Since the 1970s, it has been reported that female employment has risen by 7% only, meaning that around 43% of the Japanese workforce consists of women. That alone is in striking contrast with the western and other industrial countries' development within the second half of the 20th century, where women increasingly gained more independence with the progression of time. S. North (2011) ascribes this to the rapid industrialization, war, and its aftermath, which gave birth to the government-supported model of labor divided by gender. The social role theory, which assumes that women should provide care, served as the foundation for this labor division model. These historically rooted gender formulations made both men and women internalize this model and view caring as women's work, and thus society became molded based on this idea.
The effects of this social strategy were significant. The aim of withstanding industrialization was achieved without the social disruptions experienced in Europe. The divorce rates that spiked elsewhere were actually in decline for most of the 20th century. However, during these years, women became severely underrepresented in the workplace and men at home, thus foreshadowing future problems, such as low productivity of the workforce, heightened by intensified global competition and economic stagnation. (North S., 2011)
Nowadays, gender discrimination is recognized as an omnipresent phenomenon, and Japan is certainly not an exception regarding this matter. Even though Japan has undergone rapid development and modernization, especially at the turn of the century, female workforce participation in the last decade has continuously stayed under 50%, according to Jha A. (2018), which is in comparison with male participation at around 70%, lamentable but revealing. We can add that according to S. North (2011), less than half of employed females are "regular" full-time workers, which is often described in correlation with the modern-day rise in popularity of part-time work, not only in Japan. However, there are significant differences in social credibility, monetary appreciation, and career prospects between these types of employment.
This essay aims to inspect the development of women's participation in the workforce, describe the difficulties women face when entering the labor market, and briefly discuss the central government policies implemented so far.
In present times (pre-covid), more than half of working-age women in Japan were employed. According to the OECD statistics, in 2016, it was about 66%, which is a 6% increase compared to the year 2000. Nae N. (2018) further comments that equal health and education opportunities, as well as a high college attainment rate, contribute to not only the size but also the productivity and quality of the workforce. So governmental investments in these areas may help significantly boost GDP and GDP per capita by closing the gender pay gap. In this work, we can also find an estimate stating that narrowing the gender pay gap would attract more women into the workforce, thus easing the worker shortage (caused by demographic decline) and raising the GDP by almost 13%.
While the employment data may seem discouraging, taking into account that Japan remains at a low position in the Gender pay gap report (for example, in 2017, it scored 114 out of 144 evaluated countries), we can undoubtedly see slow but steady progress since the 1980s, which the enactment of the well-known Equal Employment Opportunity Law in 1986 could have triggered. (Nae N., 2018)
The Equal Employment Opportunity Law (EEOL), as described in Macnaughtan, H. (2006), was predominantly an attempt to push companies into giving equal treatment to all workers, regardless of gender. However, the original version of EEOL was purely instructing employers to make an effort, which did not bring many results, despite the predisposition described in the tight-loose culture theory. Many Japanese employers creatively bypassed this new legislation by designing distinct career paths for each gender, which we will discuss further in this paper. Consequently, novelizations passed in 1999 and 2006 in an attempt to strengthen the grip on employers. The novelized EEOL now directly prohibited discrimination against female workers in recruitment, hiring, assignment, and promotion. Rules for sexual harassment prevention were also established, and the abolishment of previous legislation enabling gender discrimination in the workplace.
As Torres-Simon, E. (2000, 2 May) noted, the original version of EEOL aimed at improving working conditions for women and thus directly helping with the harmonization of work and family roles. This led to mandating special treatment for women, including the prohibition of night shifts. Although these measures may seem protective and helpful at first glance, in my opinion, the legislators completely overlooked the primary issue the need for the law stems from – gender inequality. If women are not allowed to work the same way men do, we cannot expect them to be hired at the same rate or promoted.
