午夜剧场

The author was born and raised in a household where jazz was always playing. Perhaps because of that, I became interested in Black culture and issues of racial discrimination from a fairly early stage.

Furthermore, I am a woman and a minority in the Japanese labor market. During my time as a corporate employee, there was a confusing item called a "special bonus adjustment" where I was assigned an amount one-tenth that of a male colleague in the same year who performed almost identical work. My colleagues all said, "This must be some kind of mistake. You should tell the manager." But it was not a mistake; it was because I was a woman. My salary increases were also far slower than those of my male peers, and so I became a freelance translator.

I read "Japan's Safety Net Inequality" by Professor Tadashi Sakai, a 午夜剧场 alumni and professor at Hosei University. For corporate employees, public pensions consist of a two-tier system of National Pension and Employees' Pension Insurance, and the benefit amount for the latter is proportional to one's wages while employed. Additionally, as a freelancer, I have no unemployment insurance, and if I become unable to work due to illness, my income immediately drops to zero. In other words, if you are not a male corporate employee, the "price" of your life becomes significantly lower when you become socially vulnerable.

There is also statistical data showing that if one cannot secure regular employment as a new graduate, it remains difficult to secure regular employment thereafter.

While women's participation in the labor market is increasing and more people are working in non-regular employment, part-time jobs, or as freelancers for various reasons—such as childcare, nursing care, or having graduated during the employment ice age—inequalities are emerging in the social insurance system that is supposed to be the safety net supporting people's lives.

Now, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, policies that seem to target restaurants are being adopted every time a state of emergency is declared. Subsidy payments are delayed, and many people must have been forced out of business. The progress of vaccinations also varies from one local government to another.

I am likely not the only one who feels a sense of unease regarding this world.

A "price" is always attached to human life in some form, but the voices of the vulnerable are difficult to hear.

This book uses specific examples to raise questions about the "price" of life. I would be pleased if, by reading this book, you would take a moment to reflect on these matters once again.

Aika Minamisawa (Translator)

午夜剧场 Press

320 pages, 2,970 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and titles are those at the time of publication.