Suchergebnisse

This article aims to analyze the distinctive features of policy narratives by focusing on the formulation of the center of comprehensive support for child-rearing generations in Japan. There have been anticipated effects of the decline in the fertility rate and decreasing population, and the issues surrounding parenting and childcare have been re-discovered as a high priority public policy agenda. In this connection, multi-layered policy narratives have been analyzed with special attention paid to the Finnish system with its consistent support from pregnancy to preschool age. It will discuss how policy narratives have been selective in their focus on specific factors while skipping others when formulating a comprehensive system for parenting and childcare in Japan.

The crisis and dissonance in a society under globalisation tend to be associated with suspicion against the welfare state. This article however attempts to argue for the crucial role of the welfare state in the formation of the politics of welfare that shapes a basic framework for a policy response to changes in the welfare society. The discussion sets out by illustrating the impacts of globalisation in contemporary Japan with special reference to the change in family and working practices. It goes on to analyse the current policy debates regarding socialisation of care in which ideological conflicts are manifested. Despite growing vulnerability of the family in Japan's ageing society, informal care-giving work tends to be undervalued and the stigma attached to the welfare state regarding elderly care and public assistance is persistent. It will be discussed how the long-run welfare reforms, as efforts of policy change, can be made sense of in Japan for escaping from a vicious circle of crisis and dissonance.

Contemporary Asian society is marked by social processes associated with the loss of stable economic growth and high employment; family structures capable of caring for family members in need; and governmental economic and political competence. Against this backdrop, this volume offers a timely review of these critical issues, offering an introduction of the concepts and theoretical approaches of risk and risk and governance that places them within the context of Asian societies.