Broadbent, K. (2002) reports that since the enactment of EEOL in the 80s, the significance of part-time work has been increasing. This form of employment is regarded as inferior in Japan and historically was an option for utilizing women's paid work. Before the EEOL, legislation to protect part-time workers was not applicable to all of them (especially women) and therefore promoted discrimination in terms of working conditions. However, not much has changed with the sole introduction of EEOL - the number of women in part-time positions even increased and now represents about 72% of this group of workers.
This increase began with the introduction of career paths – the management or career-focused track (sogo shoku) and the clerical or non-career track (ippan shoku). Macnaughtan, H. (2006) explains that sogo shoku quickly became very male-dominated, and ippan shoku was the path females were largely put onto to avoid equalization of representation and, of course, pay.
In a similar tone, Jha A. (2018) claims that women are seen as better short-term workers without growth potential and are not interested in acquiring valuable skills for the company. The ideal path for a woman then almost seems cartoonish - she enters the company at 18 years of age. At 19 years old, she is interested in marriage and starts taking company-provided courses, such as cooking or sewing. At 21 years old, she gets married and leaves the company to pursue homemaking and fulfilling her role as a mother.
These practices are apparent even in the hiring process of starting positions, which is highly sex-segregated. There was also an apparent pay gap in the starting salary of new graduates based on gender in various sectors at the start of the millennium. Jha A. (2018) reports on two different years - 2005 and 2015 - and eight different sectors. In 2005, in 7 out of 8 examined sectors, the reported starting salary of a woman was lower than the men's. However, in 2015 in 3 sectors, the starting pay for women was a little higher (1-5 000 yen), in 2 sectors male salary was higher by about the same amount, and in the rest, the proposed salary was more or less the same. In this case, we can see that up until now, Japan has come a long way in ensuring equal treatment for both sexes. Although I stand by the opinion that it is important to acknowledge every single improvement, no matter how little, there is still room for even more positive development in the future because, in this case, we can see that in a decade, things can very quickly go to the way they were before.
If nowadays the legislation and pay gap are no longer such significant issues, what are other problems women face that can discourage them from entering the workforce or, on the other hand, persuade them to leave and become stay-at-home mothers as normalized?
Japan as a society stands on the ideal of unpaid care "by women's hands.". As stated before, this stance is not necessarily limited to Japan; however, it is observed to be especially strong in Japan, so much so that it is even a political theme every so often. North, S. (2012) even speaks from his own recent experience that this approach is deeply engraved in the minds of everyday people. He recalls that during an introduction before his lecture at the "Gender Equality Center" the mayor of the town at which the lecture took place spoke quite proudly about their efforts to "make it possible for women to work and raise children", failing to notice the fact that he did not include a word about men and their harmonization of work and childcare. Such omission of men from caretaking creates unnecessary barriers for women because, essentially, they then perform both paid and unpaid work. The "two shifts" (a term introduced by Hochschild and Machung, used in North, S. (2012)) works with the concept in which fulfilling the social role of a mother is equal to a full-time job in terms of physical and emotional demands. There is, without a doubt, the need for policies supporting working mothers; however, it seems like the state can only do so much. If we really want the situation to change, husbands and fathers need to acknowledge this and contribute.
As we already mentioned, since the introduction of EEOL has occurred a boom of dual career tracks, and many women now choose to go the route of temporary employment. But why? From what was said up until now, it would have seemed like they have all the reasons not to. Nae, N. (2018) has found a reason - on the background of liberalization of employment; the temporary employment system has somehow evolved into a safety net for males as full-time workers, thus again contributing to reinforcing the social roles of a man as the breadwinner and a woman as a mother/caregiver. As a direct result, many women (despite, for example, their college education) choose to work only part-time in exchange for tax deductions, pension benefits, and more flexible arrangements, helping them fulfill their household duties mentioned above. On top of that, the dual carrier track system creates "vertical segregation", which means that even as a result of the hiring process, most women are chosen for clerical jobs with limited or nonexistent growth possibilities.
