Motherhood and Work in Contemporary Japan

Nishimura Junko

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781138943667
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317372721
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book explores the employment of Japanese women born in the 1960s and 1970s who experienced childbirth and raised children in the 1990s and the early 2000s. During this period, the Japanese economy experienced a severe recession. It has affected the firm-specific internal labour market and on employment practices, which in turn are thought to have greatly influenced Japanese women's employment. On the other hand, the fertility rate declined and social policies to support women's employment began to be implemented after the 1990s. This book explores how these labour market structure and social policies interact to affect Japanese women's employment. The book first analyses the employment patterns of women born between the 1920s and 1970s and examines how they have varied among different birth cohorts. Then, the employment behaviour of women before and after childbirth through the post-child-rearing period, as well as the working career of single mothers are explored for women born in the 1960s and 1970s. Based on the data analyses, the concluding part of this book discusses how the labour market structure and social policies during the 1990s and early 2000s interactively influenced employment behaviour of Japanese women, and some suggestions are put forward for changing women's employment during the child-rearing years.

1
Introduction

The Japanese women’s employment puzzle

Japanese women’s employment has shown a pattern that differs in three distinct ways from the ones observed in industrial societies in other countries: (1) an overall increase in the employment rate of women has not been accompanied by an increase in the employment rate of women with young children; (2) higher educational attainment among women has not contributed to an increase in the employment rate of women with children; and(3) part-time employment is not an attractive way of working for women with young children. These three points are discussed ahead in detail.

First, in many countries, an overall increase in the employment rate of women has been accompanied by an increase in the employment rate of women with young children. In Japan, however, the employment rate of women with young children has remained low even as the overall employment rate of women has increased. According to the Labour Force Survey, the employment rate of women aged 15 to 64 increased from 54.9% in 1987 to59.6% in 1997 and then to 61.9% in 2007. Yet, the employment rate of women in households with children under the age of 3 has remained low, with rates at 27.6% in 1987, 27.8% in 1997 and 33.2% in 2007 (calculated from published tables of the Employment Status Survey by Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan). This anomaly between the employment rates for the two categories of women has rarely been observed in other societies. For example, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2011), which conducted a cross-national study on the employment of women with children, the employment rate of women with children under the age of 16 years is over 80% in Sweden and 70% in Denmark; that of women with children under 2 years old is approximately 70% in both these countries. Hungary and the Czech Republic exhibit a pattern similar to that in Japan, but the phenomenon of low employment of only women with young children is quite uncommon among OECD countries.

Second, in Japan, women’s higher educational attainment has not contributed to an increase in the overall employment rate of women or to that of women with children. Analysing the employment patterns of birth cohorts of the 1940s and 1950s, Brinton (1993) demonstrated that higher educational attainment did not prevent women from exiting the labour force upon marriage. Using data including the 1960s birth cohort, Yu (2009) showed that the number of years in school curbed women’s resignation from their jobs upon marriage but did not affect their likelihood of resigning upon the birth of their first child.

This pattern differs from those observed in many industrialised societies. For example, Vlasblom and Schippers (2004) showed that in EU countries (West Germany, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom), women with higher education were more likely to be involved in the labour force than women without such education, and among women with higher education, having young children had a smaller effect on their likelihood of exiting the labour force. In addition, Brewster and Rindfuss (2000) reviewed research on EU countries, the United States, Canada and Australia and concluded that women with higher education were less likely to quit their jobs. Even when they did, they were more likely to re-enter the labour force earlier. They argued that such effects of education were robust across time and different data sets. As discussed later, although the higher education enrolment rate of Japanese women has become as high as that of Japanese men, this rate has not contributed, in turn, to an increase in the employment rate of women with young children. This phenomenon is peculiar to Japan.

Third, temporary or part-time work has not become an effective way of keeping women with young children in the labour force. The percentage of women employed part-time increases when their children enter school. While their children are very young, however, Japanese women are more likely to choose not to work instead of working part-time. This is also peculiar to Japan.

According to Sundström (1997), among women in Sweden who gave birth to their first child from 1988 to 1990, only about 2% remained outside the labour force around the time of the birth and less than 5% left their full-time positions to exit the labour force completely. Sundström argued that in Sweden, this was because women with young children could exercise their right to take childcare leave and reduce their working hours and were even guaranteed the right to return to their full-time positions. Moreover, they were also able to work part-time with social security benefits, paid vacation time and job security. In the Netherlands, the employment rate of women aged 15 to 64 years ranged from 30% to 40% in 1980 but increased to 70% in 2009. In addition, the employment rate of women with children below the age of 2 reached approximately 70% in 2005 (OECD, 2011). An increase in part-time work opportunities supported this improvement. In fact, 75% of women aged 25 to 54 years with children were working part-time in 2009 (OECD, 2012).

These findings from the related literature show that part-time labour is an attractive employment option for women soon after childbirth in some countries. However, the same cannot be said for part-time work in Japan. In the following section, the reasons for this are discussed.

Can labour supply factors explain Japan’s peculiarities?

One might expect labour supply factors to explain the peculiarities of Japanese women’s employment. However, this does not appear to be the case. As in other industrialised societies, several factors would be expected to increase women’s employment in Japan: (1) an increase in the average age at first marriage; (2) longer life expectancy and lower fertility; (3) higher educational attainment; and (4) an increase in the divorce rate. Considering these factors, Japan should do more to push women into the labour force. Table 1.1 shows changes over time in Japanese women’s average age at first marriage, average life expectancy and 4-year university enrolment rate. In addition, Figure 1.1 shows trends in Japanese women’s total fertility rate and divorce rate.

Women’s average age at first marriage increased during the period from the Second World War to the 2000s. During the 50-year period from 1955 to 2005, the average age at first marriage increased by 4.2 years from 23.8 to 28.0 years. This suggests that women now have time before marriage to develop careers in the labour market.

