by their parents no matter how poor their families are.  But as the gap between the poor and the rich has been widened through the 15-year-long deflation in Japan, many children in poor families have come to experience real poverty.

Young Japanese women also face grave poverty.  Women in their 20s or 30s who live alone show a poverty rate of more than 30%.  It is fairly higher than the poverty rate of men in the same conditions.

The rate of women who work under contracts of irregular employment is around 50% for those at their 30s and 60% at their 40s.  Moreover, the percentage of unmarried women between 25 and 29 years old is 50%, and for those between 30 and 34 years old the rate is about 35%.  These figures are 20% higher compared with situations observed 20 years ago.

So, even in Japan, young children and single women are suffering grave poverty while the gap between the poor and the rich has been expanding in the Japanese society through deflation.  Deflation is especially advantageous for rich people.  They can purchase various assets at lower costs.  They can even monopolize business in certain fields.  Their profits from business operation are increasing.  For example Japanese companies based on a capital of more than $10 million have accumulated internal reserves of total $2.5 trillion.  

Japanese businesses are thriving but Japanese children and women are not.

APPENDIX.　Gini Coefficients of G20

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-05-19-poverty-how-the-other-half-live/#.UlOix1BSiSo

The gap between the poor and the rich in Japan is in the middle among G20 countries as the above Gini graph shows.

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