Tag Archives: gender

Inequality for Women and Men in Japanese Society

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by Misato Okumura

In general, people all over the world say our inequality between women and men are remarkable in Japanese society. This is true. For example we have a little number of female CEOs or any kinds of head of firms, and a lot of Japanese mothers quit their job and stay home when they got their children. Some people don’t quit their job even if they have small kids but the mothers need to do both house and care work and actual work at a company. And most working women are not satisfied with their working conditions and change or quit their jobs. The way to solve this problem is not only offering more works for them and getting them promotions more easily. This is not that easy. For example, if they get them more promotions, it makes them more difficult to leave their job and it will be more burdens for women who have their children at home because they need to do both jobs. Moreover, this is not a disadvantage only for women. It is also unfair for the fathers to spend less time with their children than the mothers do. Then how can we change this structure?

Before we think about this question, I would like to analyze how the structure of Japanese society creates this inequality. I think we have 3 characteristics which influence on this. They are the lifetime employment system, lack of kindergartens and decreasing birthrate and aging population. These problems don’t let us leave the inequality.

First, the lifetime employment system makes it easier for women to leave their jobs. In this system, people can work till they become 60 years old once they got hired. But also, they need to stay working for the company as long as possible to get promotion. This system is not applied to women. So if they need money, men need to work and women need to take care of children at home.

Then what if mothers want to go working rather than to stay home and raise up their children? Basically, they leave their kids at the kindergarten during their working. But this is difficult because we don’t have a lot of kindergartens in each community and almost no kindergarten at company. To make the matter worse, some people don’t have enough money to leave their kids there.

Moreover, our society is aging and losing young people every year. The number of elder people is increasing every day. And these people think that women should stay home to do care work and men should earn enough money to take care of this family. In short, the number of people who have this idea is huge. This makes it difficult to share care work between women and men.

In conclusion, Japanese unique social structure has created an inequality between women and men. I think we need to establish more public kindergartens and hire more teachers and to make the opportunity to let elder people and young people share and understand their ideas in order to change our social structure.

What is gender equality in Japan

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by Ayaka Nishizaki

Gender inequality has been one of controversial topics for a long time in many countries as well as Japan. This time, I would like to think and mention gender inequality in Japan.

During my class, I learned an inequality of work opportunities for women in some countries. I heard that women’s job opportunities have increased than before, but women still have to do house work because of traditional idea and women will be more burden than men. I understood that is called gender inequality. However, I felt gender inequality cannot be said from only that point. This is because the meaning of the inequality is different in each countries’ situation, and I wondered ‘what does gender inequality mean in Japan?’ When it comes to say gender inequality, the premise that women are responsible for taking care of children and doing house work always seems to be rooted in Japanese Society. I think that premise is only women’s side. For a long time, while women have been thought as domestic worker, men have been thought that they have heavy responsibility for work to support whole members of family. The number of men who commit suicide is higher than that of women because of pressure of work. Also, if men want to do care work, it is difficult to do because support system from government and companies is not enough. In my opinion, there is not only inequality of burden for women but also inequality of care work opportunities or pressure working for men, but Japan has seems to highlight women as a most part of gender inequality to date.

Today, Japan society faces difficult situation because Japan regarded gender inequality as women’s side inequality, I think. Recently, women’s job opportunities have increased by gender equality movement, but at the same time, married couples have difficulty in keeping life balance. there are few opportunities to do care work for men because Japan didn’t think gender inequality from men side. Therefore, women can’t ask men to do house work while men have no choice to work at companies and they can’t help care work. When we improve gender equality, the important thing is to keep life work balance so that married couple can keep good relationships. I realized that even if some movements or measures for the inequality are made, if these actions are composed of only one side view point, it will just create ‘time squeeze’ I learned in my class, Thus, my opinion is that when Japan takes some actions for improving equality, Japan society should think gender inequality from both women and men sides.

Gender Structure in Working Place in Japan

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by Asako Morita

Gender role has been considered as a part of culture and behaviors of people tend to be based on gender role. In Japan, historically men have worked outside and women have been housewives. This family structure is recognized as common sense so many workplaces are not well prepared for women to work long and secured. Because of the whole structure, women are easy to be in an economically vulnerable position. In this short essay, I would like to seek Northern European countries where more women have well advanced in society and what systems can fit in Japanese system.

