Introduction
What is the meaning of work? The economist Inoki states, “While labor is certainly painful, it cannot be denied that it is a source of power that generates enjoyment” (Reference Inoki2014, p. v). Compared to non-disabled people, people with disabilities are more likely to face economic deprivation due to limited opportunities to experience the pain and enjoyment derived from work (Yamamura Reference Yamamura2019, p. 5, 107). State-provided employment support systems have been greatly significant to disabled people by providing them with pathways to social participation, self-realization, and economic independence. Presently, support systems for their participation in labor are being established in individual countries and globally.
In May 2002, the General Assembly of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) adopted a resolution to extend the Decade of Persons with Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific (1993–2002) by another 10 years to 2012, based on a joint proposal by Japan, China, and others. The Biwako Millennium Framework, an action plan developed at the conference, set “vocational training and employment, including self-employment” as a high-priority action goal. This included developing partnerships with domestic and multinational employers of persons with disabilities, vocational preparation training, and the realization of labor rights. In this way, Japan has been actively participating in the network of Asian countries to promote the employment of people with disabilities (see Cabinet Office, Government of Japan). So how has the employment of people with disabilities been promoted in Japan? Historical research on the structure and impact of employment support for people with disabilities in the country has not progressed particularly well. To help fill this gap, we analyze the history of the Japanese administrations that supported the employment of people with disabilities in the 1950s.
Employment support for people with disabilities in Japan dates back to the prewar period. The term “disabled” in that case referred only to disabled veterans, not to disabled people in the general population. Several historical studies have shown that it was the dramatic increase in disabled soldiers that triggered employment support for general disabled populations (Cohen Reference Cohen2001; Gerber Reference Gerber2012; Jennings Reference Jennings2016; Kitamura Reference Kitamura2015; Pennington Reference Pennington2015). In Japan, with the birth of the Military Protection Agency (Gunji Hogoin) in 1939, job placement agencies and army and navy hospitals supported employment for disabled soldiers, referring to cases of vocational re-education for soldiers in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States (Makimura and Tsujimura 1942). This situation changed drastically with Japan's defeat in World War II: in the process of GHQ's occupation policy, the promotion of democratization, and the reconstruction of the Japanese economy, all policies supporting the lives of disabled soldiers specifically were abolished (Ueno Reference Ueno2007). Instead, the Japanese government embarked on a policy of general assistance to the physically disabled citizen that included assistance to disabled soldiers.
Some disabled citizens worked and earned wages in Japan before World War II (Nagahiro Reference Nagahiro and Yamashita2014; Yamashita Reference Yamashita and Yamashita2014). However, it was not until World War II that the state publicly expressed its commitment to social participation through work for its citizens, even those with disabilities. The outbreak of war and Japan's defeat had a great impact on policies for the disabled (Murakami Reference Murakami1987). After the war, the Ministry of Labor began to support employment for the disabled, and the Public Employment Security Office mediated such employment support.
Socio-economic historical studies on the role of this department have demonstrated that Public Employment Security Offices in Japan in the immediate postwar period contributed to the realization of employment for new high school graduates and functioned to adjust the supply and demand of the labor market (Kambayashi Reference Kambayashi2017; Sugayama Reference Sugayama2011). However, disabled people are not included among the subjects of those studies. Other Japanese historical studies have revealed that the state used the Public Employment Security Office to change the image of disabled soldiers as people who beg for alms to survive but do not work (Ueno Reference Ueno2003), but there has been no further mention of that since then. Welfare studies point to the role of the Public Employment Security Office (Ueda Reference Ueda2015) but do not consider why it played such an important role or what kind of tasks it performed.
The Japanese government began to provide full-fledged employment services for the disabled in the 1950s. However, the previous research has not analyzed this period. The reason for the lack of research is a misperception that the employment promotion system for the general disabled in Japan began with the enactment of the Act on Employment Promotion of Persons with Disabilities in 1960 (Nakajima Reference Nakajima2011; Tezuka Reference Tezuka2000). This is because the law was the first to focus primarily on the employment of the physically disabled. The second reason is that although the law did not oblige companies to hire disabled people, it did clearly state the recommended rate of disabled employees' companies should aspire to maintain.
