2009 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

A Study of Prewar Public Welfare Service Administration and the Transformation of the Concept of Social Solidarity

Research Project

Project/Area Number	19530530
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Social welfare and social work studies
Research Institution	Bukkyo University
Principal Investigator	IKEMOTO Miwako Bukkyo University, 社会福祉学部, 教授 (90308932)
Project Period (FY)	2007 – 2009
Keywords	社会事業 / 社会政策 / 社会連帯思想 / 隣保相扶 / 厚生政策
Research Abstract	In the first half of the 1930s, Japan's public welfare service administration expanded its operations from a focus on the problems faced by the urban unemployed to one that included the problems afflicting farming communities as well. It appeared as if the social policy debate was gaining traction, but it was only reflected by the government's decision to keep its relief program : imperial mercy. Under the subsequent military regime, the poverty issue faced by ordinary workers came to be regarded as a defense issue in the broadest sense of the word, and people began to talk about the need for a national minimum security for all workers. However, their living standard headed straight downward, exposing the limitation of a state-controlled economy. The concept of social solidarity came to be clearly understood as a service that the imperial state demanded of its people, and the term rimpo soofu (mutual aid) began to be used to refer to this concept.