In Japan, lifetime employment system has been normal and once you quit a job, it is hard to get a job which has as same as the previous condition.  However, with the onset of cataclysmic changes in the economic climate in 2009, employers began laying off and dismissing massive numbers of non-permanent workers and workers employed on a part-time or contract basis for periods of less than one year. Compared to regular employment, non-regular employment is able to receive limited company’s benefit package and unsecured. In Japan, about 60 percent of women quit jobs after they get married or give birth and afterward, they only have option to work as a non-regular or part-time workers. Because of the common sense of gender role, men tend not to do housekeeping or child caring but working as a breadwinner. It means only super women can raise children and work at the same time.

On the other hand, in Northern European countries, even though most women work as non-regular workers, they are satisfied with the job condition and they are able to handle both raising children and working since non-regular workers can work flexibly. The biggest difference from Japanese system is that non-regular workers are also well secured and they can receive a good benefit package from company. Therefore, most women choose to take non-regular jobs and they do not have to give up anything. Other difference is how long men contribute to family and households. I think one of the reason is working hour of Japanese men is too long and not enough time to be at home.

Surely it is difficult to fit the whole system of Northern European countries to Japan. However, I think Japanese working environment has way less flexibility and it hinders the entrance of women into the workforce. Now it is essential to create more flexibility at workplaces and expanding career switch market for both women and men’s opportunity for balancing work and family.

Gender Equality in Work Place Will Protect Japanese Economy

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by Eriko Maruyama

The Japanese society is facing serious economic problems, such as stagnant GDP growth, aging population, raising unemployment rates. In response to these issues, the Japanese government is now trying to encourage women to enter the labour market. The employments of women in Japan are around 60 percent, while those of men are 80 percent (OECD). The Economist magazine (2012) estimated that if this gap of employment rates were improved, GDP of Japan would grow at 9 percent by 2020. As this statistic suggested, it is important to promote women to enter the labour market. In order to achieve this, we need to create new working environment which enables men and women to reconcile their jobs and housework. It is important to target not only women but also men, because the problem of gender is not only about women. It is a problem of both men and women.

Firstly, we need to start with remaking of system of companies. Companies should allow employees to work flexibly. For example, we can work everywhere with high tech devices today. We do not need to go to companies any more. We can have meetings in different places thorough Internet, or we can share documents on web clouds. Thus, companies have become less important places. If employee could do their job at home, they could finish housework and do childcare at the same time.

Nevertheless, still we need to go to work places, especially for people who work for factories and service sector. Therefore, it is necessary to create places which take care of children. There are not enough number of nursery schools and kindergarten in Japan now, so many mothers give up their job and engage in childcare. I would suggest that employing the retired people as carers of children. It is estimated that one of four people would be over 60 by 2030 in Japan, and as we can see, the elderly is very active after retirement. If it was encouraged to employ these active grandparent for taking care of children, parents could engage in their jobs and also the elderly could stay healthy. It is a win-win relation. If the government pushed women into labour force without enough support, women would be blamed for neglecting housework, and this would promote women’s returning to home again. In order to prevent this phenomenon, it is important to enhance the childcare systems.

In short, in order to sustain economic growth in Japan, it is necessary to create more flexible working environment which enables more people to enter labour market. At the same time, the government should implement social policies and provide more childcare systems in order for parents to focus on their jobs. It is expected for government to see gender issue as the interconnected problem of both women and men.

Bibliography

OECD (n.d.). OECD Better Life Index Japan. Retrieved from http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/japan/

The Economist (2012). The Contribution of Women. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/news/economic-and-financial-indicators/21564857

Gender in Employment: Work Life Balance in Japan

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by Kaoru Inoue

After the hit of Subprime mortgage loan in Japan, Japanese economy has fumbled around in the total darkness. Deflation has heavily affected on Japanese firms. Besides US economic crisis influencing on Japan, some studies have shown issues of employment – firms in Japan lack diversity where usually women have less chances to participate; flexibility of employment styles shall revitalize firms as well as the economy. Scholars indicated Work Life Balance (WLB) as a measure to facilitate human resource in Europe such as the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, United Kingdom, and France. WLB in these countries are taken as their management tools. This short paper will look at gender in employment in Japan by focusing on WLB.

