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ABSTRACT
The shortage of public childcare in Japan – called the “waitlisted children problem” (taiki jidō mondai) – has assumed increasing visibility and salience over the last several decades. This essay analyzes how this “waitlisted children problem” has been conceived, narrated, and addressed within the specific political, economic, and historical context that is contemporary Japanese society. Going beyond discussions of gender inequality in the workplace and home, the paper interrogates the cultural logics underpinning the recent urgency of debates over public childcare provision in Japan. The key to understanding these developments is recognizing how Japanese women's reproductive desires have become objectified within official and popular discussions as obstructed and requiring emancipation. Correspondingly, promoting gender equality by expanding childcare provision has become a tool of bio-political intervention, a means to remove a statistically calculated inhibition of women's reproductive desire. This links childcare with Japan's national survival, and thus helps to explain how both official and popular debates have converged in seeing the issue as significant and pressing.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Takehiko Kariya, Ian Neary, Len Schoppa, and other attendees at the University of Oxford's Nissan Institute Research Seminar for excellent comments that assisted me in refining this essay. My special thanks also go to Roger Goodman and Todd Hall, who read the entire manuscript and provided me with both critical and encouraging feedback. I would also like to thank the editor of Critical Asian Studies and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and helpful feedback.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributor
Dr Chigusa Yamaura is a Departmental Lecturer and junior research fellow in the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies and the Contemporary China Studies Programme at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies. She is also a junior research fellow at Wolfson College, the University of Oxford. She received her Ph.D. in anthropology from Rutgers University in 2013. Her area of specialization is contemporary Japanese culture and society, with a secondary concentration on contemporary China.
Notes
1 “Nihon shine!” literally translates as “Japan die!” In my view, “Go to Hell!” is a more accurate English equivalent of the sentiment and meaning the phrase is expressing.
2 Hatelabo Citation2019.
3 In this essay, public childcare refers to day nurseries which care for children for between eight and ten hours per day, five or six days a week, in contrast to kindergartens, which only run half-day sessions.
4 Mainichi Shimbun, March 12, Citation2016. The phrase, “My child's day nursery application was declined. Go to hell Japan!!!” was also nominated as one of the trendy phrases of the year for 2016.
5 This “waitlisted children problem” is not distributed uniformly across the country. It is most acute in Tokyo, followed by Okinawa, Chiba, Osaka, and Kanagawa. Conversely, prefectures with a longer history of working mothers such as Toyama, Fukui, or Ishikawa have few or even no waitlisted children. The government first reported statistics for waitlisted children in 1995 (at that time, the number was 28,481). The definition of what counts as a “waitlisted child” has been changed three times since then, in 2001, 2015, and 2017, respectively. These changes reduced the reported numbers, as the newer definitions did not include children at non-authorized day nurseries supported by local districts. Thus, some analysts argue that the actual number of waitlisted children is higher than reported statistics. As of 2018, waitlisted children have been defined as children who are “lacking care at home” but have not received a day nursery spot. Asahi Shiumbun Citation2017. Taikijido Mieruka Purojekuto.
6 Cf: Nemoto Citation2008; North Citation2009.
7 Foucault Citation1978.
8 Foucault Citation1978, 139.
9 This was elucidated by Foucault as “an indispensable element in the development of capitalism; the latter would not have been possible without controlled insertion of bodies into the machinery of production and the adjustment of the phenomena of population to economic processes.” Foucault Citation1978, 140–141.
10 Ivy Citation1995.
11 The source material I use are drawn from parliamentary minutes as well as a large variety of newspapers, magazines, and journals. From the Oya-Soichi Library and the National Diet Library in Japan, I collected 755 magazine articles and 383 newspaper articles, ranging from the 1960s to the present. I also draw upon a variety of parliamentary documents (including official minutes), statements, documents, media interviews, and more than a dozen books written for both academic and general audiences.
12 Hashimoto Citation2006; Uno Citation1999. The phrase “make as many nurseries as mailboxes” (posuto no kazu hodo hoikushowo) was used to endorse the expansion of childcare services.
