First Draft

These days, the word ‘working poor’ becomes popular in Japanese society. For example, many TV programs feature the real life of working poor and books which relate to working poor fill with book store’s shelves. These trends show that more and more people come to pay attention to poverty. According to Iwata, working poor is defined as people who can’t earn enough money to live in spite of their hard working. This paper will argue that the working poor in Japan society is problem because it deprives people of human dignity, causes exploding cost of social insurance and accelerate declining birth rate in Japan.

Working poor are very pessimistic about their future. There are bad cycles of poverty. Most of working poor are irregular workers. They work as day labor. They register at temporary employment agency and get the jobs from this company. However, they can not always get the job when they want to work and their daily wages are very low. Therefore, they are forced to live a day-to-day existence. Working poor can’t rent an apartment because they can’t save enough money to rent. They stay at net-café or first food shop during night time and they have no address. This fact makes working poor difficult to apply the job which earn enough money to live. They continue to work as day labor. Working poor can’t prospect for the future. This makes them very pessimistic.

Working poor from social aspects are also suggests pessimistic future of society. People who are classed as lower income group can get livelihood protection from government. However, this welfare is too little for people to escape from working poor. On the other hands, expenses of welfare have big pressure on national expenditure. This social insurance schemes can not be drastic solution of working poor problem. Both working poor and expenditure which relates to welfare will increase in the future.

Working poor have tendency to have no spouse and no children. This is almost because they economically can’t keep a family. Working poor have no money to bring up their own children. They give up marriage for financial reason. For example, 30 years old woman who works part-time said, ‘I want to make my family and child. However I can’t have both because I don’t have enough income to support family and child’. Low incomes make working poor single.

First problem which caused by working poor is that people who are classed as working poor lose their dignity as human being. Harsh living standard and uneasy prospect of future deprive people of desire for live. Also working poor feel that they alienated from society because their effort to improve their life has never been rewarded. This alienation hurt human dignity.

Second, exploding social insurance cost will be caused by working poor. Increasing numbers of working poor mean the expansion of welfare cost. For instance, local government of Tokyo adds 97 billion yen to expenditure in this year in order to support working poor economically. Expansion of expenditure leads to budget deficit.

Third, working poor accelerates declining birth rate in Japan. As I said above, working poor have tendency to have no children and this causes deterioration of declining birth rate.

In order to protect working poor’s human dignity, government should offer public job to working poor. Particular administration services can be offered by private sector. By employing working poor in order to provide such services, working poor can get stable job and feel a sense of belonging to their own community. Stable job give working poor ease. A sense of belonging removes alienation from working poor.

By reforming social insurance schemes, social insurance cost can be reduced. From now on, social insurances pay money to low income people. However this type of social insurance can’t be drastic solution. Instead of giving money to poor people, social insurance should offer job training to working poor.

Lastly, job sharing is available to improve declining birth rate. Regular worker earn much money comparable to working poor. However they also tend not to have child because they don’t have much time to bring up their child. Sharing their hard work with working poor gives merit to both regular workers and working poor. Regular workers can get time to bring up their child. Working poor can get money to bring up their child. Job sharing brings regular workers and working poor win-win relationships.

Working poor is problem because it hurts human dignity, causes exploding welfare cost and accelerates declining birth rate. However, these problems can be reduced by giving public job, reforming social insurance schemes and job sharing.