Ep. 42 Tokyo Poverty Women pt.2

Written by Cordelia.

Listen to the full episode :

Hello, my dear listeners, and welcome back to the Thursday Night Kissaten. It’s always a pleasure to have you here, and I hope you’re doing well.

In the last episode, we began exploring a side of Tokyo that often gets overshadowed by its glitzy image—the side where women struggle with poverty amidst the towering skyscrapers and bustling streets. We took a deep dive into the high cost of university tuition and the burden of student loans, uncovering how these factors trap many young women in a cycle of debt and despair.

Today, in Part II of Tokyo Poverty Women, we’re going to shift our focus to two more systemic issues that push these women further to the margins: the rise of non-permanent employment—a direct manifestation of misogyny—and the lack of support systems. While Tokyo may be one of the richest cities in the world, this wealth is far from equally distributed, especially when it comes to gender.

Why are Women in Poverty?

Non-permanent employees include temporary workers, contract workers, and dispatched workers. They perform the same tasks as permanent employees but without the benefits and job security. If a company faces difficulties, these workers are the first to be laid off.

Japan revised its dispatch labor laws twice, in 1999 and 2004, accelerating the growth of non-permanent employment. According to the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare, 40% of Japan’s workforce is in non-permanent jobs, and the rate for women is even higher at 55%. In some places, due to budget constraints, the government has outsourced jobs traditionally held by civil servants, such as those in childcare, care facilities, and libraries, to non-permanent employees or low-cost contractors.

The author believes that in these areas, the government prioritizes cost savings, resulting in widespread low wages. For example, in the caregiving industry, the wage gap is stark. By 2025, Japan is expected to have a shortage of 380,000 to 1 million caregivers. Originally, public institutions provided care for the elderly and disabled, but in April 2000, Japan implemented a long-term care insurance system, opening the sector to private companies. The entry requirements for the caregiving industry are low, with even ramen shop owners able to start a care business.

To address unemployment, the government launched a program in 2009 to funnel unemployed individuals without work experience or special skills into the caregiving industry. Additionally, low-wage foreign workers were brought in to fill the caregiver shortage. However, the caregiving industry is plagued with issues, including illegal employment practices, elder abuse, and more.

Today, caregiving is the lowest-paid profession in Japan, with women making up 70% of the workforce. As a result, caregiving has become a major source of poverty for women.

Other non-permanent workers fare no better. They are sometimes called “government-made poor,” referring to non-permanent workers in government agencies or public facilities who earn low wages and live in poverty.

Reiko Fumura, a 37-year-old library assistant in Tokyo, is a typical example of this. She comes across as plain and honest, but when she showed the author her pay slip, it was clear she was struggling. She earned 2.04 million yen a year (about 11,000 RMB), far below the average annual income of 2.81 million yen for Japanese women. After taxes, Fumura took home only 1.6 million yen a year, or 133,000 yen a month (about 7,400 RMB), which is not enough to live on in Tokyo.

Fumura lives in a welfare housing unit, an old apartment 15 minutes from the nearest station. Even so, the rent is 50,000 yen a month, leaving little for other expenses.

Her apartment has no TV or computer, and her phone is bought on installment. Due to her financial situation, she leads a lonely and monotonous life, rarely eating out or shopping. After work, she goes to a nearby supermarket and waits for discounts before heading home.

Although Fumura likes her job and has faith in public service, her work has trapped her in poverty. She worries about her future, knowing that her contract as a non-permanent worker will expire in five years. If she wants to continue working in the library, she will have to apply for another non-permanent job at a different library when she turns 39.

The author feels that it is unfair for hardworking women like Fumura to endure such hardship. Moreover, the expansion of non-permanent employment has widened the gap between rich and poor in Japanese society and solidified class divisions.

According to the book *New Japan's Class Society*, non-permanent workers, except for part-time housewives, form the lower class in society. Their average annual income is only 1.86 million yen, with a poverty rate of 38%. The average income for female non-permanent workers is even lower, at just 1.5 million yen. This amount barely covers rent in a big city, let alone living expenses.

Moreover, companies rarely promote non-permanent workers to permanent positions, making it almost impossible for these workers to climb the social ladder, further entrenching class divisions.

You might ask, “Doesn’t getting married solve the problem?” Indeed, having two incomes can make life easier, but interviews with divorced women and single mothers show that marriage doesn’t always lift women out of poverty.

Yuri Sato, a 30-year-old mobile phone collector, graduated from a private university in the provinces. After graduation, she moved to Tokyo to work as a temporary employee but failed to secure a permanent position.

At 26, Sato impulsively married someone she met while drinking, thinking marriage might improve her difficult situation. However, her husband became abusive, often lashing out at her for trivial reasons and forcing her to kneel and apologize. Eventually, Sato divorced him and struggled to make ends meet with her mobile phone collection job.

