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Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

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Re: Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

#11

Post by cronjobber »

> The report looked at the gap between the income of the poorest Japanese families with children and the average household income.

This is the relative definition of "poverty". Throws me every time until I remember that in western political talk, "poverty" almost always means "relative poverty", which "is a measure of income inequality." (Wikipedia)

Maybe we're looking at the rich country problem of the average household being overpaid. Sad they can't overpay every Japanese, but not exactly catastrophic either.

Re: Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

#12

Post by _Codemonkeyism »

Basically there are two definitions of poverty with two crowds of followers.

1. People are poor if they can't afford (basic) things. People are very poor if they go hungry to bed.

2. People are poor if they earn less [1] than the average (not median) household. From the article "The report looked at the gap between the income of the poorest Japanese families with children and the average household income."

When does the poverty rate rise in 1. and 2.?

1. When peoples (real) income decreases (e.g. they lose jobs) and they can't afford (basic) things they could afford 10 years before. Or prices are rising to the same effect. The margin between income and costs gets smaller.

2. When some people get a lot richer (e.g. the "1%") then the income average rises and the poverty rate rises, although "poor" people might also have higher income or can afford more things than 10 years before (because of cheaper food, clothes, phone costs, energy they have more "disposable income").

I wish we would label these two types of poverty differently to have better discussions.

[1] EDIT: a certain percentage

Re: Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

#13

Post by GreaterFool »

a_bonobo wrote: post #9
taneq wrote: post #8

It's interesting that the author equates "Japan has very high labor force participation and low unemployment." with "No laziness or idleness here." The Japanese workplace culture of the 'sarariman' who spends 14+ hours a day in the office, achieving almost nothing, is legendary.

Japan has so many of these depressingly useless jobs - drive past any quiet street construction site at night and you'll see 3-5 people whose sole job it is to wave a light stick. The job isn't needed at all, the guy who does it makes peanuts, but that's what drives up labor force participation.

Not exactly true. You'll see a weird mechanical contraption shaped like a person waving the stick.

After living in a number of countries where construction works usually involve two or three people making loud mess for days I'm astonished how things work in Japan: a team of people shows up quietly, does the job efficiently and then disappears. You won't even notice them. There's a big-ish construction (they have heavy machines and dug up a big hole in the ground) going on nearby and I never heard any noise. And they're going with it really fast.

Re: Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

#14

Post by mkagenius »

GreaterFool wrote: post #10

"The survey compared the incomes of the bottom 10 percent of households with children to the average income of 41 countries who are members of the OECD or the European Union. The income gap in Japan was found to be 60.21 percent, meaning the household income of the nation’s most underprivileged families with children was less than 40 percent of the average." I'm not sure how to read this. Income gap be damned, what i…

> ¥840,000

That's INR 8,597,047 in India. I think only top execs at a well established company make that much in India. Amazing.

Re: Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

#15

Post by hudibras »

One thing that will help is the planned raising of the minimum wage in Japan, from around 800 yen/hour now to 1000 yen/hour in 2020. [0] The minimum wage in Japan is below-average by most measures for OECD countries. [1]

[0] http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/12/11/editorials/mu...

[1] http://www.oecd.org/social/Focus-on-Minimum-Wages-after-the-...

Re: Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

#16

Post by GreaterFool »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #12

Basically there are two definitions of poverty with two crowds of followers. 1. People are poor if they can't afford (basic) things. People are very poor if they go hungry to bed. 2. People are poor if they earn less [1] than the average (not median) household. From the article "The report looked at the gap between the income of the poorest Japanese families with children and the average household income." When does…

From what I've seen in USA and Japan I think USA is mostly 1 and Japan is mostly 2.

Re: Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

#18

Post by artumi-richard »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #12

Basically there are two definitions of poverty with two crowds of followers. 1. People are poor if they can't afford (basic) things. People are very poor if they go hungry to bed. 2. People are poor if they earn less [1] than the average (not median) household. From the article "The report looked at the gap between the income of the poorest Japanese families with children and the average household income." When does…

I think the two labels are "absolute poverty" and "relative poverty"

Re: Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

#19

Post by a_bonobo »

GreaterFool wrote: post #13
a_bonobo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan has so many of these depressingly useless jobs - drive past any quiet street construction site at night and you'll see 3-5 people whose sole job it is to wave a light stick. The job isn't needed at all, the guy who does it makes peanuts, but that's what drives up labor force participation.

Not exactly true. You'll see a weird mechanical contraption shaped like a person waving the stick. After living in a number of countries where construction works usually involve two or three people making loud mess for days I'm astonished how things work in Japan: a team of people shows up quietly, does the job efficiently and then disappears. You won't even notice them. There's a big-ish construction (they have heav…

I guess it depends on the prefecture and the type of construction site - the guys I've seen were always humans, no machine can copy that bored face...

Re: Japan's Growing Poverty Defies Glib Explanations

#20

Post by adrianN »

GreaterFool wrote: post #13
a_bonobo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan has so many of these depressingly useless jobs - drive past any quiet street construction site at night and you'll see 3-5 people whose sole job it is to wave a light stick. The job isn't needed at all, the guy who does it makes peanuts, but that's what drives up labor force participation.

Not exactly true. You'll see a weird mechanical contraption shaped like a person waving the stick. After living in a number of countries where construction works usually involve two or three people making loud mess for days I'm astonished how things work in Japan: a team of people shows up quietly, does the job efficiently and then disappears. You won't even notice them. There's a big-ish construction (they have heav…

I saw both, men and machines waving glowing sticks. There is also usually a guy who makes sure that no pedestrians are endangered by construction driveways.

I'm not sure whether I'd call these jobs "useless" though. Sure, putting up warning signs would probably produce a similar safety level with lower costs, but somehow I feel better cared for if a human does the job.

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