Neoliberal Motherhood

―Care and Work in the Japanese Welfare State―

April 16, 2015 6:30 PM (finished)


Mari Miura

(Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Law, Sophia University)

Date/Time April 16, 2015 6:30 PM
Location Room 549 5th floor, Akamon Sogo Kenkyuto Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo  [map]
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.
Bio 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).