Unemployment Policy in Prewar Japan : Empirical Analysis of their Domestic and International Factors

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In 2006, the last year of this research period, we tried to locate the unemployment policy by the historical perspective.Firstly, we made clear the significance of the planning and operating process of the policy in the central and local governments focusing the period around the world economic crisis. We put particularly the importance on the analysis of the debate in the governmental councils.Secondly, we compared the pre-war unemployment policy with the after-war one, inspecting the unemployment benefit system, direct employment measures by the public construction works and restriction of lay-off. This research enabled us to make clear the historical feature of the prewar policy.Thirdly, we analyzed Japanese unemployment policy in the international perspective. Debates and votes of Japanese representatives in the ILO general meetings and the refusal of the ratification of ILO agreements are investigated.Fourthly, we confirmed that the government, business world and intellectuals including journalists changed their attitude critically toward European unemployment insurance system at the end of the 1920s. This was the first experience that Japan despised European social scheme. Under such an atmosphere, the de facto consensus that Japan should resolve the unemployment problem without depending on the European measures through the rapid economic recovery was achieved among those charged with making policies.