Friday, December 9, 2011

The Role of Women in Japanese Companies

The following post was written by my niece, Crysti Jones, who currently teaches in Japan.  It is quite insightful.

The Role of Women in Japanese Companies
Before coming to Japan, I would have never thought myself a feminist in any sense of the word. I never felt particularly discriminated against because I was of the "weaker"sex.  In the almost three years of living in Japan, I've started to have a change of heart.  In a country where husbands are still expected to speak on behalf of their wives, a majority of young girls still dream of growing up to be Shufu (housewives), and many companies fear hiring young single women expecting them to quit the second they get married, it has started to dawn on me that maybe not all people were created equally, especially in the workplace.

There are a lot of things that can be discussed (see article - Global Gender Gap - Japanese women are 94 out of 134 countries in equality in the workplace) that I'm not going to get into.  A lot cultural norms and expectations can be thrown out to explain this data.  I don't have the time or energy to discuss every angle of this debate. But at the end of the day all I want to know is, if Japanese women wanted to work, do they have the same opportunities for employment as Japanese men?

I've asked this question to many Japanese men and women.  Women will almost always give a resounding "no", while men tend to be convinced that Japanese women don't want to work, they want to maintain the status quo of housewife and mother which is still a strong cultural expectation. However, if you read this government statistics website, you will see that women's opinions are changing. More women want to work and more women want to continue working while they have children.

So what's stopping them?
Most people would agree that the Japanese workplace is stressful.  The expectations placed on workers for long hours,  few holidays, intense after hours drinking and OCD like training, can make even the most sane person feel insane.  Many employees at major companies crack under the pressure.  But quitting a job or losing a job can mean career suicide to the average Japanese.  Mobility between jobs is extremely low and still highly frowned upon (despite recent TV dramas depicting a trend in companies that help people change jobs).  Add to all of this the fact that many women are placed under the status of non-regular employee (54% of women and 19% of men), it's no wonder that many women feel discouraged.  If your job is always seen as temporary, it may be impossible to ever establish a career (see the stat on the number of women placed in clerical positions).  With all of this, it's no wonder more women still opt for the less stressful route of being a Shufu (housewife).

What is the result of current Japanese cultural views on women in the workplace?
1 in 3 single Japanese women fall below the poverty line. As jobs for men no longer fall under lifelong employment, the concept of marriage as a way to achieve security is slowly starting to erode.  Fewer men and women are wanting to get married for various reasons, leading to a falling birth rate which means soon Japan will no longer be able to support it's top heavy population.  Leaving them to either increase the amount of foreign workers or tap into a already present but under represented workforce: women.

How do men feel about this (mind you I've only talked to men in Tokyo about this where the workplace environment is much different than in rural areas)?

I think many men like the idea of having a wife to care and provide for them as the cultural norm. However, if they really want to practice self-sacrifice for the greater good of the country, they would acknowledge the fact that the greatest economic prosperity in Japan occurred during the 80's at the height of female employment (table 8).
 
On the other hand, I've talked to quite a few disillusioned Japanese men (both young and old). It seems that more and more men don't feel like they can marry because they don't have the economic means to support a housewife or family.  The men who do marry and have children feel the strain of having to be the sole provider for a family in such dire economic times. With job security unstable and cost of living staying the same or even slightly rising, it can put a large burden on men in the workplace.  Recently, many Japanese men that I have talked with have said that they want their wives to continue working and to become more financially independent.  Part of this desire might stem from the cultural practice of the women taking the man's salary and then paying out a small allowance for him to spend.  While some men are ok with this, some men seem to becoming a bit bitter about the freedom and spending power of their unemployed wives.  Similarly, men feel that single women have become too difficult, expect too much from the men financially.  They would much rather be single than in a relationship where they feel expected to give more than they receive.  Thus many fewer men and women wanting to get married

So what does this have to do with women in the workplace?




Kathy Matsui, of Goldman Sachs believes that if Japan employed more women the GDP could rise 17%. If you ask most Japanese men and women how to solve a majority of Japan's economic and even population crisis problems, they will almost always say, "change the Japanese work place."  Both sexes agree that changes need to be made to change the level of stress inflicted by employment in Japanese companies and that there needs to be an increase female employment. 

So what happens next?
1) Cultural expectations of gender roles in relationships have to be more flexible. I know, this is quite taboo.  Especially as many older Japanese people mourn the fact that young women no longer embrace the concept of ryƍsai kenbo (the result of the Bubble economy where parents spoiled their children).  Many feel that this was really the downturn of everything and that if Japan would stop following the West, everything would go back to normal.  You know, normal, as in the Taisho period when nationalism was all the rage and women were considered incompetent.  I've even heard older people talk about the glory of the Meiji period and Edo period...seriously? I guess to some people those were the good ol' days (even though almost no one living now was alive during that time).  At the end of the day, it comes down to cultural changes.  I'm sorry, but every culture at some point has to change in order to keep up with global changes. Needs, wants, and desires of the population shift and thus changes in cultural norms and expectations will have to shift with them in order for the country to survive. No culture has ever survived by going backwards.  I believe Japanese people are trying to make this change, but are in the midst of growing pains where they can't quite work out how these changes fit in with cultural expectations that they were raised with. 

2) Women need more opportunities to develop careers in order to drop poverty rate and increase financial independence:

a) Programs, like this one, need to be expanded to provide full-time employment
b) Adequate childcare programs need to be made more accessible and affordable
c) Mentality about women in the workplace has to start changing. This will probably need to be done through government programs starting as early as elementary school as well as government initiatives and incentives to place requirements on companies to train (not just promote) women to become leaders.