Introduction

Housing policy does not serve to improve the housing condition for all people. Under a specific set of social, economic and political conditions, it allots resources to certain groups, which in turn contribute to the formation of social inequality. In relation to housing, boundaries that place certain groups at an advantage and others at a disadvantage are socially drawn. These boundaries are not fixed but are redrawn depending on changes to various conditions.

This chapter examines the role of housing policy in creating social inequality in Japan. Housing policy in Japan has placed importance on the formation of a social mainstream. The Conservative party (Liberal Democratic Party) has been in power for most of the postwar period, and their housing policy has directed resources to family households with middle to upper incomes, and encouraged them to own their own home. In principal, people are expected to secure their housing through the market by themselves. For middle-class households, acquiring their own housing and accumulating assets is considered to have a stabilising effect on the social mainstream. The government has been implementing housing policies as a means of accelerating the mass construction of owner-occupied houses and as a driving force of economic development backed by its strong relationship with the construction and housing industries, and real estate developers. There has been little direct provision of public housing for low-income households in the past. Such housing policies have produced social inequalities, with boundaries between those on low incomes and those with higher incomes; between single and family households; and also between renters and homeowners.

The mainstream-oriented housing policy has been rationalised under the conditions of economic development, by an increase in the middle-class and also by the large proportion of family households that make up the whole population. Modern Japan, however, has entered a period of rapid and profound change in which various currents can be detected: from state intervention to deregulation; from Keynesian to neoliberalism; from economic growth to a destabilised economy; and also from a cohesive society to a fragmented society.

The framework of housing policy established in earlier periods of strong economic growth has lost its effectiveness due to fundamental changes in socioeconomic conditions. Japan has been in the grip of a prolonged recession since the burst of the ‘bubble economy’ at the beginning of the 1990s.