This has been carried over and companies are now required to reveal their hiring rate of people with disabilities. It is seldom mentioned that the 1960 act was made on the basis of the Guidelines for the Vocational Rehabilitation and Support of Physically Disabled Persons in 1952. Welfare studies have shown that policies for disabled soldiers have had a significant impact on policies for the physically disabled in general (Terawaki Reference Terawaki2015a, Reference Terawaki2015b). However, those studies have not focused on employment policies for the disabled. As such, there is a lack of research on how postwar policies for employing people with disabilities were based on considerations of the treatment and employment of disabled soldiers. There is a need to analyze the structure of the employment for the general disabled in the 1950s while taking into account the problems that emerged in the lives of the disabled soldiers during this period.
In section “From prewar labor law to postwar labor law” of this paper, I will show the content of laws that purported to support the employment of people with disabilities in the immediate postwar period. The section “The birth of the guidelines”, the background of the Ministry of Labor's 1952 guidelines for employment support for the disabled will be discussed in the context of policies for disabled soldiers. The section “Operation of the guidelines”, we analyze how the labor market for physically disabled soldiers was affected by the implementation of the 1952 guidelines. The section “Barriers to employment, as described by people with disabilities” identifies what people with physical disabilities considered to be barriers to their participation in the labor market under the 1952 guidelines. In conclusion, we show how our analysis of the labor market for people with disabilities in the 1950s adds an important perspective to the history of people with disabilities.
From prewar labor law to postwar labor law
As noted, the outbreak and defeat of World War II had a major impact on the labor market for people with disabilities in Japan. During the war, job placement and vocational training for disabled veterans were provided under the Military Protection Agency (Gunji Hogoin). However, due to the democratization policies of the GHQ after the war, this institution disappeared. So what laws related to the employment of the disabled were enacted after the war?
First, the Employment Security Law enacted in 1947 (see Employment Security Law) clearly defined the role of the Public Employment Security Offices as follows: “This section shall provide vocational guidance to persons with physical or mental disabilities, persons seeking new employment, and other persons who require special guidance in obtaining employment.”
Next, the Act on the Welfare of the Physically Disabled was promulgated in 1949. The reason behind its enactment was the provision of welfare services to more than 800,000 people who were disabled due to wartime tragedies, industrial accidents, and diseases. In particular, regarding job placement, the law stated that “all persons with physical disabilities shall endeavor to overcome their disabilities voluntarily so that they may promptly participate in social and economic activities” (Article 2) and that “those who require vocational guidance or job placement shall be referred to the Public Employment Security Office” (Article 18) (Terawaki Reference Terawaki2015b, p. 246). The law thus clarified the state's support for employing not only disabled soldiers but other disabled citizens as well. In the process of deliberating over this law, the following issues were discussed toward realizing employment for the physically disabled. The first issue was whether or not to require companies to hire people with disabilities and if so whether to require them to employ a certain percentage. The Japanese government thought that full employment was difficult enough to achieve even for non-disabled people in the recession and even more so for the disabled; it concluded that it is desirable to request companies to cooperate as much as possible. Secondly, coordinating the vocational guidance administration and the medical administration was discussed, especially between the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Health and Welfare. This debate was over the fact that the law broadened the scope of the system to include the general disabled. During the war, the Ministry of Health and Welfare provided vocational training for disabled soldiers in hospitals to help them reintegrate into society. Yet after the war was over, some of them continued to be hospitalized.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare wanted to continue providing vocational training for the disabled, including disabled soldiers. However, the Ministry of Labor argued that employment for the physically disabled could only be achieved by combining vocational training and job placement (Noguchi Reference Noguchi and Terawaki2015).
It can also be assumed that the Ministry of Labor, which was born after the war, sought to garner political achievements by taking charge of all public services related to employment for the physically disabled.
According to Susumu Makimura, the first director of the Kanagawa Prefectural Vocational Guidance Center for the Physically Disabled, who was involved in the disabled soldier's policy before the war, the Ministry of Labor and the GHQ department that had jurisdiction over it were reluctant to implement vocational guidance for disabled soldiers and the general disabled. In contrast, the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the GHQ Welfare Department were more proactive (Makimura Reference Makimura, Makimura and Tsujimura1979). Finally, each of the two ministries established a department responsible for vocational training for the disabled. The Kanagawa Prefectural Public Assistance Center for the Physically Disabled was primarily responsible for the vocational training required to get a job under the Ministry of Labor's jurisdiction, and the Ministry of Health's National Rehabilitation Center for the Physically Disabled was responsible for job evaluation (Ueda Reference Ueda2015). The nation needed to submit new policies on medical, daily life, and vocational services for physically disabled. The main purpose of the Ministry of Labor was to help those who wanted to seek jobs (Central Joint-Council 1952a).
