(Ross Mouer, Hirosuke Kawanishi) A Sociology of Wo

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A Sociology of Work in Japan
What shapes the decisions of employees to work in Japan? The authors

of this comprehensive and up-to-date survey of the relationship between
work and society in Japan argue that individual decisions about work can
only be understood by considering the larger social context. Many fac-
tors combine to affect such choices, including the structuring of labor
markets, social policy at the national and meso level and, of course,
global influences, which have come increasingly to impinge on the orga-
nization of work and life generally. The analysis asks why the Japanese
work such long hours, and why they are so committed to their firms, if
this is indeed the case. By considering labor markets, social policy, and
relationships between labor and management, the book offers penetrat-
ing insights into contemporary Japanese society and glimpses of what
might happen in the future. Underlying the discussion is a challenge
to the celebration of Japanese management practices which has domi-
nated the literature for the last three decades. This is an important and
groundbreaking book for students of sociology and economics.
        is Professor of Japanese Studies in the School of Lan-

guages, Cultures and Linguistics at Monash University. His publications
include Images of Japanese Society: A Study in the Construction of Social
Reality (1986).
              is Professor of Sociology at Waseda University,

Tokyo. He is the author and editor of many books including Enterprise
Unionism in Japan (1991) and The Human Face of Industrial Conflict in
Post-war Japan (1999).
Contemporary Japanese Society
Editor:
Yoshio Sugimoto, La Trobe University
Advisory Editors:
Harumi Befu, Stanford University
Roger Goodman, Oxford University
Michio Muramatsu, Kyoto University
Wolfgang Seifert, Universität Heidelberg
Chizuko Ueno, University of Tokyo
Contemporary Japanese Society provides a comprehensive portrayal of mod-

ern Japan through the analysis of key aspects of Japanese society and culture,
ranging from work and gender politics to science and technology. The series
offers a balanced yet interpretive approach. Books are designed for a wide range
of readers, from undergraduate beginners in Japanese studies to scholars and
professionals.
D. P. Martinez (ed.) The Worlds of Japanese Popular Culture

0 521 63128 9 hardback 0 521 63729 5 paperback
Kaori Okano and Motonori Tsuchiya Education in Contemporary Japan:
Inequality and Diversity
Morris Low, Shigeru Nakayama and Hitoshi Yoshioka Science, Technology and
Society in Contemporary Japan
Roger Goodman (ed.) Family and Social Policy in Japan: Anthropological
Approaches
Yoshio Sugimoto An Introduction to Japanese Society (2nd edn)
Vera Mackie Feminism in Modern Japan: Citizenship, Embodiment and Sexuality
Nanette Gottlieb Language and Society in Japan
A Sociology of Work in Japan
Ross Mouer
Monash University
and
Kawanishi Hirosuke
Waseda University
cambridge university press
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© Ross Mouer and Kawanishi Hirosuke 2005
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Contents
List of figures page vii

List of tables viii
Preface xi
Note on transliteration, romanization, and translation xvii
List of abbreviations xx
Part I: A context for studying work

1 The Japanese at work 3
2 Toward a sociology of work in Postwar Japan 24
3 Competing models for understanding work in Japan 51
Part II: The commitment to being at work

4 Hours of work, labor-force participation and the
work ethic 69
Part III: Processing labor through Japan’s

labor markets
5 Change and challenge in the labor market 97
6 Segmentation of the labor market 117
Part IV: The broader social policy context for

understanding choice at work in Japan
7 From labor policy to social policy: a framework for
understanding labor process in Japan at the national level 145
8 Social security and safety nets 178
v
vi Contents
Part V: The power relations shaping the organization

of work in Japan
9 The state of the union movement in Japan 199
10 Management organizations and the interests of
employers 229
Part VI: The future

11 The future of work in Japan 253
References 264
Author index 296
General index 300
Figures
5.1 The structuring of the labor market in Japan, entry into its
segments and paths for downward mobility (circa 1990) page 98
5.2 Strategies used by firms to reduce labor costs by the
severity of the recession and the number of employees
needing to be retrenched 108
6.1 The segmented labor force in Japan’s large firms 137
6.2 The emerging labor market in Japan (circa 2000) 138
9.1 The three tiers of organized labor in Japan 205
9.2 A genealogy of the postwar labor movement in Japan 206
9.3 The structuring of the union movement with competing
enterprise unions 212
vii
Tables
2.1 Approaches to understanding labor processes and the

organization of work in Japan page 26
4.1 International comparison of weekly hours of work for
production workers in manufacturing 71
4.2 Annual hours of work in twelve countries: 1988–99 72
4.3 International groupings by annual hours of work 73
4.4 Hours of work based on the NHK surveys on the uses
of time in Japan, 1990 and 2000 74
4.5 The implementation of the two-day weekend by firm
size, 1994 77
4.6 Monthly standard hours of work, overtime, and total
hours of work in Japan, 1960–2001 78
4.7 Total annual hours of work and the percentage worked as
overtime by firm size, 1960–2000 80
4.8 Bonus payments as a multiple of monthly salaries
in non-agricultural industries excluding services,
1955–2000 81
4.9 The average number of hours spent commuting, 1990 83
4.10 Percentage distribution of the labor force by commuting
time in twelve countries, 1988 84
4.11 International comparison of working days lost
to industrial disputes in the early 1990s 86
4.12 The accrual and use of annual leave, 2001 87
4.13 Comparative figures on labor-force participation for six
countries in the early 1990s 90
4.14 Real difference in hours of work per person in the
population, circa 1992–3 92
5.1 Labor-force participation for males and females
in Japan, 1955–2000 101
5.2 Male and female labor-force participation rates by age
group, 1990 and 2001 102
viii
List of tables ix
5.3 Percentage of firms using different means of reducing their

labor costs in four countries in the late 1990s 109
5.4 The effects of introducing a variable workweek scheme on
wage costs: some hypothetical cases 112
5.5 Change in the percentage of firms using a variable workweek
scheme, 1989–2000 115
6.1 The percentage distribution of private sector employees by
employment status, 1992 and 1997 118
6.2 Growth in the number of non-regular employees in
the non-agricultural private sector by firm size, 1996
and 2000 119
6.3 The distribution of establishments and the number of
employees by firm size, 1978, 1986, and 1999 119
6.4 Variation in working conditions by firm size in 2001 120
6.5 Variation in working environment by firm size in 2000 122
6.6 The number of furiitaa in August 2000 124
6.7 Percentage of students who become employed upon
graduation, 1996–2000 128
6.8 Percentage of firms reaching informal agreements to hire
March 2001 graduates before they graduated 129
7.1 Japan’s postwar labor legislation 149
7.2 Legislation and conventions affecting the formulation of labor
law in Japan 151
7.3 Percentage of national income spent on social welfare in six
nations (circa the mid-1990s) 156
7.4 Percentage breakdown for labor costs and the amounts spent
on non-wage welfare benefits by private firms in Japan,
1975–98 158
7.5 A comparison of the effect of eight variables on the
distribution of income in Japan and the United States circa
the mid-1980s 163
7.6 The percentage of students receiving private education 168
7.7 Percentage of employees by industrial sector,
1960–2000 171
7.8 Minimum days of annual leave set by Article 39 of the Labor
Standards Law 175
8.1 Minimum wage rates set for Tokyo (at 1 January 2001) 182
8.2 Number of days for which benefits are available for the
unemployed (at 1 January 2001) 183
8.3 The number and percentage of employees covered by
unemployment insurance and the percentage of insured
employees who receive benefits, 1970–2000 184
x List of tables
8.4 Changes in the number of households and individuals

