The Contemporary Japan Group at the University of Tokyo’s Institute of Social Science (ISS, or Shaken), welcomes you to a lecture by

Mari Miura, Professor of Political Science, Sophia University

Neoliberal Motherhood: Care and Work in the Japanese Welfare State


TIME AND PLACE
Thursday, April 16, 2015 from 6:30-8:00 p.m. at Akamon Sōgō Kenkyūtō Room 549, Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo

ABSTRACT
Women in general, and working mothers in particular, occupy a strategic position in Japan’s welfare capitalism. In order to generate economic growth amid the shrinking labor force, policy makers have recognized the importance of pushing women into the labor market. At the same time, the low birth rate has propelled them to pursue work-life balance policy as well as childcare policy. Recently, this “womenomics”
discourse has also penetrated growth strategy and become a justification for positive measures.
Nevertheless, these seemingly working-women friendly polices have not yielded concrete results. My presentation asks why numerous women-friendly policies are at best schizophrenic, if not mutually contradictory. More broadly, I explore why gender inequality has persisted in Japan, looking at the position of women in policy discourses and partisan debate. I focus on the blending of neoliberalism and statist family ideology held by the dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which I label “neoliberal motherhood,” to explain Japan’s schizophrenic policy response. Women’s bodies are objectified not just in statist family ideology but in the neoliberal project as well.

SPEAKER
Mari Miura is Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Law, Sophia University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Welfare Through Work: Conservative Ideas, Partisan Dynamics, and Social Protection in Japan (Cornell University Press, 2012), and co-editor of Gender Quotas in Comparative Perspective:
Understanding the Increase in Women Representatives (in Japanese; Akashi Shoten, 2014).

CONTEMPORARY JAPAN GROUP
The ISS Contemporary Japan Group provides English-speaking residents of the Tokyo area with an opportunity to hear cutting-edge research in social science and related policy issues, as well as a venue for researchers and professionals in or visiting Tokyo to present and receive knowledgeable feedback on their latest research projects. Admission is free and advance registration is not required. Everyone is welcome.
For maps and other information, please visit our
website: http://web.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp/cjg/ or contact Gregory W. NOBLE (noble@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp)