Tokugawa Iemitsu Receiving Lords in Audience, 1875

At the advent of the Tokugawa period, welfare was purposefully reduced to just the family and the surrounding community - as a result, the Gonin Gumi Seido (five-family-unit system) was established in 1643, which were a collection of five different households. They were the lowest level of urban administration, reporting to the naushi (neighbourhood headmen), who in turn reported to the machi doshiyori (town elders) who were assistants to the Edo machi bugyō (Edo city magistrates). Each of the Gonin Gumi Seido were responsible for the crimes that may be committed by any member of the five households, as well as collecting the machi iriyō taxes. This five unit system was also implemented in the Kingdom of Ryūkyū. The Tokugawa regime is regarded as one of the most conservative and medieval ‘police states’ in recorded history. Travelling through the country was heavily restricted, if not outright banned, and the community’s responsibility was spread amongst many different approaches to the preservation of Tokugawa society. Informers of the state were believed to be everywhere and the status quo for many was to conduct self-policing due to being coaxed into it. The widely regarded method of staying out of poverty was to work hard and to use money sparingly. This was the result of a strict neo-Confucian ideology, which declared that the state and its affairs should be upheld and respected.

Some daimyō during this era would attempt to implement policies to combat the amount of infanticide within their ruling regions, either punishing them or subsidising their expenses to aid families in caring for their children. That being said, there were no facilities that were deliberately created for the caring and protection of young children. It was only at the end of the Tokugawa reign that Satō Nobuhiro (1769 - 1850), one of the country’s leading agronomists, pioneered a properly established state-run institution for the poor and needy. Satō was an early advocate for Japanese Westernisation, attempting to incorporate Western science, in particular astronomy, with Japanese political and philosophical beliefs. However he was, quite contradictory, a pursuer of Japanese world domination, as detailed in his 1823 document ‘A Secret Strategy for Expansion’. ‘Peripheral non-responsibility’, as quoted by Komatsu (1992), is the position the Tokugawa state took in providing welfare. Before the advent of the Meiji period (1868 - 1912), relief for those in less-than-desirable circumstances was wholly dependent on the family and local community, as based on traditional Confucian moral teachings.

During the Meiji restoration in 1868, the first official welfare system was implemented into society. In fact, one of the main stipulations of the new Meiji government’s guidelines was: “Offer compassion for widowers, widows, the lonely, and the maimed.” After this, state legislation shortly began; although it was focused on the military, navy, police, and civilian officials. This consisted of providing disability, retirement allowances, and benefits, with general public aid arriving at a later time. The Jukkyū Kisoku (Poor Relief Regulation) of 1874 was merely a response to unrest within the populus at the time. This was a recurring theme within the Meiji period, in that social policy introduced during this time was mainly to damper civil unrest, rather than a means to uphold a minimum standard of living for Japanese citizens. This was similar to Bismarckian policies in Germany, in that they came about simply as a means of mitigating social tension.

Laissez-faire economics was the Meiji government’s main approach to social welfare, accompanied by the sentiment that recurring state intervention would breed apathy and laziness in the civilians of the country - an ideology that would be counter-productive to the development of the state. The only significant exception to this was compulsory elementary level education for children, deemed a key component to Japan’s modernisation and a means to combat western colonisation. In 1875, 35% of children were receiving elementary level education: This increased to over 95% only 30 years later in 1905.