The birth of the guidelines
The Guidelines for the Vocational Rehabilitation and Support of Physically Disabled Persons were publicly announced in 1952. Why did this policy need to be submitted?
The first reason for the guideline involved a debate about how to solve the hardship of the disabled soldiers' lives. Until 1953, their previous benefits had not been restored by GHQ, meaning that they had lost all of their previous sources of livelihood. Some of the soldiers who fell on hard times began seeking donations on the streets. This problem of disabled soldiers begging in their white uniforms led to their fasting strike on October 13, 1951. The white-robed disabled soldiers asked the state for compensation, and the newspaper reported the protest with photos (Ueno Reference Ueno2004). Many citizens became aware of this issue through the case. The Japanese government needed to take action, and the Ministry of Labor needed to provide job placement services for the disabled soldiers to solve the problem. The Japanese Disabled Veteran's Association reached out to and encouraged them to access a Public Employment Security Office. In preparation for the enactment of the Act on Relief of War Victims and Survivors on April 30, 1952, a more active debate on how to provide relief to war victims, including disable soldiers, was underway.Footnote 1 In these discussions, there was a growing awareness of the need for employment opportunities to support the general disabled and the disabled veterans in their lives.
The second reason for the 1952 guidelines was that the Ministry of Labor could not show any record of having employment to disabled people. This department had estimated that there were hundreds of thousands of physically disabled people in Japan, but only 6,145 of them found employment through this system from 1949 to February 1952 (Unknown Author 1 1953). This led to a renewed discussion on how the Ministry of Labor should be involved in the employment of the physically disabled.
The search for a framework
The 1952 guidelines emphasized the importance of the Public Employment Security Office's role in helping the physically disabled find employment. The first role was job placement services. The department registered, on a voluntary basis, persons with physical disabilities who were willing and able to work and wished to find employment. This system had wider targets than the 1949 Act on Welfare of Physically Disabled and included people with diseases such as tuberculosis and heart disease. On the other hand, those whose disabilities were not fixed, or whose conditions worsened with employment, or who were deemed to be a danger to themselves or others were not registered for services. The second role was to strengthen vocational training. The third was to encourage employment. Fourth, the Ministry of Labor established the Employment Promotion Council to discuss important matters for the promotion of employment of the physically disabled. The fifth role was the promotion of research and surveys (Ministry of Labor 1982; Toyama Reference Toyama1952).
Until the establishment of the Act on Employment Promotion of Persons with Disabilities in 1960, actively involved parties sought ways to promote the employment of the physically disabled. How was this debate discussed in the 1950s, and what influenced it?
Compulsory hiring
During World War II, the Japanese government requested that companies employ disabled soldiers to help them stabilize their lives. Japanese people were familiar with this system, and the question of whether or not to require companies to employ the disabled including disabled soldiers was debated repeatedly. The Ministry of Labor investigated how mandatory employment of and vocational training for people with disabilities, including disabled soldiers, was enshrined in law in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and West Germany (Central Joint-Council 1952a).
The debate on compulsory hiring of the physically disabled in Japan became particularly well known to the public when Hashimoto Ryugo, then Minister of Health and Welfare, strongly advocated for its implementation, and the issue made headlines in the newspapers. Hashimoto Ryugo was the father of Hashimoto Ryutaro, who was the Prime Minister of Japan from 1996 to 1998. He made the following speech about his father.
In fact, my father, Hashimoto Ryugo, was also a politician. He spent eleven years of his childhood battling illness and could not leave his cane for the rest of his life. Before World War II, the disabled were not allowed to enter senior high schools in Japan. However, he personally appealed to the Ministry of Education to open the way for the disabled to take entrance exams to senior high schools. After graduating from university, he became a national public servant and later became a politician, serving as Minister of Health and Welfare twice and Minister of Education (See Speech by Mr. Ryutaro Hashimoto)
Hashimoto Ryugo stated that he would investigate the establishment of laws concerning the abolition of graded pensions and the establishment of quotas for hiring disabled veterans (Shimbun 1951). His argument was in contrast to the argument of the Minister of Finance Ikeda Hayato, who supported a disability pension for the seriously disabled. On January 18, 1952, Hashimoto asked “how”, even though it was the “the state's bare minimum obligation” to support the families of the war dead, and to support disabled veterans financially while taking into account financial restrictions, “can we stabilize public livelihoods and sentiment and defend our mother country by taking the stance that simply offering payments of a kind which are but ‘the price of a votive candle before an altar’ will suffice?”(Shimbun 1952). He, then, resigned from his post (Ueno Reference Ueno2004).
