Japanese Women Now

Making Japan As a Country of Comfortable Living:
A Proposal from Single Mothers

By ICHIKAWA, Maki
Single Mothers Forum

The number of "fatherless" families is increasing. According to the results of fact-finding survey on fatherless families conducted nationwide in 1998, revealed by the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare in March 2001, the number of fatherless families was 954,900, an increase of 20% compared with 5 years before. Among those fatherless families, divorced-mother headed households make up about 68.4%, an increase of 29% over the previous survey, while unmarried mother households form only about 7.3%, although the ratio of increase was as high as 85%.

Those female-headed families by choice (all kind of female-headed families except widows-headed families) are in straitened circumstances, and the average annual income is 2.16 million yen (about USD 16,615), about a third of the average annual income of households in general. This paper will focus on the problems of the Japanese social system that put them in such a situation, and it is envisaged to make some proposals for improvement.

Child-support allowance

What single mothers rely on most financially is the public child-support allowance. This is a national system, and the amounts of allowance are determined based on the number of children and the previous year's income of mothers. There are so many single mother households that barely make a living with this allowance. Nevertheless, because of financial difficulties caused by an increasing number of divorces, the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare has recently issued the policy to set more strict limits of the maximum income and related conditions for grantees of child-support allowance. The Ministry also restricted the total amount of allowance paid to those families. Such an act is not acceptable for single mothers as the maximum income for grantees of child-support allowance was lowered in 1998, and it has only been three years. Instead, the Ministry proposed occupational training and subsidies to companies which employ single mothers, but it is quite doubtful about how successful these measures in encouraging employment of single mothers, without solving problems such as gender-based wage disparities, and companies being reluctant to employ single mothers with little children in particular for they cannot work overtime.

Tax exemption for widows

One form of tax exemption single mother families are eligible is the exemption for widows. This exemption is given to families whose mothers have either divorced or whose fathers were dead, but families headed by unmarried mother cannot be eligible for it. Whether exemption amounting to 350,000 yen a year can be given or not has a great impact on payment of local inhabitant tax and if child-support allowance can be received or not. Even unmarried mothers qualify this form of exemption, if they have divorced before or their husbands were dead. It is absurd that criteria on allowance, that is supposed to be provided for the benefit of children, changes according to the circumstances of their parents. It is strongly advised that irrationality of this form of exemption be revised so that it will be applied to all single mother families. Furthermore, it is desirable to create a system with a new name such as "exemption for single parent families", to be applied to all single parent families. Then, it will lead to revision of the present unfair criteria that exclude single father families from becoming grantees of child-support allowance.

Expenses of bringing up children

Until 1998, if a child of an unmarried couple is legally acknowledged by the birth father, public child-support allowance would not be granted, although all these fathers who recognize paternity of children do not necessarily pay expenses of bringing up children. In consideration of the high living expenses, some single mother families gave up the idea of children being recognized by father in fear of losing this allowance. Improvement has been made in this respect, as an amendment (took effect from fiscal year 2001) to the law concerning child-support allowance proposed inclusion of expenses of bringing up children into the calculation of the allowance. This means that the law will stipulate ex-husband's or father's obligation to make efforts to pay at least some expenses of bringing up their children. However, an "obligation to make efforts to pay expenses" does not mean that the government or the administration would have authority to order them to pay such expenses, so it is very questionable how effective it would be.

According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Wealth, single mothers who receive expenses of bringing up children from their fathers make up about 20.8%, which has increased by 5% over the previous survey although is still a very small percentage. This is not irrelevant to incompleteness of the law that provides payment of expenses of bringing up children. It is strongly recommended that payment of the expenses should be systematized, and for that purpose, adequate measures should be taken such as making expenses of bringing up children tax-deductible and deducting the expenses from the payers' salaries.

Pension scheme

The current pension scheme that favorably treats full-time homemaker families gives a negative impact on single mothers' living. Spouses of the employees who are the members of the government-managed pension plan for corporate employees as well as mutual aid associations' pension plans are called No.3 insured persons, who do not have to pay premiums. Their premiums are covered all the No. 2 insured persons who are the members of the government-managed pension plan for corporate employees and mutual aide associations' pension plans, including most working men and women regardless of their family status. It is quite questionable why single mothers who work hard to support their families have to pay the premiums of full-time homemakers.

