This article is an overview of income inequality trends during the 1980s and 1990s and a discussion of their challenges to redistribution policies in Japan. The key results are summarized as follows. First, a widening disparity in market income for the working-age population has been driving...

This article examines inequality and poverty among older people in Japan. It compares Japan with that of a sample of other OECD countries. Provisions within the social insurance system that enable old-age pensioners to work and draw incomes from labor explain some of the inequality and poverty...

In Japanese society, changes in the employment patterns of the youth, particularly the increase in non-regular employment, have the potential to widen income disparities in the future. These potential income disparities are hidden because the youth who are not engaged in regular employment...