The argument for compulsory hiring was more vigorously debated at subsequent conferences discussing ways to promote the employment of the physically disabled.
The first response to the proposed forced hiring was that it was still too early. For example, the head of the Employment Security Department said in September 1952 that the compulsory hiring policies that had been implemented in the United Kingdom and some other countries were discussed seriously at a Japanese Cabinet meeting; he was of the opinion that this was premature and not necessarily warranted under the national situation (Saito Reference Saito1952, p. 6).
What was the “national situation”? Japan's position as a defeated country and its limited experience with employment for the disabled were two aspects of it. Forced hiring was being sought as a solution to the problems disabled soldiers had been living with since before World War II. In the early 1950s, the Japanese government was preparing to sign the San Francisco Peace Treaty and rejoin the international community. This contributed to its reluctance to implement forced hiring policies that were reminiscent of the prewar hiring practices for disabled soldiers.
What did the lack of experience lead to? One bureaucrat argued that if hiring quotas were forced on establishments, companies would only hire the people with the mildest disabilities who were assumed more likely to be useful. Such people would then be the first laid off in a recession (Yamakawa et al. Reference Yamakawa, Muranaka, Nakayama, Hagihara, Nakahara, Okabe, Kunii, Terada and Matsumoto1955). A factory manager at a heavy chemical company stated that if forced hiring was adopted, the company would be required to hire more people than it needed, which would be a heavy burden and ultimately discourage the hiring of disabled people (Kosaka 1953).
Others spoke out about how forced employment would affect the labor market. In 1952, an individual who had worked for a support group for disabled soldiers since 1940 pointed out that the occupational problems of the disabled were only 60% solved even though Japanese soldiers were respected in society (Central Joint-Council 1952b). The Executive Director of the Japan National Railways Injured Workers' Federation noted that during the war, in order to solve workforce shortage problems, the Japanese National Railways had a system of compulsory hiring for those who were disabled due to industrial accidents, and that this was a functioning system, to a certain extent (Yamakawa et al. Reference Yamakawa, Muranaka, Nakayama, Hagihara, Nakahara, Okabe, Kunii, Terada and Matsumoto1955, p. 47).
In the 1950s, compulsory hiring was always up for debate, but no decision was ever made on required hiring rates and no penalties were ever formulated.
Operation of the guidelines
After April 1952, when the Public Employment Security Office started its voluntary registration system, several surveys on the employment status of the physically disabled were conducted.
Referral status
From Table 1 titled “Job Placement Status of Physically Disabled from April 1953 to 1959”, we can see a constant number of referrals, a high referral rate, and a 50–60% job placement rate.
Table 1. Job placement status for the physically disabled (1953–1959)
Note 1: It is assumed that the “placement rate” refers to the percentage of job seekers who are employed.
Note 2: The original source was the Employment Status Report, Employment Security Bureau, Ministry of Labor.
Source: The Ministry of Labor 1982, p. 1158.
The high referral rate resulted from extensive public relations activities, efforts to develop workplaces, and innovations in job counseling.
The Public Employment Security Office engaged enthusiastically in public relations activities to increase registration numbers and promote employment. To commemorate Helen Keller's visit to Japan in September 1948, employment security institutions nationwide observed Vocational Rehabilitation for Physically Disabled Persons Week every September. Further, the Promotion of Employment for Physically Disabled Persons Week was officially established in 1952 (see Nippon Lighthouse Welfare Center for The Blind website). During such events, an awards ceremony for best-in-class employers of physically disabled persons was held. For a business to be certified as best-in-class, it had to set the wages of the physically disabled persons at appropriate levels, considering the following: regional circumstances; maintaining parity with the wages of other companies in the same industry; keeping with the principle of equal pay in cases where the skills and ability of physically disabled persons are at the same level as general employees, with no deterioration in performance; make efforts to prepare the work environment through various means such as installing assistive equipment and improving facilities (Unknown Author 2 1957). In 1953, Public Employment Security Office employees recollected that public relations activities for the promotion of employment of physically disabled persons in “70% of urban areas and around 90% of other areas had most probably been carried out thoroughly” (Unknown Author 1 1953).