Schoolgirls in Hakama during the Taisho period

As a result of further social unrest in the 1910s, the hōmeniin system was developed by Ogawa Shigejiro, 1912, in the Kansai area, which is regarded as the centre of Japanese capitalism in the Taishō period (1912 - 1926). Hōmeniin was given its name according to hōmen meaning an area of the city that was declared ‘poor’ by the local government, and -iin meaning supervisor. On the other hand, when referring to the genesis of modern social welfare systems in Japan today, most accounts quote Kasai Shinichi, Okayama prefecture’s Governor, and his saisei komonsei (social reform advisory system) of 1917. Despite this, the hōmeniin is still regarded as the most significant as it dubbed the welfare system with a name wholly its own. Hōmeniin can be described as a synthesised concept of the German Elberfeld programme and the Friendly Visitors of the Charity Organisation Society in London. Elberfeld programme’s influence is the only one that has been recognised by modern policy-makers, most likely due to the heavy reliance of female workers within the Friendly Visitors. The hōmeniin system did differ from the Elberfeld programme in one crucial aspect, in that financial aid was accessible in the German programme was through a relief fund that consisted of money from the city and prefectural government. Most resources for the hōmeniin were sourced from donations and pockets of the volunteers in the hōmeniin themselves, with volunteers being local teachers, policemen, pharmacists, rice dealers, etc.

Over the next 20 years before World War II, the role of the hōmeniin evolved and spread throughout the country. Although it started as a means of controlling the public and mitigating social unrest, by 1940 it was a brave and outspoken group of over 100,000 people who were calling for improved social legislation. The role of social control was filled by compulsory local neighbourhood associations, called tonarigumi. But as Japan marched forward into what historians have dubbed the kurai tani (dark valley) of the 1940s, tonarigumi and hōmeniin became more wrapped in each other’s affairs in order to ensure full coordination in the war effort. It would be a mistake to assume that the war only had a negative impact on Japan’s social welfare development. Health insurance plans were extended to uphold citizenry health, specifically those who were of conscription age. Burakumin, Japan’s ‘outcaste’ class, who were redefined as shiheimin (new commoners) in the 1870s, were treated as social outcasts in the pre-war periods. This was improved under the perspective that every Japanese individual was treated as sekishi (children) of the Emperor.

After 14 years of the World War II conflict, Japan was then run by the American-led occupational forces of General MacArthur. The administration of the time was for keeping the hōmeniin system, regardless of the country’s changing governmental structure and the ongoing recovery from the war. In order to wipe clean the association of a social control tool used by the prior ultra-nationalistic state, the hōmeniin was renamed to the minseiin, which translates to ‘person/persons commissioned to promote and stabilise the life of the people’. The Children’s Bureau was then established in 1946 within the Kouseishō (Ministry of Health and Welfare), which was eventually rebranded as the Children and Families Bureau in 1964. Mensei.jidōiin seido (Child welfare officers) were employed by the Children and Families Bureau that represented and retained jurisdiction over the whole child welfare system of Japan. They were responsible for overall planning and budget for child welfare, while also supervising and providing guidance to local administrative organisations and child welfare institutions. Policies of the central government had the duty of being enacted by local staff of prefectures and ‘designated’ cities, accompanied by advice from the Jidō Fukushi Shingikai (Child Welfare Councils). The most important post-war child welfare services legislation were:

New Japanese Constitution of 1946 - Guaranteed provision of welfare to all Japanese citizens on an equal basis.
Jidō Fukushishō (Child Welfare Law), 1947 - Provided child protection, child care, and foster-care systems, while laying the foundation for public intervention on behalf of the nation’s children.
Jidō Kenshō (Children’s Charter) established on the 5th May, 1951 (Children’s Day) - Article 2 states ‘those children not having homes shall be brought up in an environment having similar advantages’.

These provided the framework of legislation through which Japan would carry out its provision of child welfare. This remained relatively unchanged until the first major revision of Child Welfare Law in 1998.

Jidōsōdanjo (Child Guidance Centres) are the main field agencies in Japan. By law, they are compulsory in every prefecture and designated city with approximately more than 175 in the country currently. They were initially temporary accommodation for children that were abandoned after World War II, with some still having this short-term stay aspect to them. However, their practices spread to juvenile delinquents, disabled children, and children without carers. Jidōsōdanjo have been dubbed the ‘nucleus’ of welfare activities for Japanese children, and there are many different types of consultations that the facilities can offer. Their percentage spread (as of 1998), are as follows:

