Universal basic income Universal basic income (UBI) is a social welfare proposal in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive a minimum income in the form of an unconditional transfer payment, i.e., without a means test or need to perform Work (hu ...

refers to a social welfare system where all citizens or residents of a country receive an unconditional lump sum income, meaning an income that is not based on need (i.e., it is not means-tested). The proposal has been debated in a number of countries in recent years, including Japan. According t
Hirano Hiroya
of

Mejiro University is a private university in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1923, it was chartered as a women's junior college in 1963, and expanded into a four-year university in 1994. The institution also has facilities in Saitama, Saitama, Saitama, Sait ...

, the growing debate is understandable, as social exclusion, precarity in the labor market and poverty have increased in recent decades. Indeed, the state welfare system in Japan developed quite late and is still considerably less generous than in Europe, with the state playing a much smaller role in welfare provision and families, local communities and corporations play a larger role. In response to the combined effects of automation and job uncertainty, three political parties support universal basic income:

Nippon Ishin no Kai The is a conservative and centre-right to right-wing populist political party in Japan. Formed as Initiatives from Osaka in October 2015 from a split in the old Japan Innovation Party, the party became the third-biggest opposition party in t ...

Reiwa Shinsengumi is a Progressivism, progressive and left-wing populist List of political parties in Japan, political party in Japan founded by actor-turned-politician Taro Yamamoto in April 2019. The party was formed by left-wing members of the Liberal Party ( ...

and Greens Japan. Japanese academics arguing for basic income includ
Toru Yamamori
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Doshisha University , also referred to as , is a private university in Kyoto, Japan. Established in 1875, it is one of Japan's oldest private institutions of higher learning, and has approximately 30,000 students enrolled on four campuses in Kyoto. It is one of Japa ...

an
Hiroya Hirano
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Nihon Fukushi University is a private university with its main campus at Mihama, Aichi, and other campuses at Nagoya and Handa, also in Aichi Prefecture, Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of th ...

. Ronald Dore, a British sociologist specializing in the Japanese welfare state, has also been engaged in the basic income debate for many years, arguing for its implementation. The main organization promoting basic income in Japan is BIEN Japan, which is part of the

Basic Income Earth Network The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN; until 2004 Basic Income European Network) is a network of academics and activists interested in the idea of basic income. It serves as a link between individuals and groups committed to or interested in ...

(BIEN).

History (year by year)

* 2002: The first basic income-book in Japanese, "Welfare Society and Social Security Reform: New horizon of Basic Income", is published. * 2008: The Japanese Association for Feminist Economics have its yearly meeting, with basic income as the theme. * 2009: The Democratic Party organize a meeting where 40 MP takes part.

New Party Nippon The New Party Nippon (新党日本 ''Shintō Nippon'') was a Japanese political party formed on August 21, 2005. The party was headed by the former Nagano governor Yasuo Tanaka, and includes Diet members Kōki Kobayashi (deputy leader), Takas ...

includes basic income in their manifest. * 2012: Greens Japan (Japanese Green party) is endorsing basic income from its start. * 2014: ''Basic Income in Japan'', by

Yannick Vanderborght Yannick is a first name that originated in Brittany, France, where the combination of its two Breton language parts, ''Yann'' and ''-ick'', results in the meaning of ''Little John'' or ''Petit Jean'' in French. It is used as a first name mostly fo ...

and

Toru Yamamori TORU or Toru may refer to: *TORU, spacecraft system *Tōru (given name), Japanese male given name *Toru, Pakistan, village in Mardan District of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan *Tõru Tõru is a village in Saaremaa Parish, Saare County in western Es ...

, is the first book in English entirely devoted to the possibility for basic income in Japan. * 2015:

Tomoyuki Taira Tomoyuki is a masculine Japanese given name. Written forms Tomoyuki can be written using many different combinations of kanji characters. Some examples: *友之, "friend, of" *友幸, "friend, happiness" *友行, "friend, go" *友恭, "friend ...

, former MP, gives a BI-lecture in Tokyo on March 10. * 2016: A symposium on basic income and artificiell intelligens is arranged by "The Robotic Center". * 2017: Japanese media coverage intensifies. This includes national TV showing a short program about UBI, based on a news editor's visit to Finland and includes an interview with basic income expert Toru Yamamori. * 2019: The political party

is established, which supports a

basic income Universal basic income (UBI) is a social welfare proposal in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive a minimum income in the form of an unconditional transfer payment, i.e., without a means test or need to perform Work (hu ...

of ¥30,000 per person per month whenever inflation is below 2%. * 2022: The political party,

, announces its support for the introduction of a universal basic income of ¥60,000 per month, with additional supplements for non-coupled elderly

References

External links

BIEN Japan homepage

Universal basic income Forward-thinking or wrong-headed?
Justin McCurry, EUROBIZ Japan, 2017. Retrieved 4 October 2018. {{Basic income

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Economy of Japan Politics of Japan Social security in Japan Welfare in Japan