ABSTRACT
After an introduction and 17 chapters on inequality in current Japan, some readers may feel a little exhausted or even overwhelmed with all this information and at the same time left with the nagging question of what big picture all these pieces of empirical research and analysis add up to. To say it more poetically, some might feel like Goethe’s Faust in his unfulfilled quest for wisdom, contemplating: “And here, poor fool, I stand once more, no wiser than I was before.” To not leave our readers with a similarly frustrating feeling, it is our goal in this conclusion to reassemble the findings of all chapters and put them together to a general and consistent interpretation of social inequality in current Japan. We will try to approach our goal in three steps. First, we use Abe’s womenomics – his recent policy focus on supporting women’s participation and advancement in the labour market – to exemplify the complexity of the task at hand. Then, we discuss the central findings for each of our five dimensions (labour market and employment system, welfare state and family, education and social mobility, urban-rural divide, and new immigration and ethnic minorities) with a focus on three analytical levels (structure, discourse, and agency) in an overall and comparative perspective. Third, we look at the implications of this big picture in view of Japan’s latest developments and its possible future trajectory. Finally, we discuss the relevance of this volume for other East Asian societies, who are following Japan’s path of ‘compressed modernity’ (Beck and Grande 2010; Chang 1999) with even greater speed.