receiving basic livelihood assistance, 1970–2000 185
8.5 The ratio of subscribers to beneficiaries for the National
Pensions Basic Fund, 1993–9 188
8.6 The benefits paid from the National Pensions Basic Fund to
those in Insured Groups I, II, and III, 1999 190
8.7 An overview of the major medical insurance schemes in
Japan, March 2000 192
8.8 Percentage of national income paid out by medical insurance
funds as benefits and the percentage of the population aged
over 65, 1955–99 193
9.1 Long-term trends in the unionization rates in Japan,
1946–2001 201
9.2 A comparison of unionization rates in four countries,
1985–2000 203
9.3 The national centers and their major industrial affiliates,
1970 207
9.4 Union members affiliated to each national center,
1998–2000 210
9.5 Percentage of unions attaching importance to different
matters raised by management in the course of their firm’s
restructuring, 2000 213
9.6 Unionization rate by firm size 213
9.7 Percentage of unions having an influence on restructuring in
their firm, 2000 218
9.8 Distribution of unions by membership size, 2000 219
10.1 References to unions and management associations in the
index to Takanashi Akira’s Shunto Wage Offensive 230
10.2 Major enterprise groupings in Japan in 1995 234
10.3 An overview of five major employers’ federations,
1950–2003 238
10.4 Distribution of firms in Japan by firm size, July 1999 241
Preface
This project began nearly ten years ago. At that time a huge literature
existed in English on Japanese-style management. Most of it was favor-
ably disposed to what was seen as being an approach to human relations
and personnel management that had gone beyond the division of labor
and regimentation associated with the Fordist paradigm. In particular
there was an interest in how Japanese-style management had produced a
highly motivated work force with an exceptionally strong work ethic and
commitment to the firm and its goals. To get a better idea of the extent
to which work was carried out autonomously in Japan, we felt it would
be useful to shift attention from the cultural or ideational domain to the
structuring of work choices at both levels, paying special attention to the
consequences of not working “hard” for long hours. To provide a better
understanding of the work ethic and the reasons for the long hours of
work registered in Japan, we felt it was necessary first to set firm-level
arrangements and choices about work in the context of the larger social
parameters: the way external labor markets were structured, the over-
all mosaic of stratification and the provision of various kinds of social
services, and the power relations between the labor movement and man-
agement at the national level. In our view these were the major structures
which limited choice with regard to work at the firm level.
In our minds was the anecdote of the Japanese researcher who had
traveled to Australia to investigate the country’s unemployment insur-
ance scheme in the early 1990s just as the unemployment rate in Japan
was climbing to over 3 percent for the first time in nearly forty years. It
soon became obvious that the researcher was looking for ways to tighten
the system in Japan. His assumption was that tougher treatment of the
unemployed would motivate them to resume work at a quicker pace. The
assumption was perhaps reasonable, as Australia itself had had very low
rates of employment until the early 1970s, and had then engaged in a
discourse which referred to the unemployed as “dole bludgers” as the
unemployment rate rose.
xi
xii Preface
When he asked about the length of time for which unemployment

benefits could be received, which at the time was only six months in
Japan, he was greatly surprised to find that there was no time limit on
receiving the benefits in Australia. Having ascertained that he was indeed
being informed about the dole and not pensions or ongoing compensation
for an incapacity owing to a work-related accident, he scratched his head
and concluded that the work ethic in Australia was actually quite strong if
roughly 90 percent of the labor force was still willing to work “voluntarily”
without the compulsion of starving, whereas 3 percent of Japanese (or
even more, considering disguised unemployment) chose not to work even
with a very strong financial inducement to do so (i.e. to work or to starve
after six months). This incident confirmed in our minds the need to tie
ideas about why employees work as they do to broader structures limiting
the conditions of possibility which confront each worker as he or she
wrestles with several discourses about work in order to make decisions
about where, when, and how hard to work.
Over the intervening years a number of correctives to the Japanese
model began to emerge. As a result, many observers of Japanese-style
management came to appreciate that, for whatever post-Fordist elements
there might be, there were also ultra-Fordist features as well. More atten-
tion also came to be paid to the nature of the tiered subcontracting which
was central to the functioning of just-in-time schemes and rested on a
disaggregation or Balkanization of the labor market. Those inter-firm
relationships injected into the organization of work another set of power
relationships external to the firm. There was a growing appreciation that
a large proportion of the labor force worked outside the large-firm sec-
tor in which the features commonly associated with the Japanese model
were normally found. Rather than absorbing the casuals, part-timers,
and subcontracted workers over time, it became clear that the large firms
actually existed in a symbiotic relationship with them, dependent upon
their very existence. A literature also emerged on attempts to implement
Japanese-style management abroad, and other structural features began
to be highlighted in terms of the considerable extent to which members of
the core work force were regimented within the model companies them-
selves. While some writers attributed any friction which emerged to differ-
ences in cultural orientations, commenting that a managerial style suited
for a conformist- or consensualist-oriented society would have difficulty
in many of the more individualistically inclined societies of the West, the
structural features designed to discipline the labor force still loomed large.
From a slightly different perspective, the situation of working women
had also become a popular topic for foreign researchers, and much of
the English-language literature which resulted from this pointed to the
Preface xiii
structural weaknesses of Japan’s 1986 Equal Employment Opportunity

Law, which lacked the teeth to force change. In Japan itself attention
was being given to the problem of karoshi and to the reasons employees
felt compelled to overwork. With that there was a much broader con-
cern with work patterns associated with the model which severely limited
the opportunities for some of Japan’s best-educated and dynamic male
employees to be with their families and to take a greater interest in com-
munity affairs.
While valid, these critiques did not seem to present an integrated
overview of the larger structural context in which workers made choices
about work. Many of the critiques were set within a normative framework,
albeit in critical terms which have no doubt served to nurture the belief
that Japan needed to change. Few dealt with the changing power rela-
tions that shaped the structural context. Much of the change occurring
in Japan was put down to the inevitability of universal forces or global pat-
terns emerging elsewhere and explained in terms of how Japanese culture
was “catching up.” It seemed to be taken for granted that the collapse of
Japan’s union movement, especially in terms of its commitment to leftist
political goals, was a logical outcome of having new levels of affluence. If
there was a structured element, it was in the collapse of socialist regimes
that heralded the end of the cold war (even while the Japan Communist
Party continued to receive a healthy 10 percent of the popular vote at
national elections). Many descriptions of work in Japan came to be char-
acterized by a set of assumptions bound up in the view that the end of
history as we knew it was now in sight in terms of the tensions produced
by ideological and cultural differences.
The original idea for this volume was to present an alternative account
which explained Japanese-style management not in terms of any unique-
ness in cultural or ideological terms, but as a means of expropriating
surplus within a specific superstructural framework that severely lim-
ited the choices available to workers and potential workers at the macro
level. During the 1990s Japan drifted into a prolonged recession with
rising unemployment and a growing awareness that the world outside
was changing, as other nations were rapidly moving to find niches in the
newly emerging global economy. In considering those changes, it seemed
to us that a new superstructure was emerging which would increasingly
shape the way work is organized in Japan. There was an awareness that
the recession of the union movement was not unique to Japan. The aging
of the population, the impact of Japan’s affluence on the attitudes of its
young people to work, the widening gap in the distribution of income,
and many other changes in Japanese society could also be seen as univer-
sal phenomena. Successive financial scandals invited comparisons with
xiv Preface
the situation in other similarly developed societies. At the same time,

