ESRC / JSPS Seminar Event

About The Event

Despite their relative wealth, poverty, inequality and social exclusion are major issues of concern for both the UK and Japan. The main objective of the collaborative seminar, held in Japan in January 2012, was to advance the theory and practice of poverty and social exclusion measurement from a UK / Japanese comparative perspective. The seminar was sponsored jointly by the ESRC and the JSPS and involved a research workshop and two large public seminars.

It brought together some of the two country's leading researchers to:

• Review the 'state of the art' of poverty and social exclusion measurement in each country
• Discuss and compare the evidence from recent surveys
• Consider their implications for public and social policies

Politicians, policy-makers and practitioners working in the public, private and voluntary sectors, as well as activists, journalists, and members of the general public, attended the public events held in Tokyo and Kyoto.

Departments and Institutions

The project was a collaboration between Christina Pantazis and Professor David Gordon from the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research at the University of Bristol, England, and Dr Aya Abe, Director of the Department of Empirical Social Security Research at the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, Tokyo, Japan.

The contents of speakers' presentations and papers can be traced through the following links:

(1) Research Seminar:

The State of
the Art of Measuring Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK and Japan

6 January 2012

(2) Public Symposium:

Is Japan an Equal Society?

Keio University, Tokyo, 7 January 2012

(3) Open Seminar:

Tackling Child Poverty: Lessons from the UK and New Frontiers in Japan

Doshisha University, Kyoto, 9 January 2012