Working precariously within the social welfare system in Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic: Resilience without resistance among non-regular frontline workers

ABSTRACT

The global COVID-19 pandemic exposed structural inequality perpetuated by neoliberalism. essential workers, including helping professionals, have experienced a high-stress level. This pilot study examined the challenges faced by social welfare workers in Japan during the pandemic. Japanese social welfare departments in municipal governments, which are primary providers of public assistance and social services, are staffed by government officers (GOs, permanent government employees) and non-regular frontline workers (NRs, hired on annual contracts, predominantly female, covering direct casework). Informed by narrative inquiries, five individual interviews of GOs and NRs were conducted. The thematic analysis highlighted the increased employment instability, individualisation, and powerlessness among NRs. NRs expressed intensified stress from the safety risk, long working hours, and insufficient organisational support. Stratified by different types of contracts, resultant tasks, and genders, NRs experienced intensified isolation, leading to burnout. The implications of working precariously in the pandemic under the neoliberal social welfare systems are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Neoliberalism
• COVID-19 pandemic
• social welfare and public assistance
• precarious employment
• Japan

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the research participants who generously shared their time, experience, and wisdom for this research, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions, which helped us improve the quality of our manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02185385.2022.2134194

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) under Graduate Fellowship in Applied Social Work Research, awarded to the first author and the Dean’s Network Award by the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, the University of Toronto to the third author.

Notes on contributors

Viveka Ichikawa

Viveka Ichikawa Correspondence author ([email protected]) Viveka Ichikawa, MSW, RSW, BSW, Psychotherapist, is a mixed-race Japanese female who has been trained and practiced social work in Canada and Japan. She is currently a Ph.D. student at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto. Her research interests include bi/multi/mixed-racial identity, critical multicultural/multi-language therapy and counselling, critical international social work education, anti-oppressive and social justice-based research and therapy approaches. Personal website: https://viveka-therapy.com/

Izumi Niki

Izumi Niki Izumi Niki, MSW, RSW, is a Ph.D. student at the Department of Sociology, University of Toronto. Her research interests include anti-oppressive social work, paid and unpaid care (for older adults and domestic work), gender, and immigration policy, especially in Japan and East Asia. She has worked with seniors for many years as a Certified Care Worker in Japan and a Recreation Therapist for Japanese Canadian and Chinese seniors in Toronto, Canada. She is a recipient of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship (2022-2025). Personal website: http://izuminiki.strikingly.com/

Izumi Sakamoto

Izumi Sakamoto Izumi Sakamoto, Ph.D., MSW, MA, MS is Associate Professor at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, and Academic Fellow with the Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research at the University of Toronto. A former Fulbright scholar, Izumi brings in interdisciplinary training from the US (Ph.D. in Social Work & Social Psychology, MA, MSW from University of Michigan) and Japan (BA, MA from Sophia University). For the past 20 years, her research has focused on anti-oppressive practice, critical immigration studies, racism, gender, empowerment, critical consciousness, community organising, arts and activism, and knowledge creation from the margins. Dr. Sakamoto is currently leading a collaborative, community-based knowledge synthesis project, the ‘Streams of Solidarity’ Project, focusing on the understanding and use of implicitly-held collective wisdom in community organising by and for communities of colour, immigrant communities, and other marginalised communities (the study presented in this paper is part of this larger project).