Moreover, in order to remain their status as dependents of their husbands to enjoy this privilege, there are not a few housewives who have part-time jobs adjusting their work to restrict their annual income below 1.3 million yen (about USD 10,000). This creates a tough situation for single mothers, for they are eager that their hourly wage will rise no matter how little it is, but they had to compete with full-time homemakers who try to limit their income.

Presently a variety of tentative plans are being proposed towards a reform of public pension schemes to take place in 2004. Among these proposals, one of the very considerable proposal suggest a person who earns 650,000 yen or more in a year is forced to become a member of the government-managed pension plan for company employees and "allotment of pension benefits" that the husband's pension benefits are divided between him and his wife when they divorce.

Discrimination against children of an unmarried couple

When children are newly registered within a family registration, the first child of a legally-married couple registered as "the first son" or "the first daughter", but the first child of an unmarried couple (illegitimate child) registered as just "boy"or "girl." There are various forms of discrimination against children of unmarried couples, such as their legal portion of inheritance is a half of children of married couples (legitimate children). Whether a child was born of an unmarried couple or not is neither something that provides room for the child himself/herself to choose nor within his/her responsibility, so such discrimination is against equality of citizens under the law that is stipulated in the Constitution. Japan is the only developed country that still has such obvious forms of discrimination, and U. N. Human Rights Committee in 1994 and 1998 recommended Japan to eliminate those forms of discrimination, as they are violation of human rights. Nevertheless, any progress has been seen toward the amendment of the law.

Fortunately, as the number of children born from unmarried couple increases, people's perception of these children is changing. The public tendency to take a positive view of single mothers has begun to be seen, as evidenced by a popular TV drama series, which was produced by the public station with a so-called unmarried mother as a heroine. It will be essential to carry out a continuous advocacy to raise awareness of basic human rights.

To pursue a society in which everyone can live comfortably

If a society is comfortable for single mothers to live in, then so is for everybody. To realize such a society, what should be done first of all is that we should respect the basic idea that "all people are equal under the law" once again to eliminate all discriminatory laws. In order to do so, it is necessary to change the current social system that uses the standard household as a unit to calculate taxes and welfare payments into the system that uses an individual as a unit so that benefits can reach every member of society. What is also important is to create a social environment that induces single mothers themselves to actively make a proposition to change social norms and public systems. It is about time for the Japanese society to realize that single mothers can also demonstrate their abilities in demanding changes.

ICHIKAWA, Maki:She is an unmarried single mother who lives with her three-and-half-year-old son in Tokyo. She had been working as an editor for an English language magazine until she was laid off due to the company's restructuring. She is currently looking for an editorial position. She writes about issues of family, women and human rights from a perspective of international comparison. One of her works is "Marrying for Who?" (Mini World No. 75, February-March 2001). Since 1994, she participated for 2 and a half years as a NGO staff member in an international relief group for farm village development and educational support of young children in Cambodia.

Single Mothers' Forum:A voluntary organization of which members are mostly members of single mother families. It carries out various activities aiming at a creation of society in which single mothers and their children can live comfortably. Its activities includes making propositions, exchanging information, and providing mutual assistance. It works on the administration and pressures it to solve the problems concerning social systems, which are posed in this paper as well as appeals to public opinions for elimination of discrimination and expansion of rights through the media.

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WOM has been working on the initiative Japanese Women Now in order to provide information about contemporary legal/social environment surrounding Japanese women. It is our hope that information on this page help readers gain further understandings on gender issues in Japan.

Authors of articles contributed to this initiative are active and knowledgeable members of the respective fields of selected topics. The contents are based on the fact available as of late 2001, when these articles were written. The original Japanese articles are also available on our Japanese Home Page.

Topics selected in this initiative are: Domestic Violence, Compulsory Selection of a Family Name for a Married Couple, Elderly Care and Women, Women and Work, Sexual Harassment in Working Place, Sexual Harassment on Campus, Equal Employment Opportunity Law, Single Mothering, Child Abuse, Women and Medical Care, and Reproductive Health/Rights. ===＞GO to Index

This initiative was made possible by the grant from Asian Women's Fund.