Single-mother households badly hit by slump

 

Keiji Hirano reports that the economic slump has severely hit single-mother households because many of these women work as nonregular employees, the Japan Federation of Bar Associations reported at a recent symposium.

In another indication of the hardships such households face, a survey by a nonprofit organization that supports children who have lost one or both parents showed that 9 percent of high school students who receive scholarships from the group after losing their fathers have to forgo higher education due to financial difficulties.

The federation said the average annual income of single-mother households is ¥2.13 million, or 38 percent of the national average. This means such households with an average 3.3 family members must live on ¥54,000 per member per month."Recent news reports on the issue of poverty focus mainly on male temporary workers who have lost their jobs, without showing much interest in the poverty suffered by women," the lawyers' group said in its report.

At a panel discussion, Chieko Akaishi, a director of Single Mothers' Forum, said, "Around 20 years ago, single mothers could take on relatively steady jobs as permanent employees at small companies or as nonclerical public servants, such as school cooks, although their wages were not so high.

"However, deregulation and privatization have led schools, for example, to outsource catering" and this has made the labor situation for single mothers less stable, she said. "Single mothers do not live on the street, as they have children, but poverty among them is becoming more deeply entrenched." Click here to continue to the Japan Times story!