Sato’s annual income of 3 million yen is above the average for Japanese women, but after deducting the high cost of rent and utilities, she has little left. By the time payday arrives, her money is almost gone.

As a non-permanent worker, Sato is often bullied by permanent employees at her workplace and has little social life outside of work. If she falls ill, her situation could become dire.

She told the author that to make extra money, she had already started working in the sex industry.

According to official Japanese statistics, four out of ten divorces are due to violence against women, and one in three women experiences physical or psychological abuse from a partner.

If a single mother has children, more than 80% of them do not receive child support from the father, who may cite various reasons, such as low income, lack of money, starting a new life, or simply resentment towards the ex-wife. Even legal action often fails to secure payments, worsening the financial situation of already struggling families.

The Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare found that as of 2019, there were over 1.23 million single-mother households in Japan, with an average annual income of just 2.43 million yen, less than half of the national average.

Lack of Supporting

Despite these hardships, social security for single women and single mothers in Japan is insufficient, which brings us to the third reason for female poverty.

Murasaki Murakami, a 45-year-old single mother with three children in middle school, lives in welfare housing near Tokyo, surrounded by other low-income families. Murakami started working at a food company when she was young.

At 27, she married a colleague, became a housewife, and had two children. However, when she became pregnant with her second son, her husband insisted on an abortion. When she refused, he divorced her, leaving her alone at the age of 32.

Although Murakami mentally prepared herself for a hard life, she never imagined she would fall into poverty. The family receives about 70,000 yen a month in child support, and her ex-husband initially paid the agreed-upon 90,000 yen in alimony each month, but he eventually stopped. As a former housewife, Murakami couldn’t find a stable job and had to rely on low-wage temp work.

She wakes up at 5 AM every day to prepare lunch for her children and do laundry before taking the bus to work. She returns home in the evening to cook and do housework, often working until after 11 PM. Despite this, she earns only 100,000 yen a month.

Murakami’s children have never eaten out and only eat discounted food. Murakami constantly worries about how to make ends meet and is most afraid of unexpected bills, which keep her awake at night.

She told the author that she sees no hope, saying that just being alive is painful. At 45, Murakami was desperate and went to a welfare agency to inquire about applying for public assistance, but the staff ended the consultation as soon as they learned she owned a car.

In Japan, one of the conditions for receiving public assistance is having no assets like a house or car. But for Murakami, a car is essential because she needs to commute between her home and her mother’s house, who helps with childcare. Her car, a gift from a friend years ago, has already traveled over 120,000 kilometers and has little value as an asset. Yet, the welfare agency didn’t even listen to her explanation before dismissing her in five minutes.

Many of Murakami’s neighbors are also single mothers, but few qualify for public assistance due to strict requirements. Murakami told the author that both she and her neighbors are suffering from poverty.

Murakami wanted to apply for public assistance but couldn’t. Another single mother, Yuko Kawashima, didn’t dare apply for public assistance because she wanted her two children to go to university.

Kawashima, who graduated from the University of Tokyo's graduate school in 1998, became a clinical psychologist. She worked for the Tokyo Board of Education, a psychiatric hospital, and a university counseling center. She was once very active in her field but struggled to balance work and childcare after marriage and childbirth.

In 2005, she joined a quasi-governmental organization, and her life took a turn for the worse. The male permanent employees in the organization began harassing her over her surname. Kawashima was a researcher, and her work and achievements before marriage were all under her maiden name.

However, in the new job, she was told she had to change her surname to her husband's. Kawashima refused and was harassed by her colleagues until she was forced to get a divorce to keep her maiden name.

What was supposed to be a fake divorce turned into a real one. Kawashima and her two children were abandoned by her husband, who never paid the 100,000 yen a month in child support he promised. At work, Kawashima continued to endure harassment from her male colleagues. If she left work on time to care for her children, she was accused of not being dedicated enough. No matter how hard she worked, she and her female colleagues always received the lowest ratings in performance evaluations, with no chance of promotion.

In 2007, after just over two years at the job, Kawashima began to experience physical symptoms. Her muscle strength decreased to the point where she could no longer hold a pen steadily, and even standing for long periods became difficult. Completely unable to work, Kawashima applied for and received an annual disability pension of about 2 million yen and was given a welfare apartment, but with two children still in school, her expenses were high.

Kawashima initially thought she could survive on one meal a day as long as her children’s needs were met. But in reality, she and her children sometimes had to share a single loaf of bread. She could have applied for public assistance or child support, but these benefits cannot be combined with the disability pension.

Moreover, in Japan, families receiving public assistance are discouraged from sending their children to university.

To ensure her children could attend university, Kawashima had no choice but to forgo public assistance. In Japan, many poor parents cannot afford to invest in their children’s education, but a few, like Kawashima, understand the link between education and future income, so they grit their teeth and try to support their children’s higher education.