Institutions and scholars defined “Work Life Balance” in many ways; a various insights could be drawn from it. According to the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, it defines that employees may confront difficulties when there are things they want or must achieve, and thus, WLB seeks to allow achieve them do both things. The problem lies in the word. The word “Balance” undermines people – should an amount of work and private be equalized or balanced? According to those scholars, they indicate how difficult to define “Balance” since it really does depend on everybody and they have different flows of working and spending private life. Through the studies they concluded that the concept of diversity shall be stored in all, allowing employment flexibilities; hence, women can have higher opportunities to participate in society.

Takeishi (2011) elicited three common traits of Japanese employees in comparison to United Kingdom and Germany. Firstly, average working hours are longer than others. Secondly, their working hours are usually the same among the rest of workers. Thirdly, their working places are usually at their firms. The latter two points indicate that working in Japan is relatively not flexible. On this context, women cannot continue seeking their careers as well as men who cannot spend long hours with children (Takeishi, 2011, “Issues of Storing Work-Life-Balance”). Takeishi also questioned what makes Europe more advanced. In the past decades, European countries had industrial-oriented economies; employees were strictly under control – their working hours were tight and labors were harsh. As the years have passed, those firms realized the importance of diversity because these firms were leaning to become similar to each other; since then, companies have vibrant atmospheres. Japan has been similar to the old Europe.

While Japanese economy is going bad, companies do know the importance of this concept to be stored. However, they usually cannot – attempts usually fail because of costs (Takeishi, 2011, “Issues of Storing Work-Life-Balance”). Costs bother Japan’s solid employment culture. Some scholars thus suggested re-conceptualizing WLB as the tool to cultivate human resource. For mutual benefit both employees and employers.

Bibliography

Takei, E. (2011). ワーク・ライフ・バランス実現への課題 (issues of storing work-life balance). Retrieved from http://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/rd/067.html

Women workers

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by Natsumi Ichioka

In this society, it is said that all people are equal, but this is not always. There are still many problems for our truly equal life and society. Then, I consider about the better situation for the women’s workers in Japan. There are three points from the class discussion and my opinion.

First, from the class discussion, women who want to work are also hoping to raise their children. I think this is too greedy that women want to do both work and housework. But so many women want to do that if they are in good situation. Actually, I would like to work in near future and also make my family and raise my children by myself. But in present situation in Japan, women have to choose whether work or housework in the general company. Some companies have the child-care leave systems, but they are just apparent system in most company. I can say that there are still some kinds of women’s discriminations. Some companies have the label that women will quit the job because of the childcare. Actually women quit their job, but there is no choice in our society. So, all the companies have to make the child-care leave system. In addition, the companies have to make a good situation for all the people in order to people can take this system as one of the natural rights.

Secondly, I also think it is important to think about this system for all the people. It means not only for women but also men. There are so many situations in the family. If woman is in the important position like general manager, she have to come back soon in her position. Then, instead of woman, man takes the child-care system. Like this, we do not make the fixed idea like this system is for the women. It is important to think this system without fixed idea for the truly equal society.

Thirdly, man cannot substitute for woman in some points in present situation. In Japan, some people are still thinking that women have to work in the house and men work out. This case meets that women have to work more than men, because women are working in the house and in the company. It because that some men do not know how to do the housework and how to raise their children. I think it is important to change the education in the house. For not to rely on women too much, men also need to know how to do the housework and how to raise their children. In each family, all children need to know how to do some housework. It is not good to teach housework only for girl. I think the basic change in our family is needed. In this way, we will gradually change the social situation more equal one.

We need to change the basic ideas of gender in three points. It is not good to rely on one side. In the present situation, men and women cannot share the difficulties each other in Japan. If we can make an equal society, Japan will change better. In addition, Japanese society will change kinder one for all the children. For the truly equal society, now is our social reform.

Social Movements, globalization and gender

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by Julia Helbing

When thinking about Social Movements and globalization, there are many points that come into my head.

