Organizer and Chair: Karen Shire, International Christian University
Discussant: Kazuko Tanaka, International Christian University
Part one of this "back-to-back" panel assesses equal employment opportunities for Japanese women from the "bottom-up" in the company contexts in which women work. It is well known that the equal employment opportunities law is constructed primarily as a "guideline" for companies to follow in their employment practices, and this makes a study of company policies and practices absolutely central to understanding the effectiveness of the law. Are Japanese companies abiding by the guidelines of the equal opportunity employment law? Have companies become more female-friendly workplaces during the first decade of equal employment opportunities? Why do some professional working women choose to work at foreign companies operating in Japan rather than Japanese companies? Female employment has risen, but have these quantitative advances been matched by qualitative improvements in the conditions of working women? These are the questions which are explored in this panel.
The panel highlights the issues of family demands on working parents and what kinds of companies accommodate such demands, the dynamics of women's choices about where to work and how much, and the nature of the expanding sector of white-collar (semi-professional) service work and women's advancement in service workplaces. Finally, the panel attempts to assess the effectiveness of a law which leaves the enforcement of equal opportunities for working women up to companies themselves in the private sector.
Parent Responsive Policies in Japanese Business Organizations
Tetsushi Fujimoto, Nanzan University, Japan
In this study, I investigate the relationship between organizational structural characteristics and the provision of family benefits in Japanese firms. I focus on three family responsive corporate policies that are designed to facilitate employees' integration of parenting and work: parental leave, child care leave (for sick children), and in-house day care center. Specifically, I address the following questions: (1) To what extent are parent responsive policies provided in Japanese firms?; (2) Do workplaces that are predominantly female provide more parent responsive policies than their predominantly male counterparts? What is the relationship between sex composition at work and the provision of family policies? Is female ratio at work more important in female-dominant industries? (3) How is workplace climate associated with the provision of parent responsive policies? Does the presence of anti-female workplace culture prevent the introduction of family policies?
By drawing on the neo-classical theory of compensating differentials and a cultural feminist theory of gendered valuation, I formulate hypotheses and test them using data from 1,779 establishments in Aichi prefecture. In general, the results appear to support the proposition that the higher the female ratio at work, the more likely parent responsive policies are provided. However, the findings indicate that the relationship between the ratio of married female employees at work and the provision of a policy is negative. Workplace climate has a strong negative impact on the policy provision. That is, employers are less likely to provide policies when they do not believe in the value of women's work.
The Double-Edged Sword: Japanese Women and Employment in Foreign Banks
Andrea Lanyon, The University of Queensland, Australia
Making inroads into full-time participation within the paid labour force has not been easy for Japanese women.
This paper outlines the work histories of women employed by foreign banks and the factors which have effected the decisions that they have made in choosing between different forms of work (both paid and unpaid) resulting in their current full-time participation in the paid labour force. Specific focus is given to the ways in which interviewees have responded to employment opportunities made available to them by the operation of foreign banks in Tokyo, as opposed to employment within mainstream Japanese business or government sectors. The advantages and disadvantages of such employment are outlined, placing the benefits of employment with foreign banks against a background of social rigidity and xenophobia.
Many women voiced heightened aspirations for personal development within both the public and private spheres of their lives The incongruity between such increases in expectation and the available avenues for goal achievement within Japanese companies' employment structure made the attainment of personal goals uncertain.
The levels of personal agency displayed by interviewees in adapting to such incongruity is assessed. The effect of exposure to foreign cultures and societies is highlighted as contributing to this dilemma.
The Geography of Gender in Japanese White-Collar Workplaces: Three Case Studies
of Quasi-Professional Female Workforces
Karen Shire, International Christian University, Tokyo; Madoka Ota,
University of Pennsylvania
A decade after the enactment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, it is widely recognized that employment conditions for working women have improved slowly. In this paper we present original ethnographic data from three workplaces where women are employed in quasi-professional white-collar work: financial customer service representatives, customer service representatives of a manufacturing company, and stock and bonds saleswomen in a branch of a securities company. These workplaces are representative of workplaces in the service sector which is an expanding sector of employment, and the largest employer of female labor in Japan. The three case studies focus on "human resource management" policies of the companies and how these impact on employment conditions of female compared to male employees in the same workplaces and on the day-to-day relations with male employees. There is enough heterogeneity between the three cases on the dimensions of company policy and gender relations to permit the development of an ideal type of female-friendly company policy and workplace, though none of the workplaces compare to the better situation of female workers in two other countries where this research was conducted: Australia and the United States. The paper concludes that the main constraint to equal employment of women in non-clerical white-collar jobs lies with the reform of company personnel policies, especially concerning training, rotations and performance evaluation of female employees, as well as the attitudes of male managers toward female employees.