To open up the workplace environment, the Public Employment Security Office hired several representatives responsible for visiting and interviewing employers and created a workplace questionnaire. Some Public Employment Security Offices made efforts to carry out counseling based on understanding personalities and setting specific goals, for example, by asking junior and senior high schools within their jurisdiction to create lists of disabled students, creating systems that perform medical consultations and involved parents in vocational counseling, and developing interview methods for easing the anxiety of physically disabled students who had lost confidence in themselves (Furuhata et al. Reference Furuhata, Sayanagi, Tanikou, Watanuki, Nakahara, Harada and Abe1958).
However, there were some disadvantages to the Ministry of Labor's goal of increasing the number of disabled people employed, as one member of the Ministry's staff wrote:
When I think about it calmly (and there is a problem with people's understanding of the disabled), I wonder if it was burdensome for workplaces where many disabled people had been hired for the first time. They may have been hired simply because there was a shortage of staff. They may also have been paid less than non-disabled workers. And are we, as supporters, placing the physically disabled in small companies with poor working conditions just because there are jobs available? (Harada Reference Harada1959, p. 14)
Second, we ask, what contributed to the plateau in the growth of the placement rate? The “Survey of Reasons for Non-Employment of Registered Physically Disabled”, published by the Ministry of Labor in August 1953, is shown in Table 2.
Table 2. Top 3 reasons for unemployment among the physically disabled (1953)
Note: The original was made by the Ministry of Labor in August 1953.
Source: The Ministry of Labor 1986, p. 1162.
Table 2 demonstrates that disabled and disabled soldiers were exiting the labor market due to inadequate work environments, low wages, and other poor working conditions. Another factor was a lack of education and skills required to enter the labor market.
Consequently, we must ask: what kind of work environments did they face and what type of vocational training did they receive, if any?
In response to a 1956 survey conducted with 3,389 people regarding special considerations for work performance, only 9.9% of respondents reported receiving vocational training to improve their work efficiency, and only 9.9% had received any consideration such as regarding maintenance of tools, improvement of work equipment, change of work process, or installation of auxiliary equipment (Unknown Author 3 1958). Furthermore, some respondents reported that because they were physically disabled, they were required to do work even when their efficiency was inferior to that of normal workers, with little expectation of their work's effectiveness. In addition, 20.2% of the respondents reported that the work was simple and designed just for the physically disabled.
According to a 1957 surveyFootnote 2 (Ministry of Labor 1982), employers made hiring decisions based on sympathy, emphasis on character, and experience in hiring the disabled. Because they did not expect the same contributions to business management as they did from non-disabled people, few employers improved work equipment or provided assistive devices. Of course, some staff members providing support were aware of these problems. In 1955, Takao Okabe, director of the Shibuya Public Employment Security Office, based-on prewar experience, recommended that the government fund the necessary changes in work equipment, prostheses, and job aids to enable the disabled to work. He also pointed out that the government had previously provided funds to improve the work environment for employing disabled soldiers. He complained that the budget for such matters was too small (Yamakawa et al. Reference Yamakawa, Muranaka, Nakayama, Hagihara, Nakahara, Okabe, Kunii, Terada and Matsumoto1955).
Another factor behind the flat placement rate was that registration was voluntary. The system required only disabled people who were willing to work to register. Under this system, people who “could not” or for some reason “would not” access this Public Employment Security Office were excluded from registration (Employment Security Division 1959). In 1954, only 40,000 people reportedly registered, compared to the expected 150,000. According to a survey of 841 unregistered persons, 46.7% of the unregistered disabled persons were already employed (including 21.5% who were self-employed and 10.7% who were helping in the family business), 49.3% were not employed (including 10.5% who had given up on working due to severe disability, old age, lack of suitable jobs, or lack of confidence, 8.8% who were under medical treatment, 8.3% who were planning to become self-employed, and 2.3% who were uncomfortable in front of others) (Enoshita et al. 1954, pp. 43–44).
