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Japan Gender Stratification and the Lives of Women
Gender has been an important principle of
stratification
throughout Japanese history, but the cultural elaboration
of gender
differences has varied over time and among different
social
classes. In the twelfth century, for example, women could
inherit
property in their own names and manage it by themselves.
Later,
under feudal governments, the status of women declined.
Peasant
women continued to have de facto freedom of movement and
decisionmaking power, but upper-class women's lives were subject
to the
patrilineal and patriarchal ideology supported by the
government as
part of its efforts at social control. With early
industrialization, young women participated in factory
work under
exploitive and unhealthy working conditions without
gaining
personal autonomy. In the Meiji period, industrialization
and
urbanization lessened the authority of fathers and
husbands, but at
the same time the Meiji Civil Code denied women legal
rights and
subjugated them to the will of household heads. Peasant
women were
less affected by the institutionalization of this trend,
but it
gradually spread even to remote areas. In the 1930s and
1940s, the
government encouraged the formation of women's
associations,
applauded high fertility, and regarded motherhood as a
patriotic
duty to the Japanese Empire.
After World War II, the legal position of women was
redefined
by the occupation authorities, who included an equal
rights clause
in the 1947 Constitution and the revised Civil Code of
1948.
Individual rights were given precedence over obligation to
family.
Women as well as men were guaranteed the right to choose
spouses
and occupations, to inherit and own property in their own
names, to
initiate divorce, and to retain custody of their children.
Women
were given the right to vote in 1946. Other postwar
reforms opened
education institutions to women and required that women
receive
equal pay for equal work. In 1986 the Equal Employment
Opportunity
Law took effect. Legally, few barriers to women's equal
participation in the life of society remain.
Gender inequality, however, continues in family life,
the
workplace, and popular values. The notion expressed in the
proverbial phrase "good wife, wise mother," continues to
influence
beliefs about gender roles. Most women may not be able to
realize
that ideal, but many believe that it is in their own,
their
children's, and society's best interests that they stay
home to
devote themselves to their children, at least while the
children
were young. Many women find satisfaction in family life
and in the
accomplishments of their children, gaining a sense of
fulfillment
from doing good jobs as household managers and mothers. In
most
households, women are responsible for their family budgets
and make
independent decisions about the education, careers, and
life-styles
of their families. Women also take the social blame for
problems of
family members.
Women's educational opportunities have increased in the
twentieth century. Among new workers in 1989, 37 percent
of women
had received education beyond upper-secondary school,
compared with
43 percent of men, but most women had received their
postsecondary
education in junior colleges and technical schools rather
than in
universities and graduate schools
(see Higher Education
, ch. 3).
In 1990 approximately 50 percent of all women over
fifteen
years of age participated in the paid labor force. At that
time,
two major changes in the female work force were under way.
The
first was a move away from household-based employment.
Peasant
women and those from merchant and artisan families had
always
worked. With self-employment becoming less common, though,
the more
usual pattern was separation of home and workplace,
creating new
problems of child care, care of the elderly, and
housekeeping
responsibilities. The second major change was the
increased
participation of married women in the labor force. In the
1950s,
most women employees were young and single; 62 percent of
the
female labor force in 1960 had never been married. In 1987
about 66
percent of the female labor force was married, and only 23
percent
was made up women who had never married. Some women
continued
working after marriage, most often in professional and
government
jobs, but their numbers were small. Others started their
own
businesses or took over family businesses. More commonly,
women
left paid labor after marriage, then returned after their
youngest
children were in school. These middle-age recruits
generally took
low-paying, part-time service or factory jobs. They
continued to
have nearly total responsibility for home and children and
often
justified their employment as an extension of their
responsibilities for the care of their families. Despite
legal
support for equality and some improvement in their status,
married
women understood that their husbands' jobs demanded long
hours and
extreme commitment. Because women earned an average of
only 60
percent as much as men, most did not find it advantageous
to take
full-time, responsible jobs after marriage, if doing so
left no one
to manage the household and care for children
(see The Structure of Japan's Labor Market
, ch. 4).
Yet women's status in the labor force was changing in
the late
1980s, most likely as a result of changes brought about by
the
aging of the population. Longer life expectancies, smaller
families
and bunched births, and lowered expectations of being
cared for in
old age by their children have all led women to
participate more
fully in the labor force. At the same time, service job
opportunities in the postindustrial economy expanded, and
there
were fewer new male graduates to fill them.
Some of the same demographic factors--low birth rates
and high
life expectancies--also change workplace demands on
husbands. For
example, men recognize their need for a different kind of
relationship with their wives in anticipation of long
postretirement periods.
Data as of January 1994
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