A demographic and nutritional analysis of urban lower-class dwellers in modern Japan: the case of one Saimin-chiku in Tokyo, ca.1930

This study aims at investigating a method to measure the standard of living, nutritional status, and physical condition of the saimin ("the poor") who suddenly appeared in the modern age and settled there despite their poverty. In the study of social science, the mainstream theories of poverty are Charles James Booth's stratification theory based on income level and Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree's minimum cost of living theory based on the cost of living; both have their merits and demerits. This paper will measure the poverty levels in terms of income and cost of living using data from a specified sub-district located in Tokyo (the results of an on-site survey of approximately 180 households). Many households living in the Saimin-chiku faced poverty both income levels and cost of living. In addition, observation of the health status of the saimin households showed that roughly half of the community had a disease of some sort, or a tuberculosis patient in the household. This provides a perspective which illuminates the difference in situation between the saimin households, who made a living based on an economy of mutual support, and the small farmer households, who had a communal consumption lifestyle but had the capacity to be self-supporting.