13 While the fertility rate had been declining since the 1950s, when it fell to 1.57 in 1989, below the previously lowest rate of 1966, this resulted in many public expressions of concern within Japanese society.
14 In 1994, the government issued what was called the “Angel Plan” in order to address the low-fertility rate. This included a five-year plan for expanding childcare services (The Urgent Five Year Plan for Childcare 1994), which involved building more nurseries, offering extended sessions, expanding childcare access to children under the age of two, building a childcare center, and so forth. Since then, the expansion of public childcare services has constituted one of the major goals of state policy. In 1999, the “New Angel Plan” was issued. This plan included measures to reduce the burden of childrearing at home and improve work-life balance (Matsuki Citation2013, 28–29). Roberts Citation2002.
15 “The Headquarters for Making a Society Where All the Women Shine,” October 10; 2014.
16 Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office Citation2015.
17 Allison Citation1991; Goldstein-Gidoni Citation2012; Yoda Citation2000.
18 Allemann-Ghionda, Hagemann, and Jarausch Citation2011; Soma and Yamashita Citation2011.
19 Employing comparative analysis of early childhood care and education in Anglo-American, Western European, and Japanese contexts, Rianne Mahon has argued that, “the erosion of the male breadwinner/female homemaker family form constitutes one of the critical challenges confronting contemporary welfare states.” See Mahon Citation2002, 1.
20 Estevez-Abe, Yang, and Choi Citation2016; Lee Citation2016; Estévez-Abe and Naldini Citation2016; Lee Citation2018.
21 Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare Citation2018.
22 Preschool children in Japan also spend more hours per day at nurseries than those in many other comparable countries. For instance, Japanese preschool children spend on average 11.7 hours per day, 58.5 hours per week in day care, while in 2017, Finnish children averaged only thirty-one hours per week. The OECD average is just under thirty hours per week. See Zenkokuhoikukyogikai Kaiinno Jittaichosa Houkokusho Citation2016; OECD Family Database 2019; OECD, Social Policy Division, Directorate of Employment, Labor, and Social Affairs, Citation2019.
23 Tokyo Shimbum, “Shirokanedai no koenni hoikushitsu kaisetsu enki.” Tokyo Newspaper, November 12, Citation2018; “Minami Aoyamani Jiso kensetsu keikaku, hantaino riyuwa.” Asahi Shimbum, October 30, Citation2018. See also a website created to protest the construction of a new childcare and protection institution in Aoyama, “Aoyama no mirai wo kangaeru kai,” Citation2018, at https://aoyama-mirai.info/reasons/.
24 Esping-Andersen Citation1997. He argues this hybrid is composed of three categories of welfare states: the social democratic model, the conservative, corporative welfare state, and the liberal welfare state.
25 Goodman and Peng Citation1996, 216.
26 Peng Citation2002a, 33.
27 Goodman Citation2000, 24.
28 Allison Citation2000; Borovoy Citation2005; Uno Citation1993; Goldstein-Gidoni Citation2012.
29 Okabe Citation1996, 18.
30 White Paper on the National Lifestyles 2005; Peng Citation2002b.
31 “Koizumi Shusho no shoshinhyoumei enzetsu” [the Prime Minister Koizumi's General Policy Speech], Mainichi Shimbun. May 7, Citation2001.
32 Fukuda Administration Mail Magazine, Citation2008.
33 Cabinet Office Citation2015.
34 Government of Japan Citation2016a. “Abenomics” is the name given to a core set of policies of Abe administration. Initially, these were aimed at monetary, fiscal, and structural reforms; Liberal Democratic party of Japan Citation2015.
