ABSTRACT

Trends of policy convergence and diversity across societies are often the central concern of comparative social welfare research. As Kennett (2001) states, early work on the growth of welfare states emphasized the growing convergence in social policy development among all the nations of the older industrialized world. For example, it is argued that some levels of economic development often serve as a prerequisite for effective welfare programmes and thus the state adopts welfare policies at different levels of industrialization. Particular stages of economic and technological growth and industrialization thus tend to encourage convergent welfare state forms despite the differences in cultures, political ideologies and national histories (see, for example, Wilensky 1975). More recently, some scholars have argued that factors such as participation in a tightknit global policy-making community, the cross-national emulation of welfare policies, and the narrow range of policy options available in the fields may stimulate the adoption of welfare policies and thus encourage convergence in an increasingly globalizing world (Kasza 2006). In this context, using the case of Japan’s health and pension policies, Kasza (ibid.) highlights how Japan’s programmes resemble those of Western Europe more closely today than in the past. In particular, in the post-bubble era, the distinctive features of Japanese social policy are either disappearing (for example, a decline in strong occupational welfare provision) or spreading out to other countries (for example, social insurance schemes on long-term care being adopted in other East Asian societies such as Korea). Such developments tend to support the convergence thesis (Izuhara 2003a; Kasza 2006).