Child protection (yougo soudan) - 10.9%
Delinquent behaviour - 5.3%
Physical and mental disability - 52.7%
Child health and other matters - 10.1%
General problems with bringing up and educating children (youiku kanren) - 21%

Most referrals are from families or relatives that are worried about their own children, with the many remaining cases being from welfare institutions, city officials, or the telephone. Schools and medical/nursery facilities make up a very small proportion of these referrals as well, which are major sources of referrals in most European and North American child welfare institutions. Almost none of the referrals are the children themselves, with jidōsōdanjo mainly being offerers of advice about the children, rather than to the children. The reasons for consultations (as of 1995) are as follows:

Sickness and disability - 20.1%
Disapperance from home - 7.5%
Divorce - 7.3%
Death - 1.8%
Abandoned child - 0.8%
Kazoku kankyō (family environment) - 38.6%
- Of which abuse cases - 9.1%
Other - 23.9%

The staff at jidōsōdanjo have members of staff typically made up of professional physicians, child psychologists, physiotherapists, nursery teachers, and clerical staff. Jidōfukushishi (child welfare officers) carry out the bulk of the work, and are an important and understudied group in the Japanese welfare system. In order to qualify for this type of position, it is required by Child Welfare Law to:

a) Have graduated from a school or other institution designated by the Minister of Health and Welfare; or
b) Have concluded studies at a university that specialised in psychology, education, and/or sociology, or other similar courses (called sankamoku shikaku - three-subject qualification); or
c) Be a physician; or
d) Have worked in a child welfare operation as a social welfare secretary for 2+ years; or
e) Be a person whom (a)-(d) might apply because of requisite academic knowledge and experience required for a child welfare officer

The jidōsōdanjo in Yokohama, Osaka, Saitama, Kanakawa, and Niigata have the majority of their staff trained and qualified in specialist social welfare activities, being at the forefront of social work practice. However, in major cities such as Tokyo or Kyoto, most of the staff are futsū no kōmin (regular local government officials) who qualified simply because they were doing their job - Working at a jidōsōdanjo is not the loftiest of prospects for government officials with high social standing. The staff will usually put together a report of a plan either case-by-case for each child or as a whole at the jidōsōdanjo, depending on the approach they want to take. Though they have a range of options, around 90% of decisions are simple advice sessions without taking any follow-up measures or setting up a programme of ‘continuous guidance’. This is carried out by the jidōfukushishi themselves though they are usually bogged down with previous workloads, where 60% of jidōsōdanjo staff interviewed said they were each holding more than 50 cases (as shown in 1999). Despite cases being relatively straightforward and simple to resolve, there is a huge amount of bureaucratic paperwork and recording accompanying every action the staff decide to take, and there are many cases of ‘burnout’ for these workers. As such, the work can be delegated to local minsei.jidōiin or shūnin jidōiin. The remaining 10% of cases usually require more dramatic intervention, as it is not safe for the child to be left where it is. Despite prefectural and city offices being the only official bodies that are able to admit children into welfare facilities and potential foster homes according to Child Welfare Law, authority for this is delegated to the relevant jidōsōdanjo. Most of the time, jidōsōdanjo staff have to persuade parents/guardians to willingly place the child within these institutions, despite parents not wanting to allow their child to be fostered. Sophisticated, even underhanded, methods of persuasion are employed by the staff members in order to get the parents to comply with the placements made. In very rare circumstances jidōsōdanjo have to resort to going to the Katei Saibansho (Family Court) in order to remove the rights of the parents or guardians that oppose such a placement. There has rarely ever been more than 15 children in total at any one time in a yōgoshisetsu (Child Placement Institutions) where parental rights have been drastically removed in this manner.

References

Children of the Japanese State, by Roger Goodman
https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/rise-of-japan-f645a8e8-75de-4baf-b9e5-7934421dd8ba
https://web.akita-townjoho.jp/event/20200619-ugo-19/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satō_Nobuhiro
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edo_period
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_Restoration

Development of Jidōsōdanjo and Yōgoshisetsu by Joseph Bray, YouMeWe Intern

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