out of those comparisons emerged a sense that international standards
were coming increasingly to influence the way societies organized their
economic, political, and social affairs (and, ultimately, their very cul-
tures). Moreover, the north–south issues and Japanese investment over-
seas underlined ways in which the world is stratified and structured in
terms of the global economy.
Given the above perspective, it became apparent to us that a full under-
standing of work in Japan would need to consider the labor process at
three levels: the way work was organized in individual firms, the way soci-
eties were structured to allocate work through more broadly based labor
markets, and the way the international division of labor was decided. The
growing prominence of the extra-territorial factors has caused us to think
of the global as a new world order that is now the macro level. To better
articulate that way of sorting through our thoughts about work in Japan,
we have come to use the term “meso level” when referring to structures,
ideas, and events at the societal (particularly the national) level.
In considering the dynamics which result in decisions being made about
the organization of work at each of these three levels, it seemed to us that
the key variables relate to inequality of one type or another. The forces
for change and those for the status quo can be found in the collectivities
that have come to be organized in reference to those inequalities. The
inequalities are most commonly defined by gender, occupation, organi-
zational size, age, educational background, and spatial location. The role
of these factors in accounting for inequalities will be obvious to most
readers. Widened beyond a certain point, inequalities reveal objective
contradictions. It is the awareness of those contradictions that produces
tensions and creates pressure for change. In other words, it is the sub-
jective assessment of those involved in working and in organizing work
that is critical. In the past, unions have played a central role in influ-
encing how workers felt about the objective inequalities which bounded
their lives, and much of the employment relationship revolved around
the attempts of labor and management to influence the way workers per-
ceived the importance of those inequalities in their lives, the choices they
had in managing inequality, and the tradeoffs that arose when inequality
was multidimensional. Over time, other forces also came into play as the
standard of living rose, and these seem to have become noticeably more
conspicuous as Japan moved through the 1980s and 1990s.
The assessment of inequality is also tempered by an assessment of its
relative importance in terms of the overall level of rewards received in the
relevant society. Hence, a commonly heard argument from those seeking
to justify having some measure of inequality is that it is better to be poor
Preface xv
in a rich society than to be in the middle of a poor society. This view is

often presented by those at the top of wealthy societies, and goes against
the notions of mateship, comradeship, and to each according to his or
her needs.
Once a view has crystallized about the dimensions of inequality and its
overall importance in the larger scheme of things, the decision to act will
be based on an assessment of the likely chances that change will occur
and the likely sanctions that will be imposed should the push for change
fail. Here the role of the state is central. Our search for the meaning of
work in Japan is set in this context of objective inequalities, visions of
inequality and the realities of power.
This volume seeks to examine how these three elements interact at
the meso level. One of our working hypotheses is that individuals have
already made an assessment of their chances and opportunities in the
larger society before entering the world of work in a particular firm, and
that a good deal of their behavior in the firm will result from decisions sig-
nificantly shaped by that world view. This is a hypothesis we cannot test
here, but the volume is written in part as a preparation for making such a
test. While the media, increased travel, better education, the internet, and
aspects of global consumption (e.g. international advertising) have served
increasingly to draw individuals to the global level and have opened up
opportunities to know more about the international division of labor and
associated inequalities, and about local phenomena which are universal,
it is our feeling that the minds of workers have been imprinted from that
vantage point, but not yet to the extent that those impressions outweigh
their impressions of the world from the meso level in shaping their assess-
ment of the meso- or micro-level realities. This is another hypothesis to
be tested, but not in this volume.
The major aim in writing this book was to draw a picture of the terrain
on which work is organized at the meso level in Japan. There seems to
be a general recognition that the old paradigms for organizing work in
Japanese firms no longer hold. As the Japanese struggle to find ways to
reinvigorate their economy, there is an active search for a model to replace
that currently used for organizing work. There is a common recognition
that the Japanese model – with all its structural features, as an impor-
tant component of the Japanese economy (indeed, of Japanese society) –
contributed immensely to the economic achievements of the 1960s and
1970s. The energy focused in accomplishing those achievements carried
Japan forward to an economic apex during the “bubble years” of the late
1980s and early 1990s, when huge balance-of-payments surpluses were
recorded and unrealistically high levels of lending occurred to finance
further growth and non-growth projects alike. There is now a serious
xvi Preface
realization, however, that a replacement model is needed as one of the

cornerstones, if not the keystone, in the building of a new Japanese econ-
omy. A study of the dynamics shaping labor process at the meso level
will go some way toward highlighting the parameters likely to define the
paradigm which emerges for work in Japan.
In trying to assess the way work is organized at the meso level we have
sought to tell a story about how various objective facts relate to the way
employees might see the world in subjective terms. We have tried to utilize
a wide range of material, including academic opinion and some reference
to scholarly research findings, government statistics, popular views in the
media, and expositions in some of the popular encyclopedias. In the end
we wanted a volume that would communicate not only to readers across
several societies (i.e. an English-reading audience and a Japanese-reading
audience), but also to those working at different levels in either society.
Only time will tell whether we have been successful in doing this.
Note on transliteration, romanization,
and translation
A large number of Japanese terms are introduced in this volume. Sev-

eral considerations have led us to their introduction. One is to overcome
the tendency to think in terms of universals. The introduction of the
terms, usually in parentheses following an English explanation, serves
to remind us that many of the concepts used in writing about work in
Japan have cultural emic dimensions (i.e. a set of connotations peculiar
to the Japanese setting). The word rodo kumiai, for example, refers to
an organization for and by workers in a generic or etic sense. However,
when the term is used in Japan, its connotations for most Japanese sug-
gest a particular approach to union organization, trends in unionization
rates, a history of ideological struggle between left-wing and right-wing
groups, an association with a broad range of citizens’ movements, and a
specific approach to organization at both the national level and the grass-
roots level. The term is also used to refer to a range of other self-help or
mutual-help organizations, including credit unions and agricultural, con-
sumer, or insurance cooperatives. Japanese terms are liberally inserted as
a subtle reminder that there are real differences in meaning between the
Japanese and English terms and the context in which people in different
societies talk about similar matters.
A second reason for using Japanese terms is to facilitate communica-
tion by supplying readers with a basic list of key words that will immedi-
ately be recognized by the Japanese with whom they may wish to discuss
issues raised in this volume. Consequently, references to “labor union”
(rodo kumiai) serve to indicate that we use the term “labor union” as a
rough equivalent for what we are really writing about (i.e., Japanese rodo
kumiai). Conversely, reference to “rodo kumiai” (labor union) is made
to indicate that the rodo kumiai we are writing about are fairly similar to
“labor unions” in English.
As is common practice, all foreign words, including the large number
of Japanese words introduced in this text, are italicized. The exceptions
include proper nouns and official titles. The personal names of Japanese
are given in the Japanese order, with the surname first. Exceptions are
xvii
xviii Transliteration, romanization, and translation
made for Japanese who live and work abroad and are generally known
abroad by their given name followed by the surname. There are obviously
cases in the gray area; an increasing number of Japanese move back and
forth or have significant careers abroad before returning home to Japan.
The decision in such cases can only be arbitrary.
Japanese words have been romanized in the Standard or Hepburn style.
However, the macron or elongation mark has been omitted in transcrib-
ing long vowels for ordinary Japanese words. This is in line with com-
mon practice as noted by Neustupny (1991: 8), who suggests it is always
inserted “in texts addressed to specialized Japanese studies audiences”
but generally omitted from “more popular writings” for a broader audi-
ence. While purists in the use of the Japanese language might object,
several considerations led to this decision. First, in percentage terms, a
brief count of Japanese words mentioned in the text suggested that fewer
than 10 percent had elongated vowels, and of those few were words where
confusion would occur. An example of such confusion might be the name
“Ohashi,” which could consist of either the two characters meaning “big
bridge” or the two characters meaning “little bridge.” However, our feel-
ing was that the majority of readers would be reading in English only and
not reading the references. Second, dictionaries such as Kenkyusha’s list
words in romanized script so that all words which differ only in terms
of the short and elongated vowel are listed together, and the choice of
the right term is easy given the context, and the fact that an English
translation is supplied in most cases.
In recent years the Japanese have absorbed a large number of foreign
words which are sometimes more difficult to decode or to look up than
native Japanese words. The origin of such words is denoted in Japanese by
writing them in a designated script, katakana. For those words, we have
indicated the elongated sound by repeating the double vowel in the roman
script. Thus, the publication Shukan Rodo Nyuusu is the “Weekly News
on Work.” In trialing this approach with a small sample of postgraduate
students, who were asked to transcribe back into English from romanized
Japanese, it was found that the error rate in transcription was negligible.
The experiment suggested that personal names were more difficult than
ordinary words to transcribe back into Japanese, and that more errors
occurred in transcribing items in the list of references than in the text.
However, the purpose of the list is to allow readers to locate cited sources,
and there are a number of ways to do that even with partial information
(e.g. by looking up the title of the publication rather than the author’s
name), and again the demerits of omitting the elongation mark seemed
small. In this regard, an effort was made to provide a list of references
that was as detailed as possible.
Transliteration, romanization, and translation xix
This work has included small amounts of translation, mostly from the
Japanese-language titles in the list of references for which both the roman-
ized Japanese and an English translation are provided. Titles are short
and tend to invite a direct translation. Because the direct translation is
somewhat awkward or misleading in English when taken out of context,
some liberty has been taken to provide a translation which best matches
the overall thrust of each specific item. In translating longer passages, a
number of arbitrary interpretive and stylistic decisions were made. These
kinds of decisions rest on assumptions about the function the translation
is to perform in the telling of the story. Which version is most appropriate
can only be left to the reader’s broader judgments about the story itself –
judgments that are likely to vary from reader to reader. We can only ask
for the reader’s patience, tolerance, and understanding in this matter, and
welcome all critical comments so that a better job of storytelling can be
done next time.
Abbreviations
ASC Asahi Shimbun (morning edition of a national daily