The dual-track employment system perfectly reflects the uncomfortable distinction between "job" and "career". In this case, career only awaits men for many reasons. The main one is the assumption that women cannot commit to organizational and cultural working practices (location transfers, sudden overtime, long working hours sometimes followed by late night team building featuring heavy drinking and smoking) because of their household duties. The reality is that many women would not even choose this path for themselves because they just do not wish to have to endure these working conditions, even further reinforcing this rigid societal model. Matanle, P. and Guistini D. (2019), think that the assumption of men wanting to adhere to these standards is, in fact, very sexist, and I can nothing but agree. This Hobson's choice prevents men and women from choosing a path based on their preferences and strengths. The equality, in this case, is striking; men and women in Japan are substantially equal in their lack of choice. This is what we call the first and second sexism – the first being against women and the second being the more hidden limiting even men in society.
While being on this topic, we, unfortunately, need to mention harassment in various forms stemming from the power imbalance present in the workplace, when women are generally the subordinates of men. Nae, N. (2018) explains that because of their perceived lesser value, women are assigned secretarial jobs like answering the phone or serving tea. Senior male workers may expect college-educated women to behave in a stereotypical feminine way and to be good, quiet listeners or sometimes even sex objects. In recent years, the term matahara (short for maternal harassment) has emerged as more women have spoken about being harassed into quitting their jobs after becoming pregnant, making it even more difficult to differ from the shufu (housewife) ideal.
Lastly, I would like to touch upon the novel concept of womenomics and shining women. From the begging of his time in office (December 2012) until his assassination (July 2022), Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe was, according to Macnaughtan, H. (2015), focused on restimulating Japan's economy, using so-called "three arrows". Abe's government claimed that as a part of the third arrow (structural reform), womenomics with a promise to enable Japanese women to "shine" (better contribute to the economy and reach leadership positions) was the goal to meet the increased demand for labor and reach higher level economic growth. This was backed up by initial reluctance to fill these positions by immigrant workers. However, the perceived employment gap was not in the core of the labor force but rather at the supporting sphere, meaning that the womenomics Abe pursued had little to nothing to do with changing the gendered status quo in employment; moreover, it reinforced the implicit gender bias of men as the only group the core employment consists of. A perfect example of this is the introduction of extending childcare leave up to three years (from one year). On the surface, it may seem progressive, but in actuality, it validates the notion of sansaiji shinwa (the three-year-old myth), the conventional belief that women should be the ones to stay with the children until the age of three. While womenomics might be a worthwhile and virtuous pursuit at its core, the reality shows that because of its focus solely on women and primary discrimination (based on first sexism), it will probably never be successful if men are omitted.
Throughout this paper, it was apparent that women's position in the Japanese labor market is not solely made up of today's economic factors but rather a complex puzzle of historical and socioeconomic influences. Women have consistently been underrepresented and discriminated against in the workplace throughout the 20th century, mainly as a result of both rapid industrialization and the Second World War and its aftermath. To solve this issue, the government implemented several policies, of which the most affluent were the Equal Employment Opportunity Law (1980, novelized 1999, 2006) and the economic revitalization plan of Three arrows implemented by former prime minister Shinzo Abe. However, while we explored their content and socioeconomic impact on Japanese society, we found problematic similarities. The EEOL was, in its original form, very poorly written, as it advised more than mandated most measures. Although the main issue with this document was the loss of focus on gender discrimination as the problem because it, in fact, standardized special treatment of women, further deepening the gap between men and women for employers. Similarly, with the third of Three arrows, Shinzo Abe, under the disguise of womenomics and letting women shine again, implemented policies that, in actuality, encouraged women to follow the beaten path of the shufu ideal, which already proved itself outdated in the modern world.
