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

2006年，也就是本研究期间的最后一年，我们试图以历史的眼光对失业政策进行定位。首先，我们明确了围绕世界经济危机这一时期，中央和地方政府制定失业政策的规划和操作过程的意义。其次，我们对战前和战后的失业政策进行了比较，考察了失业救济金制度、公共建设直接就业措施和对裁员的限制。第三，从国际视角对日本的失业政策进行了分析。调查了日本代表在国际劳工组织大会上的辩论和投票，以及拒绝批准国际劳工组织协议的情况。第四，我们确认了20世纪20年代末政府、商界和包括记者在内的知识分子对欧洲失业保险制度的态度发生了重大变化。这是日本第一次蔑视欧洲的社会体制。在这种氛围下，负责制定政策的人达成了事实上的共识，即日本应该通过快速经济复苏来解决失业问题，而不是依赖欧洲的措施。

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.