Chronic. Income inequalities have increased substantially within the countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and social mobility has slowed down considerably over the past three decades.
This situation is at the root of strong social discontent and a decline in trust in institutions. This is aggravated by systematic discrepancies between statistical realities, measured by converging studies on this subject, and their perception by citizens.
This gap explains much of the difficulty governments have in gaining support for their policies, even when they help to reduce inequality. Therefore, in order to design and implement policies that are supported by a majority, it is essential to understand how the perception of real inequalities influences the demand for redistribution.
The most important thing is growth
The Japanese case is particularly interesting because it is paradoxical: while the real level of income inequality is higher there than the OECD average, its perception is weaker. This stems mainly from a strong belief in equality of opportunity, although this has declined significantly among young people. This explains why the demand for redistribution is weaker in Japan than elsewhere.
During a roundtable in Tokyo organized by the OECD in collaboration with the Japan Institute for Labor Policy and Training (JILPT) on December 8, 2022 (” Does Inequality Matter? How People Perceive Economic Disparities and Social Mobility in Japan », Mana Nakazora (BNP Paribas Japan), member of the Council for Economic and Fiscal Policy, thus presented a rather dominant vision among the Japanese elites, even after thirty years of economic stagnation: the most important thing is growth; inequality only stems from a lack of growth and opportunity.
Yuki Murohashi, director of the Japan Youth Conference, a non-governmental youth support organization, has a radically different interpretation: the weak demand for redistribution is mainly due to the fact that young Japanese people – among whom we find the most disadvantaged – have given up on changing society.
This profound pessimism appears in an expression very fashionable in Japan, oya gacha (“the parents’ lottery”), designating the fact that the destiny of young people basically depends on their parents and their financial capacity to pay for studies in private schools in order to be able to access the best universities.
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