Wages and working conditions
The purpose of the voluntary registration system was to mediate employment of the disabled. The problem was that the system did not consider the conditions they would be working in after they were hired, nor the wages they would be paid. Table 2 suggests that low wages were one reason why people with physical disabilities left the labor market. In 1953, at a meeting of the Council, the Director of the Employment Security Bureau stated that wages were on average 20–30% lower than wages for the general population and that this was because small- and medium-sized companies, the main sources of employment for the physically disabled, offered low wages and many unskilled jobs (Kosaka Reference Kosaka1953). In a January 1956 survey of the 3,264 commuters, the highest percentage (23.7%) of respondents were earning between 15,000 yen and 30,000 yen per month, including tax, while 10.0% were earning less than 10,000 yen per month (Unknown Author 3 1958).
Their families took the stance that they did not care about the salary as long as the disabled person could get a job. However, workers tended to quit such jobs relatively quickly because salaries were too low, employers did not pay for transportation, or the employer spent too much (Furuhata et al. Reference Furuhata, Sayanagi, Tanikou, Watanuki, Nakahara, Harada and Abe1958, p. 20). Also, in the case of the disabled, welfare payments as a means of income cannot be overlooked. If welfare benefits exceeded the salary the disabled person could earn by working, the registered person would stop working (Furuhata et al. Reference Furuhata, Sayanagi, Tanikou, Watanuki, Nakahara, Harada and Abe1958, pp. 16–17). An official from the Ministry of Labor complained that the welfare office only relied on welfare and did little to help with the job issue (Furuhata et al. Reference Furuhata, Sayanagi, Tanikou, Watanuki, Nakahara, Harada and Abe1958).
Barriers to employment, as described by people with disabilities
In the 1950s, with public support, disabled people who wanted to work, including disabled soldiers, gained the right to participate in the labor market. However, the labor market was full of barriers to their employment. What barriers did they perceive? In this section, we attempt to clarify this.
The first barrier was their low self-esteem. According to a representative of a welfare organization (A), there are two types of people with disabilities: those who think that because they are disabled, they have to work harder than non-disabled people, and those who think that they can no longer do anything. He pointed out the importance of understanding these two types and helping them raise their self-esteem and the importance of understanding their employers and their families (Central Joint-Council 1952b). In this regard, B, who was disabled and worked for a group supporting people who had become disabled as a result of work-related accidents on the railroad, made the following comments in 1928.
It is very important for them to live independent lives. Because of their disabilities, they are dazzled by the idea that their shape is broken or that their physical functions are missing, and they tend to forget what they still have left, what they can still extract from their bodies and their potential (Central Joint-Council 1952b, p. 25)
The second barrier was the stereotype of the less capable worker. B pointed out that it was necessary to provide opportunities to learn about physically disabled people's actual conditions (Central Joint-Council 1952b).
The third barrier applied to disabled veterans and involves their particular hardships after the war. C, a disabled soldier who worked for a support group, described such hardships in detail. According to him, blind wounded soldiers who were trying to work as masseurs were told by potential clients that they were too sorry for blind people to ask them to work for them, and no work was forthcoming. Many of those assigned to suicide missions in their teens had no practical work experience and felt forced to seek donations to live on. Many tried their hands at unfamiliar businesses hoping to get rich but failed. Wounded soldiers in Japan with various disabilities were hindered in society and considered “privileged, disabled people” and after the war their hardships continued.
The fourth barrier was the lack of a platform where the voices of the people concerned could be heard. In 1940, C stressed the need to create a place for discussions among employers, workers, and local governments in order to promote the future employment of people with physical disabilities under the law (Central Joint-Council 1952b).
The fifth barrier was the lack of unification among the departments that provided public support to people with disabilities. In the analysis above, we confirmed that both the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Health and Welfare provided employment support services to people with disabilities. However, disabled people criticized this structure due to the lack of convenience in accessing the specified services and poor coordination between Employment Security offices and Welfare offices. The system was extremely physically and financially burdensome for the disabled (Central Joint-Council 1952b).
Furthermore, people with disabilities faced many difficulties in work environments designed for non-disabled people. People with disabilities tended to think that they should have to overcome these barriers on their own. In addition, non-disabled people tended to praise disabled people who overcame these obstacles and achieved results in the workplace. Ryugo Hashimoto talked about how he became disabled and his efforts to enter the university and to get a job. He refused to believe that people with physical disabilities should be treated with pity based on the assumption that they are “poor people”. He pointed out that there were cases where parents instilled in their children preconceived notions such as “if you do something wrong, you too will become such-and-such [i.e., disabled]” or “if you are punished, your eyes will go blind”, and that such views of the disabled hinder their realization of employment. He strongly insisted that the only way was to work hard and gain the confidence to survive on one's own (Unknown Author 4 1960, p. 41).
