Family and Social Policy in Japan: Anthropological Approaches

Description

Social policies reflect and construct important ideas in societies about the relationship between the state and the individual. This book examines this relationship in a number of hitherto unexplored areas in Japanese society including policies relating to fertility, peri-natal care, child care, child abuse, sexuality, care for the aged and death. The conclusion is that a great change has taken place in all these areas through the 1990s as a consequence of Japan's changing economy, demography and the development of civil society. The case studies, based on intensive anthropological fieldwork, not only demonstrate how and why family and social policies have evolved in the world's second largest economy, but in the process provide a challenge to many of the assumptions of western policymakers. The empirical material contained in this volume will be of interest to anthropologists and to students and practitioners.

Roger Goodman is lecturer in the social anthropology of Japan at the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies and the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford. His publications include Children of the Japanese State: The Changing Role of Child Protection Institutions in Contemporary Japan (2000) and The East Asian Welfare Model: Welfare Orientalism and the State (1998).

'It is a timely addition to a thoughtful series which counts among its authors leading academics and authorities on key aspects of contemporary Japanese society and culture ... This book, with its further chapters on maternal and child healthcare for foreigners, pre-school education, death policies and citizenship, provides an overview of contemporay Japanese society that cuts through all the time-worn stereotypes and assumptions about the immutability of traditional values and behaviour. It acknowledges that the Japanese social landscape is rapidly changing and looks deep within society to explain these changes.' Asian Affairs