母子世帯の貧困と就労支援の課題 : 「母子家庭自立支援給付金事業」を中心として

Abstract

Most mothers of lone mother families in Japan are in employment, but they don't get enough earning to live on. Moreover, the welfare benefits they receive are too low to support their family on their own income. As a result, their poverty ratio reaches the highest of all household types. Thus, it is the low-income of mothers that cause the poverty problem of lone mother families. Intrinsically, the labor policy should play the key role to solve the problem, but it has not taken effective measures so far. In the present situation, social welfare policy is required to compliment and substitute for it. What is necessary is to secure minimum living security to maintain their stable life on the one hand, and improve the value of mothers' labor force on the other, so that they can find a occupation or employment status to make them independent. Unfortunately, the social welfare policy of Japan is directed to workfirst-oriented workfare at present. In 2002 (Reform 2002), a policy to reduce welfare benefit and promote employment was implemented. This led to the establishment of an employment support system, and an occupation development project, which aims at stable employment through obtaining qualifications, started. Recently, the rise of users of this system led to the increase of employment. The project has been effective to some extent, but is not convenient enough for lone mother families yet. The aim of this paper is to examine the problems of this project, and to present guidelines of employment supports for indigent lone-mother families.