ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

This study examines the tendency of women’s poverty and structural factors in cases of single parent households in Japan. For the purpose of the study, the following steps were taken. First, characteristics and conditions of women’s poverty in Japan were examined. Second, characteristics and problems of family, labor market, welfare policy were analyzed as structural factors explaining women’s poverty. In Japan as an economically well-developed country, poverty was not considered as a manifest problem. In that situation women’s poverty was regarded as a problem of ‘exceptional minority’. Identifying the increase in female-headed households and the rate they occupy among the poor as a criterion of feminization of poverty, it could be said that women’s poverty in Japan is on the rise as the Western European societies. Female single parent households in poverty were found to be on the rise in Japan compared to their male counterparts. In Japan, there are also a gender division of labor within family, a gender discrimination in the labor market as well as a gender blind welfare policy, i.e., well-known conditions that lead to the feminization of poverty. This study examines the tendency of women’s poverty and structural factors in cases of single parent households in Japan. For the purpose of the study, the following steps were taken. First, characteristics and conditions of women’s poverty in Japan were examined. Second, characteristics and problems of family, labor market, welfare policy were analyzed as structural factors explaining women’s poverty. In Japan as an economically well-developed country, poverty was not considered as a manifest problem. In that situation women’s poverty was regarded as a problem of ‘exceptional minority’. Identifying the increase in female-headed households and the rate they occupy among the poor as a criterion of feminization of poverty, it could be said that women’s poverty in Japan is on the rise as the Western European societies. Female single parent households in poverty were found to be on the rise in Japan compared to their male counterparts. In Japan, there are also a gender division of labor within family, a gender discrimination in the labor market as well as a gender blind welfare policy, i.e., well-known conditions that lead to the feminization of poverty.

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