newspaper)
CPI Consumer Price Index
GHQ General Headquarters (of the Allied occupation of Japan)
ILO International Labor Organization
JCP Japan Communist Party
LDP Liberal Democratic Party
LSL Labor Standards Law
MITI Ministry of International Trade and Industry
MNE multinational enterprise
MSC Mainichi Shimbun (morning edition of a national daily
newspaper)
MWL Minimum Wage Law
NGO non-government organization
NKSC Nihon Keizai Shimbun (morning edition of the nation’s
leading financial daily)
NPO non-profit organization
QC quality control
SRN Shukan Rodo Nyuusu (a weekly newspaper)
WHO World Health Organization
WTO World Trade Organization
YSC Yomiuri Shimbun (morning edition of a national daily
newspaper)
xx
Part I
A context for studying work

1 The Japanese at work
1.1 Japanese-style management and the interest

in Japanese at work
Over the last twenty years, a huge literature has emerged about work
in Japan. The interest in Japan has followed that country’s success as
a national economy. Although economists had been aware of Japan’s
steady rise to economic prominence over the hundred years following
the Meiji Restoration in 1868, from around 1970 Japan’s large balance-
of-payments surpluses drew wider attention to “the Japanese miracle.” A
number of books appeared to suggest that Japan had overnight become a
new economic superstate that would challenge or even threaten Western
economic supremacy. Their titles were often couched in ethnocentric
terms that connoted not only warnings, but also condescending surprise,
that a non-Western nation so severely beaten in 1945 could achieve so
much within twenty-five years.
To explain Japan’s sudden emergence as an economic superstate, many
writers, including the futurologist Herman Kahn (1970), attached great
importance to the Japanese mindset. They alleged that cultural rem-
nants or feudalistic values – such as group loyalty, a motivation to achieve
based on duty and the fear of shame or losing face, and Confucian fru-
gality – and a special sense of community or national consensus were
the wellsprings of Japan’s economic success. Two underlying concerns
marked much of that literature. One was a resentment of Japan’s success
in selling manufactured goods in the markets of the advanced indus-
trialized economies. Many writers sought to assess the likelihood that
Japan’s success would be shortlived and not result in a long-term “threat.”
This focus underscored a fear and often encouraged a belief that there
was a need for protective measures to counter the Japanese invasion.
The second concern arose from the ideological position taken in many
Western countries during the cold war. In the West a high value had been
placed on free trade and there was a very real rationalist interest in how
Japanese goods had become so competitive in terms of price and quality.
3
4 A context for studying work
This emphasis served to counter the first concern and opened the door
for the “Japan guru” and others associated with the “learn-from-Japan
campaign” which emerged in the late 1970s.
As Japanese exports continued to make inroads abroad, and Japan’s
balance-of-payment surpluses ballooned in the 1980s, American and
European managers began to visit Japan in large numbers to learn
about quality control and bottom-up management techniques. An early
stimulus to the interest in Japanese-style management was Dore’s British
Factory – Japanese Factory (1973). Taking the theory of late development
as a starting point, Dore argued that Japan had leapfrogged ahead in
the design of industrial relations systems because it had been able to
circumnavigate many of the problems associated with earlier efforts to
industrialize. He suggested that Japan had avoided the strong antagonis-
tic class relations between workers and managers which had character-
ized the industrialization process in many Western societies. Dore argued
further that corporate welfarism had resolved many of the social justice
issues in Japan. In 1979 Vogel published Japan as Number One, in which
he too argued that Japan had actually moved ahead of the US and many
European countries in a number of critical areas. He praised the Japanese
approach to organizing work, the maintenance of high levels of cultural
cohesion and social stability, the functioning of a highly effective bureau-
cracy, and the achievement of generally high levels of literacy. By the early
1980s the “learn-from-Japan campaign” was in high gear. One book after
another appeared which extolled Japanese approaches to maintaining law
and order, to supplying high-quality education, to fostering meaningful
social interaction, and to developing satisfying and productive industrial
relations or management styles. It became fashionable for academic writ-
ers to conclude research reports on Japan with a chapter on lessons for
others.
The interest in learning from Japan was quite pronounced in the area of
management. Something about Japanese-style management was seen as
accounting for high levels of productivity. The quality of Japanese prod-
ucts and the low level of industrial disputes were seen as evidence of the
success of Japanese management, low levels of worker alienation, and a
distinct work ethic. Ouchi’s Theory Z (1981) and Pascale and Athos’s
The Art of Japanese Management (1981) were two of the earlier volumes
seeking to explain Japanese-style management to English-speaking man-
agers around the world. The 1980s saw an outpouring of volumes on all
aspects of Japanese-style management. Throughout this period Japan’s
experience became a major point of reference for many who were writ-
ing about management and global capitalism. Writers such as Thurow
(1983, 1992 and 1996) and Drucker (1993) typify this interest in Japan.
The Japanese at work 5
By the late 1980s many observers, such as Kenny and Florida (1993),
were proclaiming that Japan had developed a truly post-Fordist or post-
modern approach to organizing work.
Much of the literature on Japanese management assumed that the
Japanese worker’s commitment to work and to his place of work had
been integral to the superior performance of the Japanese economy. That
commitment was seen as overriding the adverse conditions which many
workers had to put up with, including long hours and excessive regimen-
tation. It was commonly argued that Japanese management had worked
with and fostered a cultural paradigm that was quite different from the
one found in most Western countries. The assumption was that Japanese
culture resulted in workers and managers sharing similar values, which
underpinned Japanese work practices and an unusually strong commit-
ment to doing work. The conclusion was often that Western managers
needed to alter their managerial style. The corollary was that a kind
of cultural revolution was required in many Western societies so that
antagonistic class relations formed during earlier stages of industrializa-
tion would give way to more cooperative relations at work and in society
at large.
1.2 Reassessing Japanese-style management