35 Government of Japan Citation2016a. The administration arrived at a figure of 1.8 by using the following formula: [percentage of married couples × planned number of children of married couples + percentage of singles × percentage of singles who wish to marry in the future × number of children singles desire to have] × likelihood of divorce and separation by death. This formula calculates the statistical gap between, on the one hand, the number of children which married couples desire to have (2.07) and the number of children that single people desire to have (2.12), and, on the other, the actual birthrate, which in 2017 was 1.43. For the government, this gap (0.4) represents unrealized reproductive desires which require intervention by the state and other social institutions.
36 Borovoy and Zhang Citation2017, 3.
37 Rabinow and Rose Citation2006, 203–204.
38 Leonard Schoppa (Citation2020) critically discusses the ways in which social science, in particular the model of “economic opportunity costs,” shaped public polices in modern demographic societies, including Japan. More precisely, he demonstrates that many academics and policy makers in Japan have recognized that women's choices to have fewer children are analyzed by such economic model.
39 In 1998, during the administration of Prime Minister Obuchi, an Expert Committee stated that polices promoting an increase in the fertility rate were not intended to force certain values or expectations upon citizens. It also stated that it was unrealistic to assume working women needed to stay at home. Rather, it proposed that it was important to create a society in which it is possible to dream about having children. See Mainichi Shimbun, December 22, Citation1998.
40 Hertog Citation2009.
41 Mizukoshi, Kohlbacher, and Schimkowsky Citation2016.
42 Ikumen Project Citation2019.
43 Yamaguchi Citation2014.
44 Uno Citation1993, 300.
45 Government of Japan Citation2016a. The “Plans for One Millions Japanese Nationals to Thrive,” notes that, “ … reaching the fertility rate 1.8 is an aim … it is not that for those who do not want to marry or do not want to give birth, the state is urging them to do so.”
46 Ishida Citation2016, 29.
47 Nikkei Business 2010, 30.
48 Williams Citation1977, 218.
49 Vogel Citation1981.
50 Cf. Robertson Citation1988.
51 Goldstein-Gidoni Citation2012.
52 Kingston Citation2013; Hashimoto and Traphagan Citation2008, 2; Jolivet Citation2005.
53 Yoron Chosa (Cabinet Office Public Opinion Poll) Citation2016b.
54 Yoda Citation2000, 867; also Ochiai Citation1997; Borovoy Citation2005, 74.
55 Manabe Citation2010.
56 Asahi Shimbun, November 24, 2011; Rengo Digest Citation2016; Women Type Citation2017.
57 Asahi Shimbun Weekly AERA March 18, Citation2013, 64; Mori, November Citation2010, 322.
58 Inokuma Citation2011, 114.
59 Inokuma Citation2014, 12–13.
60 Fukoin Citation2003, 10–11.
61 Asahi Shimbun Weekly AERA, April 13, Citation2009; 70.
62 Nagase Citation2009, 28.
63 Cf. Allison Citation2013.
64 The Japan Institute for Labor Policy and Training Citation2018.
65 Ochiai Citation1997.
66 Weekly Toyo Keizai, June 9, Tomita Citation2018a, 22.
67 Weekly Toyo Keizai, June 9, Tomita Citation2018b, 46.
68 Maeda Citation2017; Kawano Citation2014a, Citation2014b.
69 Ueno et al. (Citation2010) note that the phenomenon of children in a sealed room has been seen as a social problem since the 1990s. The term “sealed-room childrearing” (misshitsu ikuji) also appeared in a 2005 Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare report.
70 Ohinata Citation2005, 5. The term ko-sodate (“isolated childrearing”) is a play on ko (“children”) and sodate (“rearing”).
71 See Fujita Citation2017.
72 Ochiai 2000[1994].
73 Kawano Citation2014.
74 Ohinata Citation2017.
75 Fujita Citation2017.
76 Maeda Citation2017, 172.
77 Declining Birthrate Society Measures Promotion Committee, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan Citation2004.
78 See, for example, Kondo Citation2014, 138–140; Maeda Citation2017, 170.
79 Maeda Citation2017, 170.
80 Hochschild 1989, Citation2012.
81 Deomampo Citation2016.
82 See Donath Citation2015.
83 Foucault Citation1978, 136.