Social Care in Crisis: Gender, Demography, and Welfare State Restructuring in Japan

Abstract

This article looks at welfare state restructuring in Japan in the 1990s from the perspective of changes in gender relations and demography. Contrary to the retrenchment pressures exerted by economic and political globalization that figured predominantly in the 1980s, changes in gender relations and demographic patterns have been stimulating the Japanese welfare state in an expansionary direction, as witnessed by more active roles taken by the state in providing social care and promoting family–work reconciliation. Welfare state restructuring in Japan in the 1990s is interesting not only because of its juncture with a broader regime shift characterized by the collapse of the old‐style conservative politics dominated by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the reconfiguration of Japan's political economy but also because it underlines a new fluidity in bureaucratic policy‐making processes as a result of an increasing politicization of social policy issues and the entry of new participants (such as women's groups) in the policy debate. Moreover, it helps us bring into sharper focus the relationships between gender and welfare state restructuring and to address the question of how changes in gender relations are stimulating welfare state responses.

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