This second seminar in the 2011 series, ‘Uncertain Futures: The Individual, Society and the State in the UK and Japan’, will explore the concepts and issues surrounding social security and welfare provision in the UK and Japan. The speakers will consider current arrangements in both countries in the context of longstanding debates on trust and responsibility and what the State should provide to support social needs. From the Beveridge Report to the ‘Big Society’, the evolution of the welfare state and the impact of spending reviews on social policy in the UK will be assessed. Our Japanese speaker will draw upon recent research to compare ‘livelihood security systems’ and to explore future possibilities for a society of social inclusion in Japan.
Contributors:
Mari Osawa is Professor and Doctor of Economics at the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo. She is also Leader of the ISS institute-wide Joint Research Project on “Governance re-examined”, Member of the Science Council of Japan, Director of the Economic Policy Institute for Quality of Life and Vice Chair of the Expert Committee for the Government Tax Commission. She specializes in comparative gender analysis of social policies. She has worked as visiting professor at the Ruhr-University of Bochum and Gender and Development Studies Program of the Asian Institute of Technology, as well as a Fellow of the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg. Her English publications include: Walby, S., H. Gottfried, K. Gottschall and Mari Osawa (eds) ‘Gendering the Knowledge Economy, Comparative Perspectives’ (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), Tsujimura, Miyoko and Mari Osawa (eds) ‘Gender Equality in Multicultural Societies: Gender, Diversity, and Conviviality in the Age of Globalization’ (Tohoku University Press, 2010). Her new book, ‘Social Security in Contemporary Japan’ (Routledge/University of Tokyo Series) will be published in May 2011.
Will Hutton is Executive Vice Chair of the Work Foundation, an influential voice on work, employment and organisation issues in the UK. Regularly called on to advise senior political and business figures and comment in the national and international media, he is one of the pre-eminent economics commentators in the country. Before joining the Work Foundation, he worked as economics correspondent for ‘Newsnight’ at the BBC and spent four years as editor-in-chief of ‘The Observer’, for which he continues to write a weekly column. He also regularly contributes to ‘The Guardian’ and the ‘Financial Times’. He is a prolific writer in the fields of politics and economics, alongside his work as a governor of the London School of Economics. Among his publications are: ‘The State We’re In’ (Vintage, 1996), ‘The State to Come’ (Vintage, 1997), ‘The Stakeholding Society’ (Polity Press, 1998) and ‘New Life for Health’ (Vintage, 2000). His latest book, ‘Them and Us: Changing Britain – Why We Need a Fair Society’, was published by Little, Brown & Company in September, 2010.
Peter Kenway is Director of the New Policy Institute, an independent think tank and consultancy set up in 1996 to promote evidence-based analysis of social problems both in the UK and abroad. NPI’s annual ‘Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion report’, published since 1998 by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, is widely recognised as the most authoritative independent assessment of the progress being made in these matters. A professional economist, he has written extensively on the tax and benefit system, the role of markets in providing essential services, and the reform of local government finance. He is a member of the Welsh Assembly Government’s Ministerial Advisory Group on child poverty. Reflecting his long standing interest in the economies of eastern Europe, he is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Reading’s Centre for Euro-Asia Studies. His 1994 ‘From Keynesianism to Monetarism’ is about to be republished as part of the Routledge ‘revivals’ series. As a senior manager within London Transport in the 1980s, he played a leading role in the early privatisation of the capital’s bus services.
Free but booking is essential at www.dajf.org.uk/booking |
