If poverty could speak – poverty as Japan today experiences it – it might say something like this:
“Since her divorce mother has worked very hard to raise me. But prices are rising and there’s never enough food on the table. So I go to school without breakfast. On days when there’s no school I skip lunch too. Showers are once a week. My hair is filthy. I never touch it. If I do it’ll show. Now that I’ve started junior high school I want to go on school trips and take part in after-school activities, but it all costs money; it’s very hard.” (1st year junior high school)
Or this:
“There are four of us: me, my mother and my grandparents. Mother has a disability and hasn’t been able to work since I was 11. She was in hospital for a long time, and I was nurse and caregiver. From junior high school on I hardly went to school at all. I worked part-time. I barely managed to graduate from senior high school. I chose nursing school partly to learn to be a nurse to my mother, partly because tuition isn’t so expensive. Our main income is mother’s disability benefits plus my grandparents’ pensions. There were times when I was working four part-time jobs at once. Tuition at nursing school may be cheap but the uniform isn’t and neither are the textbooks. My friends at school think I’m not really interested in my studies, but the truth is I have no time to study. It’s wearing me down.” (2nd year nursing school)
Poverty persists – reduced in scope and blunted in impact by national wealth and technological empowerment, yet still with us as the 21st century nears the end of its first quarter. The magazine Tsuhan Seikatsu (Sept-Oct), primarily a mail-order catalogue, joins the NPO Asnova in the latter’s campaign, ongoing since 2016, to raise funds for economically distressed households with school-age children. Recipient households, as of 2023, numbered 13,775.
A survey Asnova conducted that year drew some 6,000 responses, from which Tsuhan Seikatsu extracts comments – all, as it happens, from girls, ranging in age from 10 to late adolescence. It seems best to just let them speak for themselves.
“My mother works hard so I can participate in basketball. My shoes are tight and falling apart – I want her to buy me new ones. But I can’t ask her. I’ll ask Santa Claus instead!” (5th grade elementary school)
“We’re three women in my family and we can’t afford sanitary napkins.” (1st year senior high school)
“There’s not much money at home and they won’t buy me a smartphone. I know – you can live without one; but almost everyone at school has one and it’s hard to tell my friends I don’t, so it’s like I’m not really part of things. Kids make fun of me for being behind the times. The only income at home is my grandfather’s and grandmother’s pensions. I can’t buy good clothes or any of the things all the other kids have.” (1st year senior high school)
“We live on social welfare. Mother has a disability and can’t work. I go to vocational school now so I’m not eligible for (certain) benefits any more, which means the three of us – me, my mother and my two younger brothers – are living on benefits for two. It’s a tight squeeze. Mother never eats rice. She skips her bath so my brothers and I can bathe every day. If I earn above a certain amount at a part-time job, I lose some of my student benefits. I feel I’ve fallen into a negative spiral.” (1st year vocational school)
“Mother has cancer so we get social welfare benefits. To put it bluntly, it’s very tight. I never have pocket money. I’ve never had any. I’ve never been on a school trip. There’s no money. My school uniforms are mostly hand-me-downs. I really think they should reconsider the amount of the benefits. Mother says we should be grateful for what we get, but really, we’re barely getting by.” (3rd year junior high school)
The distress, deprivation and humiliations are real and painful – but a long way all the same from the extreme poverty that blighted most of humanity until modern times and blights it to this day in the world’s least favored regions. Japan’s safety net may be flawed but it does exist – usually to good effect, sometimes not. Sometimes it unwittingly perpetuating the poverty it aims to cure. The vocational school student quoted above is an example of how hard the system can make it to work your way out of poverty.
The prime concern of sociologist Michiko Miyamoto, a former governmental advisor on child support issues who contributes commentary to Tsuhan Seikatsu’s feature, is the risk of poverty perpetuating itself down the generations. “Distressed households complain they can’t afford to send their children to extra-curricular juku classes. Well, you can get an education without them, they’re told. But the kids themselves are in overwhelming agreement: lessons at school just aren’t enough for full understanding.”