As a way to escape the EEOL in the 1980s, there was a sudden boom of this dual career track system: the sogo shoku (career path closely related to full-time employment), which mainly was offered to men, and ippan shoku (non-career path associated with part-time or nonmanagerial jobs) offered to women. This gendered approach to employment was encouraged by the government, which offered tax deductions or pension benefits to couples where the woman worked only part-time or not at all—alongside other benefits like flexible working hours, making it only natural that women were choosing this path seemingly on their own. It only strengthened the already tight grip the social standards had on them, making it even more normalized for women to leave work at about 20 years old and remain homemakers. Even if lesser pay and legislation were not in place, there are other problems women face when entering the workforce. Firstly, there is this notion of women as unpaid family caretakers. When employed, they are essentially working two shifts, balancing work and managing a household. Men are often not involved in household chores, coming late from work and being the very apparent breadwinners. Secondly, this power balance disparity (men earning more money) is also the foundation for the emergence of workplace harassment. Senior workers can view women as less important or valuable, therefore, feel entitled to assign them secretarial tasks, demanding them to act more traditionally feminine or even like sex objects.
It could seem that men are the ones to blame for all this because "they do not help out their wives at home", "they are sexist, egocentric, and controlling". However, nothing is as black and white as it may seem. The dual-track employment system is a double-edged sword, in this case hurting not only women but also men. This essay was primarily focused on the primary discrimination women face when entering or reentering the workforce, but men have also been affected by the rigid standards of society, being the victims of secondary discrimination. In the end, they both often have to make Hobson's choice, making them equal, at least in one sense- equally limited by the Japanese society, which systematically changes too slowly to keep up.
Suggested citation: Pandadisová, Karolina, Hobson's choice of Japanese women, CHR - Student Blog, 8/12/2024, https://www.chrprfcuni.com/post/hobson-s-choice-of-japanese-women
Broadbent, K. (2002). Gender and part‐time work in Japan. Equal Opportunities International, 21(3), 57-68. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/02610150210787163
Jha A. (2018). Gender discrimination in the workforce of Japan: an analysis (2005-2015). International Journal of Research in Social Sciences, 8(1), 558-573 Available at: https://www.academia.edu/35956065/GENDER_DISCRIMINATION_IN_THE_WORKFORCE_OF_JAPAN_AN_ANALYSIS_2005_2015
Macnaughtan, H. (2006). From 'post-war' to 'post-bubble': Contemporary issues for Japanese working women. In Peter Matanle and Wim Lunsing (Eds.) Perspectives on Work, Employment and Society in Japan. (pp.31-57) Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN: 978-0-230-00200-5. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/5686890/Macnaughtan_Helen_2006_From_post_war_to_post_bubble_contemporary_issues_for_Japanese_working_women_p31_57_in_Peter_Matanle_and_Wim_Lunsing_eds_Perspectives_on_Work_Employment_and_Society_in_Japan_Palgrave_Macmillan_pp_288_ISBN_978_0_230_00200_5
Macnaughtan, H. (2015). Womenomics for Japan: is the Abe policy for gendered employment viable in an era of precarity?. The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 13/13 (1), 1-23. Available at: https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=q-woGfwAAAAJ&citation_for_view=q-woGfwAAAAJ:UebtZRa9Y70C
Matanle, P., Guistini D. (2019) Revisiting the First and Second Sexism in Japan. International Institute for Asian Studies-The Newsletter. Available at: https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=NdEqi8gAAAAJ&cstart=20&pagesize=80&citation_for_view=NdEqi8gAAAAJ:V3AGJWp-ZtQC
Nae, N. (2018). To work or not to work? The dilemma of Japanese women. Cogito- Multidisciplinary research journal, 10(1), 66–78. Available at: https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=740645
North, S. (2011). Work-Life in Japan. Boston College Center for Work & Family, Executive Briefing Series. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/4027616/_Work_Life_in_Japan_
North, S. (2012). The Work-Family Dilemmas of Japan's Salarymen. In Paula McDonald and Emma Jeanes (Eds.) Men, Wage Work and Family (pp.17–33). London: Routledge, Research in Employment Relations Series, ISBN: 978-0-203-11509-1. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203115091
Torres-Simon, E. (2000, 2 May). The situation of Working Women in Japan [Paper presentation]. Fulfillment of "Introduction to Sociological Research" in exchange program in Kansai Gaidai University. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/4794125/The_situation_of_Working_Women_in_Japan
Comments