Researcher's Profile

  • Project Professor
  • Makoto YUASA
  • Social Inclusion Systems
E-mail
infoyuasamakoto.org
URL

Biography

March 2003 Doctor coursework completed without degree, Faculty of Low and Politics, The University of Tokyo (UTokyo)
May 2001 General Secretary, Life Support Center MOYAI
March 2007 General Secretary, Anti Poverty Network
October 2009 Special Adviser to Cabinet Office
April 2014 Professor, Faculty of Social policy and Administration, Hosei Univ.
September 2018 Chief Diector, Support Center for Kodomo-shokudo MUSUBIE
April 2019 Project Professor, RCAST, UTokyo
 

Research Interests

Over the last 30 years, Japan has witnessed a dismantling of the lifetime employment system established during its era of high growth, which has led to a decline in standards of living and the life-course.However, owing to postwar Japan's singular success in achieving long-term high economic growth, political and economic structures appear to lack sufficient capacity for changing with the times, and particularly our rapidly diversifying society. Ultimately, ample time will be necessary for correcting our present trajectory. Major problems, such as low birth rates and population decline, aging population, financial difficulties, and economic inequality all play key roles in the present gap between where we are versus where we ought to be.Conventional ideas will not bring us to a solution; instead, we need to reconsider these ideas. Moreover, vision for a future direction must emerge from direct engagement with the above phenomena as well as the people they affect. I have personally discovered the seedlings of this future direction through my engagements in strengthening local communities, addressing poverty and inequality, creating spaces for children like "Kodomo Shokudo" (lit. children's cafeteria), and contributing to the revitalization of "depopulated" areas. I aim to see the creation of a world  where these seedlings, rooted in our communities and society, will serve as standards and infrastructure for a new era.I would like to ensure that knowledge produced by these seedlings is shared widely and built upon, while also contributing to the realization of effective indicators, local diagnostic tools readily developed on the ground, and, above all else, new avenues for bringing research and social practice together.
 

Award

  • November 2008 8th Osaragi Jiro Rondane Award
  • December 2016 Author Award 2016, Yahoo! News Byline

Keywords

Poverty issue of modern Japan, and social inclusion

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