Given the general enthusiasm for Japanese-style management, linked to
the functional requisites for high productivity, other aspects of work orga-
nization have tended to be pushed aside. This was especially true outside
Japan. North American scholarship had traditionally veered away from
Marxist themes. As the cold war progressed, traditional perspectives on
industrial relations which emphasized conflict and its resolution through
power relations tended to give way to optimistic assessments concern-
ing the manageability of human resources and the ability of progressive
management to preempt conflict.
Countering that predilection, Kassalow (1983) argued that Japan’s
approach to industrial relations would not be a serious model for orga-
nizing work elsewhere unless three conditions were met. The first was
that the system produced high levels of national economic competitive-
ness. Second was that all the stakeholders in Japan agreed the model was
a satisfactory way of organizing work. Third was that members of the
society generating the model desired to export it. The second and third
conditions have been least satisfied and require close examination.
As for consensus, conservative governments and employers’ asso-
ciations have since the early 1950s attacked left-wing unionism and
the Marxist-inspired scholarship associated with it. Two successive
“oil shocks” in the 1970s fostered a renewed seriousness about national

economic competitiveness and discipline at work. As socialist regimes
abroad increasingly came to confront various contradictions in the 1980s,
conservatives made headway and seemingly emerged victorious by the
end of the 1980s, by which time militant left-wing unionism had also lost
out in the unification of the labor movement. As the bubble years of the
1980s gave way to a new consumerism, dissident scholarship relevant to
the understanding of work in Japan ebbed, and the interest in critiques
of work organization in Japan waned. This gave the impression that con-
sensus had been achieved and that the second condition seemed to have
been met.
However, after Japan’s economic bubble burst in the early 1990s,
thirty-five years of conservative rule came to an end. In the 1990s suc-
cessive financial crises, the frequent turnover of national governments,
rising unemployment, multicultural pressures, and the incursion of
foreign-made goods underlined the need for a fundamental question-
ing of the work-related institutions previously seen as the wellspring of
Japan’s postwar economic success. Many Japanese began to face a certain
dilemma: three decades of hard work and Japan’s very high per capita
incomes had not produced a commensurately high standard of living.
This led to questions about how hard to work and the even more basic
question: how wealthy is wealthy enough?
By the 1990s many Japanese were feeling a great national tiredness and
frustration in not knowing how to convert the nation’s economic prowess
into a better quality of life. There was a growing awareness that mam-
moth changes were required to alter a system that had been geared to
putting production first. As Shimada (1995) put it, there were problems
in having a system which produces more than can be consumed: Japan’s
huge balance-of-payments surpluses were symptomatic of serious eco-
nomic anorexia. Japan’s economy had come to be structured in ways that
made it difficult for ordinary Japanese to enjoy the wealth it generated.
It was an economy built on lean production. Such an economy, Shimada
argued, had serious health problems.
Reflecting on this systemic problem, Sato (1993) wrote about Japan’s
new spiritual refugees who were migrating to Australia to escape the
Japanese system. These Japanese differed from the economic emigrants
who left Japan at the beginning of the twentieth century. At issue was the
dysfunctioning of the Japanese system as a whole. For such Japanese the
high material standard of living was offset by high levels of stress. This
perspective is presented in the recent writings of Kumazawa (1996 and
1997) and by those who write about karoshi (death from overwork). Those
writing about these aspects would argue that Kassalow’s consensus was
to be found more in the form of an awkward silence than in a resounding

cheer for the benefits of Japanese-style management. Overseas, Japanese
firms came to be known for their hostility to unionism, for their failure
to incorporate local managers, women or the aged into the upper realms
of management, for a lack of seriousness in dealing with certain social
issues such as sexual harassment, for implementing just-in-time systems
that overly disciplined workers in a vast array of hierarchically aligned sub-
contractors, and for the tightness with which it withheld from the public
information on in-house dealings and other socially relevant matters.
These considerations mark the extent to which official and unofficial
interpretations diverge and the “labeling” by which certain ways of orga-
nizing work are presented to the public as “respectable” and others are
not. Because the engineering of work organization inevitably involves
social change, management in leading firms must constantly engage in
public relations exercises to implement change. For this reason, a full
analysis of work in Japan requires that attention be paid both to the man-
ifest and to the latent ways in which work is organized.
As for the third of Kassalow’s conditions, Japanese management and
the government have been equivocal about the transferability of Japanese-
style management. Prior to 1980 most of Japan’s investment overseas
had been by small firms seeking to save on labor-intensive processes.
From the late 1970s Japan’s large firms began in a concerted manner
to manufacture abroad within tariff-protected or regulated areas and to
counter mounting criticism of the negative effects their large-scale exports
from Japan were having on other societies. For this reason there was
sensitivity to local work practices. However, as Japanese multinational
enterprises (MNEs) became more confident in their own labor processes
and more familiar with the foreign settings, many encouraged their leaner
subcontractors to follow them abroad, and Japanese managers began to
introduce some Japanese practices while leaving others at home.
On the home front, partly as a result of direct pressure through the
Structural Impediments Initiatives that came to be built into US–Japan
bilateral relations in the late 1980s, many Japanese became more aware of
the benefits of aligning practices in Japan with those found in other major
economies. Steps to deregulate the Japanese economy have also coin-
cided with social changes in Japan over the past ten to fifteen years. New
developments in global capitalism have made the export of Japanese-
style management and Japanese-style industrial relations practices
in toto less pertinent. Japanese who want to say no to Western demands
are now much less likely to do so on cultural grounds or to invoke
parochial notions of cultural relativism in order to justify the introduction
of allegedly Japanese ways of managing.
As the evidence on Japanese-style management overseas accumulated

during the 1980s, Japanese management increasingly came under the
scrutiny of local communities. In North America and Europe many have
a greater appreciation of the social consequences of Japanese-style man-
agement. Japanese managers now seem less enthusiastic about imple-
menting the Japanese approach to industrial relations abroad. Another
factor undermining the confidence of Japanese managers and depressing
interest abroad in learning from the way work is organized in Japan has
been the inability of the national economy to perform at levels achieved
prior to 1990. During the 1990s the Japanese model lost its edge in meet-
ing Kassalow’s first criterion.
1.3 A general perspective on postmodernism and the

organization of work: post-Fordist or ultra-Fordist?
The Japanese experience poses some hard questions about the nature
of work. Four decades of rapid economic growth from the 1950s took
Japan far beyond industrialization. In the late 1980s it was commonly
argued that in becoming post-industrial Japanese society had also gone
beyond modernization and the processes of rationalization which led to
standardization, not just in work processes but also in life processes more
generally. With the emergence of a national labor market and mass soci-
ety, many came to the view that 90 percent of the Japanese identified
with some amorphous “middle class.” Nevertheless, although one can
point to standardization in the education system, in the mass media, in
the language, and in the rhythm of commuting, serious questions remain
concerning the homogeneity of the Japanese in terms of a shared con-
sciousness or ethos at work. These doubts were systematically detailed
by Mouer and Sugimoto (1986). During the late 1980s and early 1990s
debate focused on whether Japanese-style management actually repre-
sented a new post-Fordist system of production or was only a logical
extension of the Fordist production system. Various contributions to that
debate were later brought together in a volume edited by Kato and Steven
(1993).
1.3.1 The dilemma of modernity