Table 1.1 Average age at first marriage, average life expectancy and 4-year university rate for Japanese women, 1955 to 2005

	Women’s average age for first marriage	Women’s average life expectancy	Women’s 4-year university enrolment rate (%)
1955	23.8	67.8	2.4
1965	24.5	72.9	4.6
1975	24.7	76.9	12.7
1985	25.5	80.5	13.7
1995	26.3	82.9	22.9
2005	28.0	85.5	36.8

Sources: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan, Heisei 26 nen kaniseisei hyō no gaikyō (Overview of abridged life table 2014) (2015a) (http://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/saikin/hw/life/life14/index.html); Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan, Heisei 27 nen waga kuni nojinkō dōtai (Demographics of Japan 2015) (2015b) (http://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/list/dl/81–1a2.pdf); Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT), Japan, Gakkō kihon chōsa (School Basic Survey), various years (http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/toukei/chousa01/kihon/1267995.htm).

Figure 1.1 Total fertility rate and divorce rate for Japan, 1960 to 2013.

Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan, Heisei 27 nen waga kuni no jinkō dōtai (Demographics of Japan 2015) (2015b) (http://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/list/dl/81–1a2.pdf).

Longer life expectancy and lower fertility can also allow women to develop careers in the labour market. The life expectancy of Japanese women was 67.8 years in 1955, and it continually increased thereafter, surpassing 80 years in the mid-1980s and reaching 86.8 years in 2014.

The total fertility rate was over 4 births per women in the baby-boom era that followed the Second World War, but this fell dramatically in the 1950s and continued to further decline, even after falling below 2 births per women in 1975. In 2013, the total fertility rate was only 1.43 births per women. This suggests that the time Japanese women spend on child rearing has continued to decrease, providing them enough time to participate in the labour market both before and after child rearing.

Moreover, with the popularisation of higher education, women can now accumulate human capital and therefore have a higher likelihood of receiving higher reward in the labour market. In 1955, only 2.4% of women enrolled in a 4-year university course, but that percentage increased to 4.6%,12.7%, 13.7%, 22.9%, 36.8% and 47.0% in 1965, 1975, 1985, 1995, 2005 and 2014, respectively. In addition, 1975 revealed a large gap between the percentages of men and women enrolled in 4-year university courses: 41.0% for men and 12.7% for women. After 35 years, the gap decreased, with figures of 56.4% for men and 45.2% for women in 2010.

An increase in the divorce rate should also push women into the labour force. The divorce rate in Japan remained low until the 1980s. In 1960, 1970 and 1980, respectively, the rate was 0.74, 0.93 and 1.22 divorces per 1000 population. However, the rate began to increase rapidly during the 1990s, reaching 1.60, 2.10 and 1.84 divorces per 1000 population in 1995, 2000 and 2013, respectively. The divorce rate in Japan in 2010 was at the same level as in France, the Netherlands, Singapore and Korea.

In this way, Japanese society, like other industrialised societies, has some factors that should promote women’s entry into the labour market. Why, then, do women with children remain a small part of the labour force? The reasons for this lie in the structure of the Japanese labour market. As discussed by Brinton, Lee and Parish (1995), the effect that women’s supply of labour has on their employment is conditioned by labour demand. In other words, interaction between supply and demand for labour – that is, the mechanism of the labour market structure – determines women’s employment.

The firm-specific internal labour market and its employment practices

The Japanese labour market is characterised by its firm-specific internal labour market, which was first formed around 1920, and became established in the period of rapid economic growth which began in the 1950s and ended in the early 1970s. Core workers in the firm-specific internal labour market were expected to acquire firm-specific skills through on-the-job training and personnel relocations. A guarantee of lifetime employment and seniority-based wages encouraged core workers to stay with their employers. At the same time, they were expected to show their loyalty to their employers in return for such benefits. Therefore, employees prioritised work over themselves and family demands, and they had to accept overtime work and transfers requiring a change of residence.

However, this way of working is not compatible with the lives of women with children. Accordingly, women who work for large firms or who have white-collar jobs are more likely to resign upon marriage or childbirth because these employment practices are dominant in such workplaces. Moreover, employers refrain from hiring women and bringing them into the firm-specific internal market in anticipation of their resignations. Therefore, parents, anticipating such gender-discriminative employment practices, cut back on their educational investments in their daughters. Brinton (1993) observed that this in turn contributes to limiting women to peripheral roles in the labour market.

Furthermore, women who have exited the firm-specific internal labour market can re-enter the labour market only as non-regular employees, such as part-time workers. This type of employment allows them to work shorter hours, but comes with few benefits. Since the firm-specific internal labour market assumes the hiring of new graduates, those who have exited the market are unable to return to the same positions. Therefore, opportunities for women to return to a position that provides benefits commensurate with their qualifications greatly decrease upon their resignation from a position they held before marriage or childbirth. The size of the penalty paid by women who exit the labour market and the poor working conditions of part-time workers have made it difficult for women with children to obtain jobs that provide benefits commensurate with their qualifications.

Research questions

Japan’s severe economic recession during the 1990s and early 2000s greatly influenced the structure of the country’s labour market. This book’s purpose is to clarify how changes in the Japanese labour market during these periods have affected the employment of wo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Do more women work than before? What the M-shaped curve implies
• 3 The Japanese labour market and social policy arrangements
• 4 Marriage, childbirth, child rearing and women’s employment
• 5 Women’s employment during the childbirth and child-rearing years
• 6 Re-entry and exit again? Women’s careers after childbirth through the post-child-rearing years
• 7 Careers of Japanese single mothers
• 8 Conclusion
• Appendix: supplementary tables
• Index