Ultimate Price: The Value We Place on Life by Howard Steven Friedman

2021/08/10

I 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 very early stage.

Furthermore, I am a woman and a minority in the Japanese labor market. During my time as a corporate employee, I once received a bonus that was only one-tenth the amount of a male colleague who did almost the same work, due to some incomprehensible category called a "special adjustment item." My colleagues all said, "This must be some kind of mistake. You should tell the manager." But it wasn't a mistake; it was because I am a woman. My salary increases were also much slower than those of my male peers, and eventually, I became a freelance translator.

I read Japan's Safety Net Inequality by Professor Tadashi Sakai, a Keio University alumni and professor at Hosei University. For corporate employees, public pensions consist of a two-tier system of National Pension and Employees' Pension Insurance, with the latter's benefits proportional to one's wages while employed. Furthermore, 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.

Statistical data also shows that if one cannot secure regular employment as a new graduate, it remains difficult to obtain regular employment thereafter.

As more women enter the labor market and the number of people working in non-regular employment, part-time jobs, or as freelancers increases for various reasons—such as childcare, nursing care, or graduating during the employment ice age—employment is becoming more fluid. Amidst this, inequalities are emerging in social insurance, which is supposed to be the safety net supporting people's lives.

Now, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, policies that seem like harassment of restaurants are being adopted every time a state of emergency is declared. Subsidies are delayed, and many people must have been forced out of business. The progress of vaccinations also varies by municipality.

I am likely not the only one who feels a sense of unease about 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 hope that by reading this book, you will take the opportunity to reflect on these matters once again.

Ultimate Price: The Value We Place on Life by Howard Steven Friedman

Aika Minamisawa (Translator)

Keio University Press

320 pages, 2,970 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.