Modernization challenged social theorists with its emphasis on choice
and liberation. Some time ago, Apter (1966) wrote that the essence of
being modern lies in the willingness and the ability to make strategic
choices. The dilemma of choice was especially apparent in societies that
came late to industrialization and required disciplined efforts to “catch

up.” For them modernization became an exercise in the mobilization of
entire populations to ward off outside control. This produced a tension
between (i) the ability of individuals to make rational choices in their
pursuit of individual freedom and autonomy, and (ii) the capacity of soci-
eties to make collective choices which were rational in terms of achieving
self-sustaining development and national independence. Developmen-
talist ideologies sometimes blurred the distinction between internalized
cultural values and politically supported policy objectives. Today some
write about an Asian mode of democracy, whereby the national develop-
ment needed to win new freedoms for Asian societies results in strategic
restrictions being placed on the choices available to the individuals who
constitute those societies.
The debate on Asian values highlights ambiguities and tensions created
by modernity and by notions of universal economic rationality. Greater
physical comfort and new standards based on universalistic principles are
products of modernization and the drive for economic rationality. Beyond
a certain point, however, further development requires more open flows
of information that in turn allow individuals to disengage themselves from
the state and its narrowly defined goals. This gives rise to postmodernity
and to multiculturalist values that challenge many of the assumptions
built into work when it is organized solely in the service of modernity and
national development. As Japan continues to develop and the Japanese
begin to enjoy the fruits of modernity, many of the tensions between
modernity and postmodernity emerge at work.
For some time now, the nature of Japan’s postmodernity has been
debated. While the general consensus seems to be that Japan’s culture
has been able to incorporate contrasting elements, doubts remain about
the extent to which Japan’s social structures demonstrate a similar toler-
ance or flexibility. This was certainly the view of American policymak-
ers intent on Japan removing various structural impediments in the late
1980s, and structured change did result in changed behavior and new
patterns of consumption. Although structural inflexibility in the econ-
omy was highlighted by Japan’s hesitancy to improve transparency in
its financial sector, the Structural Impediments Initiatives also directed
attention toward Japan’s rigid system of centrally controlled education,
segmented labor markets, and other facets of social organization. Change
in these domains over the past decade reinforces the view that many struc-
tures in Japan have operated independently of a coherent national culture
and can be further altered in response to political realignments of power
relations.
1.3.2 The question of flexibility at work

From the early 1990s the flexibility of the Japanese system with regard
to work has been questioned in three areas. One concerns questions of
choice and multiculturalism at work. Here “multiculturalism” refers not
only to the level of tolerance shown toward newcomers and Japan’s dif-
ferent ethnic minorities, but also to flexibility in recognizing or accepting
different work patterns to accommodate the handicapped, those with spe-
cial family responsibilities, those at different points in their life, those with
different sexual preferences, and those with different work–leisure ethics.
Much of the discussion of these matters by business interests in Japan has
correctly pointed out that this kind of flexibility is often very expensive
in terms of a firm’s economic competitiveness. Chapters 5 and 6 discuss
the labor market and suggest that Japan’s system for organizing work still
appears to be rigidly modernist and assimilationist (i.e. monocultural),
although internationalization and various internal forces for postmod-
ernism seem to be producing greater flexibility at work than has been the
case in the past.
A second area of concern involves the shift from the clearly defined and
easily measured goal of income maximization and more national GDP
per capita to the nebulous goal of improving the standard of living and
lifestyles. Workers have come increasingly to reassess their goals at work,
both materially and psychologically. Those in the modernist mode tend
to conclude that the younger generation, spoilt by affluence, has lost the
work ethic. Modernists may also push to widen the scope for individual
choice, but relate workways and lifestyle to fairly predictable stages in life.
However, the Japanese now access vast information about the outside
world via the media and the internet. A growing number tour, study,
and do business abroad, often accompanied by their families. During
the bubble years many came to see irony in Japan having the highest
GNP per capita and the most advanced electronic gadgetry in the world
while many citizens experienced circumstances associated with the early
stages of economic development: substandard housing, long hours of
work, and poor infrastructure for leisure-time activities and for medical
care.
The third set of choices relate to the nature of the work ethic, the
commitment of the Japanese to their work organizations, and the bal-
ance between voluntarism and regimentation or between self-discipline
and institutionalized discipline. The distinction between institutional
structures and culture is important in assessing the extent to which the
Japanese approach to work still relies on structures rather than on culture
or shared values. This is odd, given that much of the literature on work in
Japan has traditionally placed heavy emphasis on uniquely Japanese cul-

tural traits or values as major factors facilitating Japan’s past economic
achievements at the enterprise level. Structures exist at several levels, and
behavior in the firm is often shaped by institutions at the national level,
and increasingly by global arrangements.
1.3.3 Corporatism and the free market economy

Questions concerning the locus of power or decision-making in Japan
have been at the center of debate on contemporary Japan for some time
(e.g. Stockwin 1980). Numerous observers such as van Wolferen (1990)
and McCormack (1996) have argued that decision-making in Japan is
diffused in a complex network of interconnected interests. These descrip-
tions, while sometimes intended as a means of delineating the peculiar-
ity of Japan’s approach to social organization, are often consistent with
those found in writings about power elites and strategic elites in other
societies. Pluralists (such as Sone 1989) point to a wide range of par-
ticipants in Japan’s political process. Contributors to Inagami (1995)
describe work organization in corporatistic terms as a form of centralized
democracy.
This view had appeared earlier in Okochi, Karsh, and Levine (1973),
who argued that the organization of work in Japan and in other industri-
alized societies can usefully be understood in terms of the institutional
framework earlier advanced by Dunlop (1958). They posited that work
organizations are shaped by arrangements that incorporate and balance
the interests of big business, big government, and big labor. This under-
standing was also the starting point for Kenny and Florida (1993), who
saw Japan’s strong union movement immediately after the war as a defin-
ing influence on work organization.
Developments of the past decade, however, lead one to question the
corporatist framework. The influence of the national peak organizations
for labor, including Rengo, has greatly declined. As noted below in
chapter 9, the unionization rate has dropped considerably over the past
two decades. Rengo’s influence on social policy relevant to the wellbe-
ing of many in Japan’s labor force has also declined. Once the major
political vehicle for organized labor in Japan, the Japan Socialist Party
(now the Social Democratic Party) survives in a very shaky manner after
a brief taste of coalition power with the Murayama cabinet (1993–6).
As Shimizu (1997) and others have suggested, the inability of Japanese
unions to affect policy has led many to question the need for Japanese
unions to exist at all – a view at odds with the notion that there is a
corporatist balance of power.
Such doubts are not new. Galenson and Odaka (1976) questioned
whether Japanese unions were really free and meaningfully committed to
the interests of their members. Kawanishi (1992a) described how many
unions perform as an adjunct to management in the implementation of
personnel policies designed by and for management. This is not to ignore
the significant role some unions play in enhancing the wellbeing of their
members at the firm level (cf. Kawanishi 1992a; Benson 1994 and 1996).
Another difficulty with the corporatist formulation is that the business–
government relationship is less cosy and less predictable than in the
past. The influence of the Ministry of International Trade and Indus-
try (MITI) has waned considerably over the past fifteen to twenty years,
and, despite amalgamation, the peak employer organizations such as
Nikkeiren and Keidanren have come to have less sway over their mem-
bers. In the 1980s Sugimoto (1988) noted a divergence between the
forces for “emperor-first capitalism” and those for business-first capital-
ism. He posited that firms putting profits ahead of the national interest
had become conspicuous in the 1980s. The tight linkage of corporate and
bureaucratic interests through shingikai (government advisory councils)
also weakened as radical unionism faded and old ministries were restruc-
tured by administrative reforms in the late 1990s. In 2001 the Ministry of
Labor and the Ministry of Health and Welfare were merged. As the influ-
ence of the three main parties determining industrial relations waned, the
corporatistic structuring of life also seemed to give way to less institution-
alized market forces: a sign perhaps that a civil society was emerging in
Japan.
This fits in with the views of a number of writers (e.g. Mouer and
Sugimoto 1995 and 2003; Rifkin 1996; Garten 1997; Nikkei Bijinesu
1997) who suggest that the end of the cold war was accompanied by
increased international competition and a new level of economic ratio-
nalism at the firm level. They point to fundamental ways in which a
number of elements at the global level are coming to affect the organi-
zation of work as it evolves in Japan and elsewhere at the beginning of
the twenty-first century. As the organization of work is restructured to
incorporate advances in information technology and communications, it
is perhaps useful to think of how labor process is being shaped simulta-
neously on three different, though overlapping, levels. In considering the
future of work in contemporary Japan, the concerns mentioned in this
section have shifted attention either up to the suprastructural factors at
the international or global level or down to the firm and other factors at
the local level. However, as the influence of big government, big business
and big labor declines, there is a danger that other phenomena at the
national level will be overlooked.
Without introducing the debate on the continuing significance of the

nation state in the global era, this is, then, an argument that a thorough
discussion of labor process must consider work relations at the macro level
(used here to refer to factors shaping global standards and the interna-
tional division of labor in terms of the world system), at the meso level
(referring here to the many institutional arrangements influencing how
work is organized at the national level), and at the micro level (referring
primarily to how work is organized at the local level in specific firms and
in regionally based industries). There is also a danger that the importance
of institutional or structural differences will be downplayed as attention
focuses on universal trends: the decline in permanent fixed-shift employ-
ment, falling unionization rates, the end to the long-term decline in the
working hours of permanent employees, the multiculturalization of the
labor force, the aging of the population, growing social inequality, and
change in the family. Looking at fourteen nations around the world, the
contributions to Cornfield and Hodson (2002) emphasize the contin-
ued importance of national differences in work organization while also
acknowledging these common trends.
1.3.4 The generation of surplus

