Widening Disparity among Young People
The 2006 White Paper on the Economy and Public Finance, published in mid-July, comprehensively analyzes one of the most controversial issues in the Diet: economic disparity among households. In particular, the paper warns that neglect of the widening economic disparities among young people would produce a massive number of "middle-aged freeters" in the future, and calls on the government to launch appropriate measures.
The paper explains that the income disparities observed in statistics have been widening modestly, but that most of the disparities are in fact nominal disparities, attributing the widening to, for example, the ageing of the population. The paper, making use of the National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure (conducted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications), shows that most of the disparities which have widened since 1989 can be explained by the demographic movement effect, that is, a rise in the proportion of elderly households. Another factor generating a nominal expansion of disparities is the decrease in the number of household members: an increase in the number of single-member households increases the number of households with low household income, leading to an expansion of statistical disparities. If the number of household members is statistically adjusted, however, the pace of the widening turns out to be slower.
Opposition parties, claiming in the Diet that structural reform promoted the expansion of disparities, denounced the Koizumi administration. But the White Paper raises an objection to this view, presenting statistical data which shows that income disparities among all households - that is, households of two or more family members and single-member households - narrowed between 1999 and 2004, contrary to what is generally believed. It also objects to the view that Japan has become one of the countries with large economic disparities, according to international standards. On this issue, the paper refers to the "immobilization of social stratification." It shows that the logarithmic odds ratio - an index indicating how likely children are to work in the same vocations as their parents - of Japan is more or less the same as the ratios of Western countries, and thus claims that Japan is not moving towards a situation in which opportunities to get a job or attain a particular social status regardless of family background are diminishing.
Then what makes so many people feel that economic disparities are widening despite the fact that they have not so widened? Citing the results of an opinion poll that 60 percent of respondents think that it is desirable to receive social status and rewards based on individual efforts, and at the same time, that quite a few people have in practice gained higher social status and more rewards than justified by their own efforts, the White Paper refers to the possibility that "the gap between ideal and reality" may have an impact on people's views on economic disparities.
In the meantime, the paper also expresses a sense of crisis regarding the recent trend in widening disparities among young people, saying that it is likely to lead to the expansion of disparities in the economy as a whole in the future.
