Search and Perspective

Abstract

Below the average among 50 Burakumin communities in Kagada-ken in terms of socio-economic conditions as estimated by a Burakumin leader, Junan has little shared the unprecedented progress of Japanese economy. Nor has it shared the substantially greater educational opportunities for higher education provided by the postwar educational system which the majority youth now enjoys. No wonder one radical Junanese Burakumin felt that the richer the majority Japanese become the more poverty Burakumin suffer. Junanese recipients of welfare aid have phenomenally increased in the 1960’s as many Junanese gave up such jobs traditionally ascribed to Burakumin as peddling, junk collecting, and shoe making in favor of enlisting in the governmental unemployment program.