Toivonen Japan ’ s first experiment with activation policy for young adults

The goal of this paper is to explore a notable new policy for young adults known as the Youth Independence Camp (wakamono jiritsu juku) and to consider in an open-ended fashion how it influences the public-private boundaries – the shift of which is ongoing – of social provision for youth in Japan. Who is this unconventional programme intended for, and what are its overt and covert objectives? Although a full appraisal of the situation is still premature, we find that the Independence Camp and other recent youth policies indeed signify a qualitative shift in social support for young adults in Japan. However, the risk of social exclusion remains essentially privatised, i.e. to be shouldered by the individual and his/her family rather than the state or other institutions. Acknowledgements: The author is greatly indebted not only to his two supervisors, Martin Seeleib-Kaiser of the Department of Social Policy and Social Work and Roger Goodman of the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies (both at the University of Oxford), but to all those in Japan who have made the author’s ongoing DPhil research undertaking possible. Thanks to the incredible generosity of Professor Genda Yūji and the welcoming members of his research office at the University of Tokyo, I enjoyed the best possible platform for my fieldwork activities in Japan over the academic year 2007-2008. Crucially, all the youth and staff at youth support institutions, academic experts and government officials I interviewed kindly and patiently shared their insights with me for which I remain deeply grateful. Finally, I am thankful to the Emil Aaltonen Foundation of Finland that provided me with the funding without which this paper could not have been prepared in the first place. I also thank the Japan Foundation Endowment Committee and the Sasakawa Fund for their additional significant financial support. Tuukka Toivonen Japan’s first experiment with activation policy for young adults