The fiftieth anniversary of the Marshall Plan in May 1997 drew atten-
tion to the importance of capital in the postwar economic recovery of
Europe. The success of the Plan demonstrated a simple truth in the work
of Rostow (1959) and others writing about economic development: ongo-
ing capital accumulation is a sine qua non for economic growth. They
argued that societies progressed through a series of stages with the rate
of savings increasing to a critical level where economies “took off,” and
then to even higher levels in periods of very high growth, before dropping
back to levels necessary to sustain high productivity.
Continuing to present this simple truth, writers on the advanced
economies over the past few decades have come to recognize that surplus
for capital formation is a necessary but not always sufficient condition for
growth to occur. The lower rates of productivity found in many Western
nations during the 1970s and 1980s were attributed to excessive spend-
ing, some of which was by the state for social welfare and social justice. In
some countries, military spending has also eroded savings. Subsequent
efforts to constrain public spending in such areas has shifted attention
to the microeconomic level and to what private firms can achieve when
unfettered by taxes and regulations. Here, certain aspects of Japanese-
style management (e.g. just-in-time arrangements and enterprise bar-
gaining) have been featured as ways in which firms can achieve higher
levels of productivity. Massive restructuring in large economic organi-

zations has not stopped simply with the removal of waste. The overall
belt-tightening in firms has resulted in more careful regulation of labor
inputs and the intensification of work among those who remain in perma-
nent employment. This has obviously affected the way work is organized
in Japan.
Many writers suggest that the new advances in information technology
now drive a new kind of industrial revolution. Less prominently noted
is the fact that these changes in the economy’s technological base are
requiring new levels of capital accumulation for another takeoff and for
the sustained growth that is meant to follow. Accordingly, for the foresee-
able future, work organization is likely to be characterized by the ongoing
change needed to sustain a process of capital formation and accumula-
tion. The changes required for the necessary savings to be achieved may
be seen in various social developments. One is the growing inequality in
the distribution of income. This trend needs to be understood not only
in each of the advanced economies of the world, but also in terms of
the growing gap between the rich and the poor nations as world produc-
tion systems come to institutionalize divisions of labor on a global scale
(Korzeniewicz and Moran 1997).
Japan is again a key case. Huge investments are required if the Japanese
economy is to transform itself in the high-tech era in order to improve its
competitiveness in world trade. Already Japan feels pressured by China’s
emergence as an economic powerhouse. Central to Japan making the
transition will be the mechanisms for generating surplus. Doubt since
the 1990s about whether Japan’s financial institutions will perform well in
this regard has caused many of Japan’s most dynamic enterprises to push
for labor market deregulation. The demand for freedom to maneuver
their labor force more flexibly focuses attention on how the Japanese
state will balance efforts to generate economic surplus with the need to
provide economic security to citizens at work. While some writers have
indicated that work organization will have to change fundamentally in
more globalized economies (Rifkin 1996; Lipietz 1997), some such as
Kumazawa (1996 and 1997) have noted that this transition is already
producing in Japan various mechanisms to squeeze labor further. This is
consistent with the view that Japanese-style management in the 1970s and
1980s had become an accentuated form of “ultra-Fordism” rather than
the harbinger of “post-Fordism.” The earlier debate on Fordism reminds
us that an understanding of how work is organized in Japan must include
a careful consideration of how labor process at the micro level functions
within the broader context of labor process at the meso (national) and
macro (global) levels.
1.4 Work ideology in the changing world system

To develop further a sociology of labor in Japan, attention needs to
be given to how the new technologies are shaping interaction between
labor processes on the global, national, and local levels, as individu-
als, organizations, and states seek to generate economic surplus. Work
intensification, casualization, and changes in the wage system have been
markedly shaped by power relations between the “big three.” As new
forces emerge at the local and international levels and the fundamen-
tals of ownership change, especially as they relate to industrial prop-
erty (i.e. the production, movement, and control of information) and
to citizenship, further tensions will emerge from the clash between ide-
ologies pushing for the modern and those advocating the postmodern.
Following the cold war, attention shifted away from the East–West divide
and from comparisons of how capitalist or market economies stacked up
against socialist or command economies. However, even though social-
ism is now widely seen as a failed blueprint for economic development,
if not for social development more generally, it is difficult to conclude
that we will see the end of ideology as predicted by Bell (1960) over forty
years ago, or Fukuyama (1993) more recently. Hampden-Turner and
Trompenaars (1994) argue that there are at least seven cultures of capi-
talism. As the competition between capitalist nations intensifies, debate
will likely come to revolve around the superiority of specific approaches to
capitalism.
The “Look East policies” of Malaysia and Singapore in the 1980s
and early 1990s combined ideas about work organization in Asia with
assumptions about Asian modes of democracy. Mahathir and Ishihara
(1994) and others argue that Asian values require a different approach to
social organization. Although the final outcome may be a move toward
global standards, it will likely be some time before we see the ultimate
capitalist system combining best capitalist world practice in all spheres
of economic and social activity. The experience with national systems of
industrial relations has been that complex institutions have a life of their
own and that such institutions are revamped only every fifty to a hun-
dred years. It is thus important to consider the extent to which Japan’s
institutions at the national level accommodate or compromise “global
standards.”
To understand the forces shaping the future of work in advanced cap-
italist economies, it is useful to assess how the debate on different cap-
italisms is shaping the world system. Much of the recent discussion of
trade strategies in international forums is about the balance to be struck
between working and living. Two general categories of concern are central
to any assessment of competing brands of capitalism. One is the way work

is organized and relates to the right, the privilege, the opportunity, and/or
the duty to work. The other involves the goals to be achieved through
work.
1.5 Toward a superior work ethic?

Several yardsticks are used to evaluate competing economic models.
Some time ago Wilcox (1966) identified eight criteria for the task. Here
two are considered: efficiency and the freedom to choose.
1.5.1 Efficiency
The first criterion is whether one system of production is more efficient
than another. The focus on efficiency is largely about the ability of systems
to export and to generate balance-of-payments surpluses. That ability
was mentioned above as a major reason why national systems of indus-
trial relations become widely accepted as models for other societies. The
importance of this criterion will be enhanced by moves to more open
trade through the World Trade Organization (WTO). With freer trade
in capital, technology, ideologies and culture accompanying the more
market-oriented approach of the WTO, the competitive advantage of
many local areas may not go much beyond the productivity of locally
based labor. Microeconomic reform is about making those workers more
efficient and testing their efficiency through competition (e.g. deregulated
labor markets).
Most assessments of Japan, beginning with two OECD reports on the
Japanese system of industrial relations in the 1970s, have rated highly the
contributions of Japanese labor to Japan’s overall economic competitive-
ness. Japan is now confronted by the need to squeeze from its labor force
further productivity while maintaining higher levels of commitment. By
choosing to further deregulate Japan’s labor markets, policymakers are
challenging established understandings about the rewards and incentives
previously seen as keys to motivating the Japanese labor force. The issues
raised by this dilemma are addressed at various points throughout this
volume as central to any assessment about the peculiarities that might
distinguish Japanese capitalism from other versions.
1.5.2 Choice and free trade