In recent years, the number of jobs available to high school graduates in Japan has plummeted, from 1.672 million in 1992 to just 432,000 in 2017, a decline of 74%. Academic performance not only affects income but also impacts children’s academic achievements.

Ochanomizu University, a prestigious women’s university in Tokyo, conducted a study that found a significant correlation between family income and academic performance, especially in mathematics.

With a perfect score of 100, children from families earning less than 2 million yen a year scored 20 points lower on average than those from families earning more than 15 million yen a year. Thus, poverty is passed down from generation to generation.

Murakami’s eldest son attended a tuition-free vocational high school and started working part-time five days a week in his first year to help support the family. Her second son’s grades were too low to get into a regular high school, so he attended a technical school. Her daughter already said she didn’t want to go to high school.

Even though Murakami told her daughter she could afford public school, the daughter shook her head and insisted she wanted to work.

The book also mentions Yuko Inoue, whose experiences mirror Murakami’s. Inoue was born into a middle-class family in Tokyo, graduated from a prestigious private school, and worked for a listed company. Even after her divorce, she didn’t face financial difficulties.

But eight years ago, Inoue’s sister developed a mental illness and needed care. With their parents deceased, the burden fell on Inoue’s shoulders. She quit her job to care for her sister, naively thinking that her savings of 5 million yen would last for a while and that she could find another job later.

But her sister’s condition didn’t improve, and within a year, Inoue’s savings were gone. At 47, she couldn’t even find a part-time job, let alone a permanent one. Her daughter became the victim of her mother’s bad decisions.

Inoue’s daughter had always excelled in school and was accepted into a prestigious private school. Inoue repeatedly asked the school to defer tuition payments, but the school never gave a clear answer or mentioned dropping out, only repeatedly asking, “What are you going to do, Ms. Inoue?”

In the end, Inoue had to say, “We’ll have to withdraw.” The teachers sighed with relief, but her daughter cried. The daughter transferred to a correspondence high school in her second year and started working part-time to pay for her tuition and living expenses.

She dreamed of attending a national university but didn’t get in and ended up at a highly competitive private university. However, to avoid accumulating more debt, she dropped out after a year.

The author lamented in the book: As many poor families as there are, so too are the futures of many children being taken away. This brings us to the third cause of female poverty.

Japan has implemented many welfare systems to help the poor, but in practice, many women cannot fully benefit from these services. As a result, poverty is passed down from generation to generation.

Ending

Japanese society’s attitude toward poverty often boils down to the belief that "you are responsible for your own fate," implying that being poor is a personal failing. However, as we’ve seen through the stories shared in Tokyo’s Poor Women, these women tried everything in their power to survive, yet still found themselves pushed to the brink.

In the book’s conclusion, the author expresses a deep pessimism about the situation improving. He believes that the trend of growing poverty is difficult to reverse. And given that the book was published before the 2020 COVID pandemic, the TV adaptation poignantly adds how the pandemic only worsened the situation. Jobs were lost, businesses were forced to close, and poverty continued to breed more poverty. For many, the suffering felt like an endless cycle, passed from generation to generation, with no clear way out.

In the TV show, the main character’s words resonate deeply: "I thought poverty was someone else’s problem."

When I was a child, I never imagined that poverty could be something so close to me. But after moving to North America, I faced a harsh reality. Back in Vancouver, I lived in a shelter. I’m not going to hide the fact that there were times when I had no money to buy food after paying my rent, and I relied on the generosity of others to get by. I was close to poverty—I lived in poverty.

This experience has given me a different perspective, one that makes the stories in Tokyo’s Poor Women hit close to home. It’s a reminder that poverty is not just someone else’s problem. It’s a societal issue that can affect anyone, and it requires collective empathy and action to address.

Thank you for joining me today. I hope this episode has offered some insight and perhaps even sparked a bit of reflection. Take care of yourselves, and I’ll see you next time at Thursday Night Kissaten in the next ep. 

Reference

Welcome back to Thursday Night Kissaten podcast.

In this episode, we are going to talk about a nonfiction book, Tokyo Poverty Women, 東京貧困女子: : 彼女たちはなぜ躓いたのか by Atsuhiko Nakamura (中村淳彦)

Writer/Host/Technician/Translator: Cordelia 

Work: 東京貧困女子: 彼女たちはなぜ躓いたのか (Tokyo Poverty Women)

Author: 中村淳彦 (Atsuhiko Nakamura)

TV Show website in Japanese: https://www.wowow.co.jp/drama/original/hinkon/

Book in Japanese: https://amzn.asia/d/f8Tf9s8

Background music:

フリーBGM「星の名残り」by のる

https://dova-s.jp/bgm/play20936.html