Charles Weathers

Equal Opportunity for Japanese Women: What Progress?

Career opportunities have improved greatly for many Japanese women in recent years. More large companies are willing to hire them as career-track employees, and their share of elite civil servant positions has been growing. Although female students at my institution, Osaka City University, st i l l encounter discrimination during the job hunt, they have actually outperformed men in recent job searches. A survey of the top 74 universities confirms the trend, showing that women had higher job placement rates this spring in most of the 395 departments covered. [1] It appears that some businesses are taking more seriously the mantra that ability trumps gender in today’s more globalized, market-oriented economy.

Temporary workers, women and labour policy-making in Japan

:This case study of the making of theRevised Temporary Worker Law (1999)seeks to update our understanding of the labour policy-making process. The analysis indicates that government officials continue to play an effective role in guiding new labour legislation to enactment, but that the policy-making process is better suited to deregulation (liberalization) of employment practices than to reform of fundamental problems, such as the low status of non-regular and women workers.

Shuntō and the shackles of competitiveness

Shuntō (spring wage struggle), Japans yearly wage setting institution, until recently played an important role in linking wage raises for low-end earners to those of major firm employees, thus promoting social equity. Following the breakdown of wage linking mechanisms around 1995–2002, unions are presently seeking to revive shuntō by pursuing a variety of new approaches. These include campaigns on behalf of small-firm and non-regular workers, and efforts to make wage and compensation demands more flexible. However, the analysis suggests that unions have failed to generate significant upward wage pressure or restore wage linkage.

The Decentralisation of Japan's Wage Setting System in Comparative Perspective

Japans wage setting system has undergone considerable decentralisation since 1995. An overview of recent changes, framed by comparative analysis, suggests that rapid change has occurred because of the informal institutionalisation of industrial relations practices, which reflects in turn the strong enterprise consciousness of workers and unions.