First of all, I think that Social Movements are very important nowadays. They are easy to start; you can just use the internet or advertisements in the radio or in the TV to inform about what you are going to do. You can create an event on Facebook and invite all your friends, who will invite other friends or post it on Twitter and other social media. This way more and more people will hear and read about your movement and maybe want to participate or support you. I think that Flash Mobs are also some kind of Social Movements. People appoint at public places to a certain time and start doing all the same at the same day, e.g. start to dance or pillow fight. After the Flash Mob is over, everyone is leaving to a different direction. Normally, the people who come to Flash Mobs don’t know each other.

In my opinion, Social Movements can really change something. For example, after the catastrophe in Fukushima, there were many protests in Germany. Germany still runs a lot of nuclear plants and even has an atomic disposal zone, which is also used by other European countries. People were shocked about Fukushima’s nuclear disaster and didn’t want something like that to happen in Germany. Therefore, they activated advertisements and thousands of people started to protest. This was reported in the TV and attracted more protester. When the movement became bigger, the government hat to react. They changed the atomic energy law and shut down nuclear plants that already were kind of a risk. In addition, they promised to shut down all nuclear plants in the future and to develop the use of renewable energy. Of course affected this changes other European countries and they are also discussing about new energy laws.

Finally, I think globalization also helped the gender revolution. Women wanted to be treated equal with men, they also wanted to be able to go to work instead of taking care of the household all day long. They went out on the streets, started protesting and this was reported by the newspapers all over the world. It influenced other women to also think about what they can do to change something. The result is that now the equal treatment of women and men is part of the law in many developed countries. And even if it is not carried out in all countries, I think it started the way that people think about gender roles. In Germany, there are some fathers who stay home now and take care of the children or the household.

So even though globalization has many bad points, at the same time some things also changed to a better condition.

Migration to Do “Women’s Work”

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by Sian Taylor

In this essay I will be analysing the women migration from poor countries to rich countries in order to do “women’s works”. I will initially make a division between the women who are kidnapped and forced to go abroad as sex slaves etcetera, and the women who “willingly decide” to do so. Then I will focus on this latter part and I will answer questions like: “why is it the woman who migrates and helps her family back home” and “why are there major requests from the First World for nannies, cleaners and entertainers”. Finally I will conclude giving my own opinion on the matter and trying to give a possible solution in order to partly resolve some of the matter.

There are many women that “willingly decide” to go abroad and start a new life as a care woman or as an entertainer. The truth behind this thought, is that even if no one was forcing them to go, the deep poverty they and their families are living in, and the local government that heavily promotes the migration of women, does not really leave these mothers or older sisters much of a choice.

But why is it the woman and not the man of the family that works abroad in order to send the remittances back home? Because on one hand it is proven that the woman is more likely to send home half or more of her income (compared to many men that will just keep most of the money for themselves) and on the other, in First World Countries there is a great request for old fashioned, caring, nurturing women that can take care of the house, the children or even the men.

No need to say that these women are mostly underpaid and often kept in a condition of insecurity, fear or worse. The problem therefore, now, shifts onto another question: why is there this need? The answer is that most women nowadays go to work just as the men do or even for longer, but the men haven’t really started helping more around the house, and this is when, at a first glance, all of the problems seem to have started.

If we look at things in a deeper way though, we will notice that that is not the main cause after all, and that the real problem resides once again in the roots of capitalism. The solution of the problem wouldn’t be just to stop immigration from happening, or sending the women that are in the First World back to their own countries. The only result of that would in fact be many illegal immigrants (therefore treated even worse) and much worse, many families dying of hunger or poor health conditions in the Third World.

The solution therefore seems to be in the government trying to improve the  jobs conditions through regulations. By doing that, the immigrant women will feel more serene and relaxed, knowing that they are protected and regulated, and will be less discriminated against and badly treated by other people, and will be able to feed their families, and live a life that according to them is a lot more free than the one they would have been leading in their town or villages.