Then there’s the smartphone – a dispensable luxury if ever there was one, one might think; the senior high school girl who complains of not having one may strike the reader as petulant – but, notes Miyamoto, the device’s penetration over the past 10 years into every aspect of life is such that “children who can’t afford one are unable to receive notices from school and after-school clubs and lose touch with their friends.” It’s a social time of life. The short-term consequences of alienation are frustration and humiliation. Long-term? Worse, maybe.
© Japan Today
22 Comments
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DenTok2009
@Geeter Mckluskie When you were 15 and homeless, you didn't get much help from governmental organizations or private ones? I discussed welfare benefits with a German, and he told me that the German government has pretty good benefits, but the Swedish government pays out even better. You just show your ID. Japan has more options than Canada?
Years ago, one of my co-workers at a warehouse, where one of the junior managers constantly yelled, "Hurry up!/早く, 早く" and then in the next breath, "DO NOT RUN!走るな", mentioned that this job was the only one she could land because of her age. In this land of "genki" where youth is prized, I wish I could create jobs with good wages for the elderly and disabled who want to work and create a stress-free environment.
grund
Poverty among kids and young peope always makes me sad since they are not at fault and because it will affect and limit their possibilities in life.
GBR48
The quality of a nation may be defined by how well it treats the poorest and most vulnerable of its citizens.
Geeter Mckluskie
at 15, I was homeless and on the streets in Toronto Canada where there are an estimated 250,000 homeless among a population of 40 million. I wish I had been in Japan where there is far more recourse for the poor to get shleter and food. In Japan there are an estimated 3,300 homeless among a population of 125 million. One huge reason is affordable housing, including rent as cheap as $250 a month for a studio apartment.
This much is true
wallace
Day laborers are homeless or in hostels and do day work for cash.
30 years ago the Japanese homeless figure was about 30,000 but that has been reduced.
bo
When I lost my job I got Hello work money for a while ,then nothing ,I still make a pittance ,but no reductions in tax or NHI or ward tax !
kaimycahl
@grund I totally agree when a child is born his social status in life is already set in stone, if his parents are off to a good start, then there is a chance he or she will follow the same path and should they find some hardship they can fall back on a parent to make a correction, but those who are born impoverished they don't have the same opportunities and for a child this could become mental because they see friends who have things they simply cannot have because their chances are very limited. They say life is what you make it to be, I can agree with that statement but I also think its not how you start, its how you finish. You have to recognize you need a change and go for it.
Poverty among kids and young peope always makes me sad since they are not at fault and because it will affect and limit their possibilities in life.
Norm
This kind of thing is beyond heartbreaking.
Perhaps because of the neighborhood I live in, I see neither mothers nor kids in obvious distress — they’re all clean, well dressed, active and smiling.
If I did see someone like those described above, I would gladly give them enough to help them get a few days of relief. ¥10,000 might sound like a lot, but for many of us — when we think about our daily spending — it really isn’t.
Anyway, just sad to know small children are existing in this miserable situation.
kohakuebisu
Welfare (seikatsu hogo) does provide for people and there is a safety net. It won't be perfect, but people don't get "nothing".
Regarding the homeless, Japan has the most mental health beds per capita in the world. Its not uncommon for people with mental issues, including alcoholism and other addictions, to end up on the streets. This has been known for decades, but we still get politicians kicking down on people and claiming its all "personal responsibility" and other such nonsense. Lots of folk with mental issues also end up in prison, but that's another story.
The idea that smartphones or "flat screen" tvs are luxuries is basically just condescension from people who are out of touch. A senior high schooler (or adult) without a smartphone will struggle to find an arbeit part time job.
colesushi
I Love Michael Hoffman's writing style - fresh and with a lightness of touch. I'm interested in trying to read the original Japanese article but so far my search skills have failed me!
DenTok2009
@Geeter Mckluskie Thanks for sharing that. For some reason, I always assumed religious organizations everywhere were offering meals and shelter. I once knew someone who mentioned that the Hare Krishna provide tasty vegetarian meals to anyone. Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army also offer beds, though only for a limited time and to a lucky few. I didn’t realize there weren’t any private organizations in Canada, or specifically in Toronto, when you were a teen. Maybe there were, but they had limited funding or weren’t well known...
