Identifying Approaches to an Accessible Society for Persons with Disabilities Through an Eight-Country Comparison

Abstract

Japan’s 1993 New Long-Term Programme introduced four accessibility barriers—physical, system, information/culture, and psychological—which have guided policy for more than three decades. This paper reassesses this framework through an international comparison with seven countries (U.K., Finland, Australia, U.S., Thailand, India, and Vietnam), focusing on mobility and daily movement. Information obtained from semi-structured interviews with resource persons in each country and insights from Japanese experts were integrated to identify common themes and differences.Findings indicate that while no other government has a classification like Japan’s, common themes exist across several contexts, notably human rights, implementation/enforcement, and finance/affordability. Japan’s strongest advances lie in physical accessibility, but the rights perspective and practical implementation still need to be strengthened. This paper recommends retaining the four-barrier framework while adding human rights as a foundational lens and incorporating implementation/execution and finance/affordability as cross-cutting indices for measurable improvement.

Keywords: Accessibility, Physical, System, Information, Emotional

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1006839