Migration and Gender

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by Mayu Shibata

Migrants have to live in a harsh situation in host communities and in case of female they have double disadvantages as foreigner and female and they are more likely than male migrants to be exploited and excluded. There’s a phrase ‘feminization of migration’ which has been used since 1990s. It indicates the increase of female migrants and those female migrants have become individual and independent, not as wives. They migrate to foreign countries on their own.

The number of Filipino and Sri Lankan women who migrate to the Middle East has now increased and most of them engage in housekeeping called domestic helper. They live in master’s house and do the house work. They usually have only one day off in a week. In Japan many Filipinos come in as entertainers and actually work at pubs and clubs. These domestic and entertaining works don’t always come with appropriate protection of human rights. Only because they are female and migrants they are in twice as vulnerable situation as the others. They are more likely to be sexually exploited and through the violence they might be in fatal circumstances like diseases and injury.

However, they still have to migrate to other countries despite the harsh facts. They might have families to care for in homelands and the families need her remittances to live on. They desperately seek for money and chances and they have no way other than migration. Simple restriction of their migration only suffers them and never save them as long as there is no working opportunities in their homelands. Some of them get higher status in families to migrate to other countries and earn money. It’s one of the ways those women become independent in those traditional but conservative style of their homelands. We cannot deprive them of chances to migrate. The possibility of migration must be equally suggested to them, too. However, it’s a problem that they are forced to migrate from other harsh facts such as unemployment as well. They should have free access to migration. Yet the choice should be made on their own.

This problem has been common between developed countries and developing countries. However, as developing countries achieve their economic growing, the number of migrants from less developed countries to developing countries has increased. Now they have the same problem.

MDGs suggests migrants’ problem to be improved by 2015. But it’s getting worse and worse. Because it involves many issues it might not be solved easily but resolution is required now.

Globalization takes place in many different ways

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by Julia Helbing

Nowadays globalization does not only mean to produce in one part of the world and do deliver these good to the other part of the world. I think it also means that you have to move to the places, where work is offered and employees needed.

In many developed countries, the costs of living have risen constantly. People have to pay more rent, the food is more expensive and of course, electronic devices also got more expensive because they are developed all the time and should make our live more easily. Therefore, a lot of women also have to work now to pay all the expenses she and her husband face. And if they have children, they even have to pay higher expenses. But what would happen if there is no one at home who can take care of the housework? Or who would take care of the children? Because of this, many families decide to hire a nanny from developing countries. Compared to nannies from their own country, they have to pay fewer wages. In addition, those nannies from abroad also work very hard to earn maybe more money. But still the nanny leaves her own family in her country of origin to go abroad and work for other people, just to send the money she earned home to her children to pay the expenses for the children’s education. This way, the mother wants to offer a better future to her children.

In my opinion, globalization now does not just shift production from one country to another; it also shifts people to other countries. But today we also have a lot of countries that depend on those workers coming from third world countries to rich countries.

There are many jobs that people in developed countries don’t want to do. They don’t want to take care of older or ill people, for example, or they don’t want to work in the fields and harvest potatoes or salad. Therefore, they are really happy to have workers emigrating from other countries to do this kind of work.

Japan has for example a contract with the Philippines about nurses coming from the Philippines to work in Japan. Since 2009, the countries entered into a Memorandum of Understanding, which means that Philippine nurses are trained and employed in Japan to face the decreasing number of Japanese nurses and caregivers. But after their training, the potential nurses have to pass an exam, which is in Japanese. So in addition to learning how to take care of other people, they also have to learn Japanese language. This is why unfortunately, not many nurses pass this exam. Since the start of this contract, only 13 Philippine nurses were able to pass the exam and therefore work in Japan. (1)

But of course I can understand that the nurses have to speak Japanese, because the patient in Japan normally can’t speak any other languages then Japanese.  And of course it is not easy to take care of sick people, so the exam has to be difficult. If the nurse would make a mistake, she could maybe kill the ill person, so I think it is correct that the exam is not easy to pass.

Nonetheless, this example shows clearly that in developed countries, workers from other counties are needed.  People from rich countries go to other rich countries to perform work there, so the gap they leave has to be filled with people from undeveloped countries.

References

  1. http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/253140/pinoyabroad/13-pinoy-nurses-pass-tough-japan-nursing-exams