Those in need are everywhere, but I wonder if families who can only afford to bathe once a week are concentrated in specific areas. If a significant number of people struggling with bills and groceries were in one town, then a sento or a business offering cheap or free public bath passes would be a godsend for individuals and families. However, if this were done through the city office, some people might be outraged or demand they receive passes as well. On the other hand, the individuals or families receiving the passes might feel embarrassed, thinking that everyone knows their situation.
I saw a TikTok video that was also posted on X and YouTube, where kids and adults played a game where the winners received food, juice, and water as prizes. The prizes were in bulk, so it wasn’t just a one-time treat—things like a bag of rice or beans, and cases of juice and water. The games weren’t easy—you had to be athletic for some and have good skills, like getting the ball into the basket. Just musing on different ways to help the people mentioned in the article...
Geeter Mckluskie
in the 1970s
kurisupisu
Yes , there is poverty and sometimes not obvious as many people are embarrassed to show it.
A small gesture to help those out is by buying the Big Issue.
We can see those magazine sellers outside major stations and for just 350 yen then it is easy for us to make a difference.
Although the magazine is mostly Japanese here the topics covered by the journal are topical and as a gift or for your boss, coworkers or relatives, it is a way to introduce subjects not often brought up here.
Geeter Mckluskie
At that time there were two such shelters in Toronto, one run by the Salvation Army and another (not sure which organization) that were always full, and mostly full of violent or mentally unstable people and whose beds usually filled up prior to my getting off work from the car-wash where I wiped down cars for $35 a day. Rather than take my chances in such hostels, I slept in stairwells in winter and a graveyard in summer.
Moonraker
It's not about comparing this country with that and saying how you might be better off here than there. That trashes the whole point. It's about rich countries failing to take care of their citizens. What was the point of all that growth (remember when Japan's GDP was 60% of America's and therefore GDP per head much higher?), wealth accumulation and striving for respected rich country status among any of them if they then ignore not only real poverty but enjoy some dignity. Adam Smith noted that the essentials of life also include whatever is necessary to take one’s place in public without shame. Sorry folks but whoever runs your country is not running it for you and has little but contempt for you.
Geeter Mckluskie
Articles like this should be about whether or not there is recourse for those in poverty to escape it and what that recourse is exactly. It could have pointed out NPOs as well as where and how to apply for welfare (for foreign residents who read these English articles). The point of comparison is to say there IS recourse in Japan for those in poverty to end the cycle, including countless NPOs whose mission is to alleviate the suffering of the poor.
Geeter Mckluskie
There is government subsidised housing and NPOs that help the poor transition from living on the street to being settled in an apartment. From that point on...it very much matters whether or not housing is cheap
Geeter Mckluskie
There were no private organizations and you had to have an address in order to draw welfare. I was given a "you're sh*t out of luck" shoulder shrug when I applied at the local welfare office.
Geeter Mckluskie
Largely as a matter of choice to avoid long commutes. Many, prefer to use their money for drinking with friends and prefer to live in their blue-tarp tent communities where they feel a sense of community and can maintain their hygiene at a local sento.
Aoi Azuuri
Not only children, one of five Japanese elderly people is also in poverty. Besides, working generation also facing needy life as if such elderly people look rich for them.
Because, ruling party LDP politics continues to benefit large corporations or wealth class with victimizing ordinal citizen, Moreover, same LDP's far-right politicians such as Satsuki Katayama or Sanae Takaichi had spread hostility or hate against social security nationwidely. And local governments became maximumly denying application about welfare from poor people.
But, those are clearly constitutional violation.
Geeter Mckluskie
All homeless numbers are estimates. It's easy to compare Canada and Japan, simply by looking on the street, in parks or underpasses where the homeless live. Canada has far more homeless than Japan despite having 1/3rd the population.
Halk
For a number of reasons, a large proportion of the homeless in Japan do not get recorded, so it's not really an apples to apples comparison. suffice it to say there are probably just as many homeless in Japan as there are in Canada or most other industrialized nations.
It doesn't matter if housing is cheaper in Japan, if you don't have a fixed address in Japan you don't get to work and you have no money.