The Political Economy of Japan's Low Fertility

The Political Economy of Japan's Low Fertility
Author: Frances McCall Rosenbluth
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2006-12-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780804768207

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This book takes an interdisciplinary approach to one of Japan's thorniest public policy issues: why are women increasingly forgoing motherhood? At the heart of the matter lies a paradox: although the overall trend among rich countries is for fertility to decrease as female labor participation increases, gender-friendly countries resist the trend. Conversely, gender-unfriendly countries have lower fertility rates than they would have if they changed their labor markets to encourage the hiring of women—and therein lies Japan's problem. The authors argue that the combination of an inhospitable labor market for women and insufficient support for childcare pushes women toward working harder to promote their careers, to the detriment of childbearing. Controversial and enlightening, this book provides policy recommendations for solving not just Japan's fertility issue but those of other modern democracies facing a similar crisis.

Low Fertility and Population Aging in Japan and Eastern Asia

Low Fertility and Population Aging in Japan and Eastern Asia
Author: Toru Suzuki
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 95
Release: 2014-02-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 4431547800

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This book provides a unique comparative view of the extremely low fertility and drastic population aging in Eastern Asian countries. After discussing demographic and political developments of Japan in detail as a reference case, accelerated changes in Korea, Taiwan and China are interpreted with a comparative cultural view. In addition to the well-known cultural divide between countries with strong and weak family ties, this book proposes another divide between offspring of the feudal family and that of the Confucian family. Included is a discussion of how the discrepancy between the compressed change in the socioeconomic system and the slow change in the family system has resulted in extremely low fertility in Eastern Asia. A comparison of policy development reveals that the sense of overpopulation has caused difficulty in launching pro-natal policy interventions in Eastern Asia, especially in China. Impacts of fertility decline on population aging, total dependency ratio and the timing of population decline in Eastern Asia are analyzed with a stylized model. The remaining Confucian family pattern is especially important in understanding and predicting political development to cope with accelerated population aging. This book is a valuable resource for researchers who are interested in the latest and most surprising demographic phenomena in the region.

The Politics of Work–Family Policies

The Politics of Work–Family Policies
Author: Patricia Boling
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2015-04-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1316300625

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The work-family policies of Sweden and France are often held up as models for other nations to follow, yet political structures and resources can present obstacles to fundamental change that must be taken into account. Patricia Boling argues that we need to think realistically about how to create political and policy change in this vital area. She evaluates policy approaches in the US, France, Germany and Japan, analyzing their policy histories, power resources, and political institutions to explain their approaches, and to propose realistic trajectories toward change. Arguing that much of the story lies in the way that job markets are structured, Boling shows that when women have reasonable chances of resuming their careers after giving birth, they are more likely to have children than in countries where even brief breaks put an end to a career, or where motherhood restricts them to part-time work.

Motherhood and Work in Contemporary Japan

Motherhood and Work in Contemporary Japan
Author: Nishimura Junko
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 131
Release: 2016-03-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317372727

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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.

Historical Dictionary of Japanese Business

Historical Dictionary of Japanese Business
Author: Stuart D.B. Picken
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 533
Release: 2016-12-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1442255897

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Japan, although now listed as the world’s third-largest economy after that of the United States and China, has been too readily dismissed in the late 20th century as a spent force. This is as unfortunate as it is incorrect for a number of reasons. First, while the Peoples’ Republic of China. is indeed growing and its markets are expanding, an enormous amount of the impetus for development as well as logistical support is coming from large numbers of Japanese corporations operating in the PRC. Major Japanese enterprises such as Toyota, Sony, and Honda are already in China or are in the process of establishing a presence there. The export of Japanese technology remains an important contribution to China’s development. The benchmark of product quality within Asia and in some areas beyond has been set by Japanese industrial standards. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Japanese Business contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 800 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, Japanese businesses, politics, and economy,. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Japanese Business.

Intimacy and Reproduction in Contemporary Japan

Intimacy and Reproduction in Contemporary Japan
Author: Genaro Castro-Vazquez
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2016-07-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317265343

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This book presents an ethnographic investigation of intimate and reproductive behaviour in current Japanese society, grounded in the viewpoints of a group of Japanese mothers. It adopts a new approach in studying the decreasing fertility rates which are contributing to the ageing population in modern Japan. Based on the accounts of 57 married Japanese women, it employs symbolic interactionism as a framework to examine the various factors affecting decision-making on childbirth. The influence of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs), abortion and contraception in the daily interactions and experiences of the mothers are analysed to offer a new perspective on the Japanese demographic conundrum. With strong contextual information as the foundation, the book contributes fresh insight into how Japanese women perceive the idea of childbirth in a modernized society, and also assists our understanding of the factors causing Japan’s ageing population. Further, it places the mothers’ experiences within current global debates to highlight the salience of the Japanese case. As the first book to provide an in-depth examination of the social process underpinning the decision to become a mother in Japan, it will appeal to students and scholars of Japanese culture and society, Gender Studies, and Sociology.

Women, Work, and Politics

Women, Work, and Politics
Author: Torben Iversen
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2010-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0300153104

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This book presents an original and groundbreaking approach to gender inequality. Looking at women's power in the home, in the workplace, and in politics from a political economy perspective, the authors demonstrate that equality is tied to demand for women's labor outside the home, which is a function of structural, political, and institutional conditions.--[book jacket].

Active Pursuit of Pregnancy

Active Pursuit of Pregnancy
Author: Isabel Fassbender
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2021-12-06
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 9004499555

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"What is ninkatsu? Who promotes and governs this "active pursuit of pregnancy?" Trying to answer these questions, this unprecedented publication exhibits how mass media, policymakers, and biomedical science-corporate capitalism govern the individual's reproductive choices in contemporary Japan through gendered discourses of self-improvement, life planning, and biomedical technology. Analyzing a broad range of media, popular science, and government material, it links historical and social processes with an original theoretical framework on self-governance, neoliberalism, and postfeminism. While deeply engaging with Japanese sources, this rich scholarship takes the study of reproductive politics beyond Japan. This book is not only of interest for Japanese studies scholars but more broadly also those curious about neoliberal government strategies, gender, and biomedical capitalism"--

Career Women in Contemporary Japan

Career Women in Contemporary Japan
Author: Anne Stefanie Aronsson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2014-10-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317686977

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Since Japan’s economic recession began in the 1990s, the female workforce has experienced revolutionary changes as greater numbers of women have sought to establish careers. Employment trends indicate that increasingly white-collar professional women are succeeding in breaking through the "glass ceiling", as digital technologies blur and redefine work in spatial, gendered, and ideological terms. This book examines what motivates Japanese women to pursue professional careers in the contemporary neoliberal economy, and how they reconfigure notions of selfhood while doing so. It analyses how professional women contest conventional notions of femininity in contemporary Japan and in turn, negotiate new gender roles and cultural assumptions about women, whilst reorganizing the Japanese workplace and wider socio-economic relationships. Further, the book explores how professional women create new social identities through the mutual conditioning of structure and self, and asks how women come to understand their experiences; how their actions change the gendering of the workforce; and how their lives shape the economic, political, social, and cultural landscapes of this post-industrial nation. Based on extensive fieldwork, Career Women in Contemporary Japan will have broad appeal across a range of disciplines including Japanese culture and society, gender and family studies, women’s studies, anthropology, ethnology and sociology.