D was selected as “the most efficient worker” by the Ministry of Labor in 1959. She had lost her right leg in a traffic accident in the third grade. After graduating from junior high school, she consulted with the Employment Security Office and received vocational training before finding a seamstress job. She could not keep up with the speed of her non-disabled colleagues; she lost confidence in her own work when people around her told her that disabled people were impatient, selfish, and naive. She had decided to try to take seven to eight hours to do what it took other people five hours to do. She stated, “I could not finish working as fast as non-disabled people, so I tried to reach my company several hours earlier to keep up to their speed” (Unknown Author 4 1960, p. 42). Her speech reveals that she was required to accomplish her work just as fast as her non-disabled people coworkers, which was a barrier to her to continued employment.
Both individuals experienced feeling bad about being judged as “disabled people who cannot work”. They tried to and had to overcome this stereotype through their own performance.
Conclusion
Forced hiring or the use of the labor market? This paper has shown that this debate first gained momentum in Japan in the 1950s regarding employment for disabled citizens, including disabled soldiers.
The 1950s can be regarded as when Japan began to formulate a policy on how to position physically disabled people as workers in society, and in this paper, we focus on that time period, when the impact of policies for disabled soldiers was significant. By adopting this perspective, this study reveals first that the debate over whether hiring disabled people should be compulsory or through the labor market emerged anew in the 1950s. Secondly, we found that another debate also emerged in the 1950s over whether policies should be based on the assumption that disabled people would be excluded from the labor market if employers were not compelled to hire them or on the assumption that people with disabilities would be able to freely participate in the labor market.
First of all, compulsory hiring is a policy based on the premise that disabled people were being excluded from the labor market. In prewar Japan, disabled soldiers were encouraged by this policy to seek employment, but even when employment was obtained, it was not easy for disabled people to remain employed. In the 1950s in Japan, society considered people with disabilities unable to work. Disabled soldiers, and the bureaucrats who supported them, experienced this reality, and so they tended to believe that their employment would be impossible without some kind of strong political power.
On the other hand, employment based on utilizing the labor market refers to the goal of people with disabilities being able to freely participate in the labor market. Movement in this direction began only after World War II when people with disabilities in society were made public for the first time through labor issues. Yet, in the immediate postwar period, this system required disabled people to compete on the same playing field as non-disabled people, without removing the barriers to employment present in society or meeting the costs disabled people incurred in removing them. It was indispensable to improve working conditions for people with disabilities, to ensure that they were starting their professional lives from the same starting line as people without disabilities; meeting the costs associated with this was essential. Some individuals who had experienced the prewar disabled soldier's policy were familiar with the state's previous compulsory budget allocation to improve the work environment, and they stressed the importance of this system.
Who, though would pay these costs? Employers had little interest in spending money on accommodations, and although the state recognized the need and was working on designing a system, it was hesitant to ask them to. In such a situation, discussions on cost allocation were not lively, and it was natural that improvements in the work environment would be delayed.
What is a market? The market is not a jungle where the weak and the strong battle but a place where the “socially vulnerable” can find a role to play and express their power (Matsui Reference Matsui2017).
Why do companies employ people with disabilities? Answers should be diverse. The reason for hiring people with disabilities is not involved only in questions of generating monetary profit efficiently and speedily. Recent business studies have found that hiring people with disabilities can contribute to rethinking existing work styles and revitalizing corporate management (Arimura Reference Arimura2014). The answer to questions of who works or how they work cannot be unrelated to the state of society. Analyzing the history of people with disabilities and the labor market provides us with hints for thinking about the meaning of work and how to look at work from a broader perspective.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Tetsuya Fujiwara, Makoto Ohtani, Toshitaka Nagahiro, Toru Imajoh,Tomoyo Nakano and Akihito Suzuki for useful discussions. I am grateful to Christopher Gerteis and the members of Japanese Research Centre at SOAS University of London for organizing the 2019 research meeting and their useful advice. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI funding (grant numbers: JP 19H00540 and JP 20H01308).
