About
Academic Background
Forming a research base to tackle, scientifically and systematically, on child and adolescent poverty
Department of Behavioral Social Sciences,
Graduate School of Humanities
Ph. D. (Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy)
Relative poverty has long been one of the serious problems in many developed countries around the world. Japan is no exception. Some children in Japan are forced to live in harsh living conditions and face various issues often associated with poverty. Once coined “all-middle class society”, Japan is now one of the countries with highest poverty rates. In June 2013, Japanese government finally enacted a law to tackle this issue. The “Child Poverty Policy Promotion Law” was enacted and the “Charter on Countermeasures against Child Poverty” was determined by the Cabinet based on that law in August 2014.
The Center is an ambious attemp to integrate multiple social science fields into a single research community whose whole purpose is to utilize advances in social sciences to measure, access, understand the complex phenomenon of poverty, especially among children and adolescents. Researchers from various disciplines are joining hands to conduct joint research on child and adolescent poverty. The Center also collaborate with national and local governments in developing policies and programs to combat poverty.