IN-EAST News
15.12.2014 - 00:00
Research Forum Lecture by Mari Miura and Koichi Nakano, Sophia University
Please note – the venue has changed: LE Building, Room 502
The Research Training Group Risk and East Asia would like to invite you to a joint Research Forum Lecture by Mari Miura, Professor of Political Science, Faculty of Law at Sophia University, Tokyo and Koichi Nakano, Professor of Political Science, Faculty of Liberal Arts at Sophia University, Tokyo on
Neoliberal Motherhood: Care and Work in the Japanese Welfare State
(Mari Miura) and
What have become of the political and administrative reforms?
(Koichi Nakano)
Date: December 15, 2014, 9–12 h
Venue: LE Building, Room 502
Please register by Maike Müller (maike.mueller@uni-due.de)
Mari Miura: Neoliberal Motherhood: Care and Work in the Japanese Welfare State
Abstract: Women in general, and working mothers in particular, occupy a strategic position in Japan’s welfare capitalism. In order to generate economic growth amid the shrinking labor force, policy makers have recognized the importance of pushing women into the labor market. At the same time, the low birth rate has propelled them to pursue work-life balance policy as well as childcare policy. Recently, "womenomics" discourse also penetrated into growth strategy, which justifies positive action measures. Nevertheless, these seemingly working-women-friendly policies have not yielded concrete result. My presentation asks why numerous women-friendly policies are at best schizophrenic, if not contradictory with each other. More broadly, it seeks how gender inequality has persisted in Japan, identifying the position of women in policy discourses and partisan debate.
Bio: Mari Miura is Professor of Political Science, Faculty of Law, Sophia University. Ph.D. in political science from University of California, Berkeley. Author of Welfare Through Work: Conservative Ideas, Partisan Dynamics, and Social Protection in Japan (Cornell University Press, 2012).
Koichi Nakano: What have become of the political and administrative reforms?
Abstract: A quarter of a century has passed since the era of "reforms" began, starting with the political reform (electoral system reform), administrative reform, and then on to structural reform. What has changed of the Japanese political system? Have the promises of the reforms been fulfilled? If not, how can we characterize the changes that have happened?
Bio: Koichi Nakano is Professor of Political Science, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Sophia University. Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University. Author of Party Politics and Decentralization in Japan and France: When the Opposition Governs (Routledge, 2010).