On 13 January 2010 we held an open seminar on poverty of children in Japanese society as the fifth seminar of the Disciplinary Linkage Project. The speaker, Aya Abe, Senior Researcher at the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, examined the definition of children’s poverty and referred to various data reflecting the situations surrounding poor children. In comparison with other OECD countries, the functional insufficiency of Japanese social policies was discussed.