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.

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.

Combining work and family remains a major challenge for married women in contemporary Japan, and it’s not uncommon for them to quit working when starting a family. Single mothers, by contrast, almost always work, regardless of the age of their children. Despite their eagerness to support themselves and their children through employment, their average income remains low and many live on a household budget close to the poverty line. This book examines how the difficult living conditions facing single mothers in Japan highlight not only the challenges they face in earning a family wage and managing the work-family balance, but also reveals the class dimensions of family life in contemporary Japan. The need to make ends meet with few resources means that mothers may find it difficult to uphold the lifestyle they may consider as most appropriate for the upbringing of their children, and that they may have to choose between their presence at home, in line with the ideal of the middle-class housewife and mother, or devoting more time to earning an income that can pay for a good education. Social class, in this case, is not just a matter of education, occupation, or income, but is also expressed by mothers’ approaches to their children’s’ upbringing and future opportunities in education and employment. Based on life history interviews with single mothers, this study examines the gendered meanings of social class and social achievement and the role of maternal practices in shaping their children’s future life trajectories.

This paper investigates certain women's problems in contemporary Japan. Historically, Japanese believed ideal women fit in the stereotype of "Good wife, Wise mother." Japanese women's main roles were regarded as wife and mother. Especially, motherhood was the main responsibility of women. However, the advance of industry, technology, and methods of communication brought more possibilities to women, strongly encouraging them to work outside the home. Although the trend is towards women's involvement in the paid labor force, there are still controversial issues about mothers working. The stereotypes that underlie these problems cause others to be working mothers and some women to be stay-at-home mothers. I focused on two groups of women, working mothers and stay-at- home mothers. I started with three major questions in order to investigate contemporary women's perceptions. Firstly, what caused mothers to decide to either stay home or work outside the home? Types of jobs women have before childbirth, company policies, and ideas their husbands have are key factors. Lack of governmental support for childcare hinders women from working. Stereotypical ideas toward motherhood make contemporary women's situations difficult. Secondly, are there stereotypical Japanese social perceptions that are significant influences on conditions that women face? Especially in the work situation, in terms of motherhood, women do face gender discrimination. Thirdly, how do these women cope with the consequences of choices they make? Both working mothers and stay-at-home mothers find social connections a key factor in getting rid of stress from childrearing. The amount of time husbands spend with families greatly influences their wives' stress. Based on traditional gender based role division, women still have unequal domestic responsibilities, especially in childrearing. However, domestic responsibilities should be both men's and women's tasks. Men and women should cooperate with each other because contemporary Japan is not in a time of "men at work, women at home." Results obtained through this research, indicate that the traditional idea of "Good wile, Wise mother" has become outdated. Contemporary mothers value "self" equally with roles of mother and wife. The traditional idea of "sacrifice self" does not seem to be attractive or ideal for today's mothers.

Japanese women, singled out for their commitment to the role of housewife and mother, are now postponing marriage and bearing fewer children. Japan has become one of the least fertile and fastest aging countries in the world. Why are so many Japanese women opting out of family life? To answer this question, the author draws on in-depth interviews and extensive survey data to examine Japanese mothers' perspectives and experiences of marriage, parenting, and family life. The goal is to understand how, as introspective, self-aware individuals, these women interpret and respond to the barriers and opportunities afforded within the structural and ideological contexts of contemporary Japan. The findings suggest a need for changes in the structure of the workplace and the education system to provide women with the opportunity to find a fulfilling balance of work and family life.

Contemporary Japanese women are often presented as devoted full-time wives and mothers. At the extreme, they are stereotyped as "education mothers" (kyoiku mama), completely dedicated to the academic success of their children. Children of working mothers are pitied; day-care users, both children and mothers, are faintly disparaged for their inadequate home lives; hired babysitters are virtually unknown. Yet historical evidence reveals a strikingly different picture of Japanese motherhood and childcare at the beginning of the twentieth century. In contrast to today, child tending by non-maternal caregivers was widely accepted at all levels of Japanese society. Day-care centers flourished, and there was virtually no expectation of exclusive maternal care of children, even infants. The patterns of the formation of modern Japanese attitudes toward motherhood, childhood, child-rearing, and home life become visible as this study traces the early twentieth-century rise of Japanese day-care centers, institutions established by middle-class philanthropists and reformers to provide for the physical well-being and mental and moral development of urban lower-class preschool children. Day-care gained broad support in turn-of-the-century Japan for several reasons. For one, day-care did not clash with widely accepted norms of child care. A second factor was the perception of public and private policymakers that day-care held the promise of social and national progress through economic and moral betterment of the urban lower classes. Finally, day-care offered working mothers the opportunity to earn a better livelihood with fewer worries about their children. In spite of emerging notions that total devotion to child-rearing was a woman's highest calling, Japanese nationalism, a signal force in the genesis of the modern Japanese state, economy, and middle-class culture, fed a deep wellspring of support for day-care and fostered significant reshaping of motherhood, childhood, home life, and view of the urban lower classes. Passages to Modernity is an important and original contribution to our understanding of the institutional and ideological reach of the early twentieth-century state and the contested emergence of a striking new discourse about woman as domestic caregiver and homemaker.