Geographical Studies of Welfare Issues in Japan since the 1990s

Fertility decline and population aging are progressing rapidly in Japan. To develop an appropriate welfare system to accommodate this aging society, coupled with low fertility, welfare reform has been implemented in Japan since around 2000. Demographic and political changes have stimulated Japanese geographers to study welfare-related issues. Since the latter half of the 1990s, many reports in the literature of Japanese geographical circles have described welfare issues. This article is intended to introduce geographical studies that have specifically examined welfare issues in Japan. There are three themes of the studies: 1) provision of welfare services, especially elderly care services and childcare services; 2) community reorganization to cope with an aging society; and 3) housing problems of vulnerable groups, including single elderly people, female-headed households, and homeless people. This article presents a review of existing geographical studies of each theme, and presents some themes for additional study.