A key issue arising out of the commitment to free trade is how to con-
ceive of the right to compete in the free trade of goods and services. These
concerns link back through time to questions of colonialism, economic
imperialism, and economic dependence. Do workers in industrialized

countries really wish to compete on a level playing field with workers in
the non-industrialized world? If so, what are the rules that define notions
of fair competition, and who makes those rules? How legitimate are sweat
shops? How legitimate as a means of competing is social dumping in the
form of lower wages, longer hours of work, poorer housing, and environ-
mental degradation? The consequences of winning or losing the game of
national economic competition are such that citizens in many countries
can easily be persuaded that various deprivations are a reasonable price
to pay for national economic independence.
1.5.3 Human rights and the right to compete

Unbridled competition between work organizations ultimately raises
questions about human rights and cultural style. Time lags in devel-
opment often invite accusations of hypocrisy from the less-developed
nations. Why were sweat shops or child labor acceptable in eighteenth-
century England but are not in twenty-first-century Bangladesh? Why
does the coverage given to the Olympics and to many other international
sporting events by the Western-dominated media legitimate one kind of
child labor that later leads to stardom in the entertainment industry while
the same media condemn child labor when it occurs in a factory?
While these kinds of issues seldom surfaced in Japan–US trade dis-
putes, assumptions about which structural arrangements for work are
“fair” or “unfair” did. Many Japanese continue to be resentful of what
they see as American attempts to impose its inconsistent norms as “global
standards.” Such attempts are seen ultimately as abrogating the right to
compete and limiting the right of nations to set and to control working
conditions in line with the wishes of their citizens. As a means to an end,
the right to compete is the right to work, and that is in turn the right
of workers to accept regimentation to achieve national goals. In contem-
porary Japan karoshi (death from overwork) has been seen as a serious
problem (Karoshi Bengodan Zenkoku Renraku Kaigi 1991), but if the
Japanese wish to pay that price, do most Europeans, Australians, or North
Americans still wish to compete? Free trade arrangements for financial
services and the flow of investment have come increasingly to mean that
the price of failure could well be selling off “the farm” or a nation’s
cultural assets to more competitive foreign interests. Another considera-
tion is the fact that the amount of effort required to gain independence
often appears to be greater than that necessary to maintain a competitive
advantage once this has been achieved. A third is that workers in more
competitive economies often become “embourgeoised” once an affluent
lifestyle is achieved.
The challenge is more starkly stated when translated into hours of

work. Japan’s annual average of 2,100–2,200 hours circa 1990 con-
trasted sharply with the 1,500–1,600 hours recorded in many European
countries. While the extra leisure enjoyed by many Europeans might be
regarded as a kind of reward for superior efficiency, a free trade regime
will, ceteris paribus, result in Japan’s longer hours of work putting pressure
on workers in those societies to follow suit. Similarly, still longer hours
and lower labor costs in China are seen as pressuring Japanese work-
ers. Given the general acknowledgment that many Japanese workers are
doing “service overtime” (unrecorded, and therefore free, overtime for
their employers), some between 500 and 800 hours a year, it is not idle
to speculate about mechanisms in Japan that might ensure that Japanese
workers cannot be prodded into working 2,500 hours a year in order to
improve their international competitiveness.
Although the Japanese model now draws less interest, Japanese views
on these matters are relevant to policymakers elsewhere. Leaving aside the
very public contribution of Japanese commentators to Australian think-
ing about its levels of industrial disputation at the end of the 1970s, and
less obvious Japanese influence contributing to the introduction of enter-
prise bargaining, one might speculate about how the publicity given to
Japanese perceptions at the end of the 1980s that Australians were all
“large, lazy and lucky” (Ormonde 1992) facilitated work intensification
and the rise in the hours of work in Australia over the 1990s. Because
hours of work fell remarkably in Japan during the 1990s, and Japan is
no longer so different in this regard, the Japanese experience is relevant
to the management of international competition and to assessments of
Asian values and propositions that the appropriateness of certain social
arrangements (including regimentation at work) is determined by overall
levels of productivity and what a society (and its individuals) can reason-
ably afford. Japanese policymakers continue to grapple with the trade-
offs between efficiency and social justice and with how best to motivate
younger workers with a diverse range of interests. In order to assess that
tradeoff, a fuller appreciation of the factors shaping the Japanese “com-
mitment” or “willingness” to work long hours is needed.
Central to any evaluation of the long hours of work recorded in Japan at
the beginning of the 1990s is an assessment of how voluntarily Japanese
workers work. If the long hours of work recorded in Japan are just a
reflection of a culturally ordained work ethic (i.e. the joy of working
as much as possible), the appropriate response in societies wishing to
compete may simply be to exhort their own workers to work longer or
harder or with more commitment. If, however, Japanese work habits are
seen to be the product of structures which reward and penalize workers
for differences in hours worked, then there are questions about human
rights at work, about the desirability of having international standards,
and about the tradeoff between hours of work, productivity, and
voluntariness.
1.6 Toward an understanding of work in Japan

The preceding discussion suggests there are competing visions of how
work is organized in Japan. This should not be surprising; Japan is a
complex society. Its economy consists of large and small firms, male
and female employees, those with more education at elite institutions
and those with less education at mediocre schools, various industries and
geographic regions, unionized and non-unionized workers. For persons
positioned differently in the Japanese economy, work will obviously mean
different things and result in different understandings. These variations
will be most apparent at the micro level.
This volume tries to capture some of the context or milieu in which
the Japanese make choices about work. As indicated above, the context
for work can be conceived on three levels: the macro or international,
the meso or national, and the micro, firm-specific, or local. Workers and
management interact most at the micro levels. Many studies, including a
number of good ethnographies, have thrown light on how work is orga-
nized at the firm level.
At the other end of the spectrum, few workers or managers have much
input on the international stage. Decisions there are often made beyond
the boundaries of most states. The extent to which Japan as a nation
state or the Japanese as private citizens are able to affect decisions at the
global level increasingly deserves careful attention as global civil soci-
ety emerges. At the national level, individual workers also have little
direct input, although some may have a collective input through their
unions. Managers at large firms, however, are probably more likely to
affect arrangements for work at the national level in Japan. They most
often do so through industrial federations and have an input into the for-
mation of industrial policy. Management at medium-sized and smaller
firms and representatives of regional economic interests may have vary-
ing amounts of influence. In democracies like Japan individuals can and
do compete to support political parties with quite different social agendas
at the national level. Out of that competition (or lack of it) emerges the
overall framework structuring inequality, social welfare and redistributive
mechanisms, education, and the political balance of power. The mosaic of
institutions, legislation, practices, and political alliances which emerges at
this level very much colors the milieu in which each worker makes choices
in their own world of work. The outcomes at the national or “meso” level
set parameters limiting the choices available to individuals when they
think about their work.
The literature on industrial relations and labor law in Japan at the meso
level is abundant. It tends to be framed largely in terms of how institu-
tions function from the point of view of policymakers. Less emphasis has
been placed on how that framework delineates the choices confronting
workers on an everyday basis. This volume considers how the meso level
impinges on those choices and affects labor process in Japan’s external
labor markets.
This book does not seek to provide a definitive introduction to all
aspects of work in Japan. In focusing on the meso or national level, it has
left discussion of in-house concerns at the firm level for another volume.
Such a volume would also consider more carefully the everyday life con-
cerns and the ways work and individual life courses are conceptualized
within the context of the family. Although work organization is increas-
ingly coming to be influenced by international bodies (such as the WTO
or the ILO) and by the diffusion of international standards across a wide
range of domains (including social welfare, education, skill classifications,
working conditions, and labor market reform), these influences are also
beyond the scope of this book.
Written as an introduction to the world of work in Japan, this volume
is conceived as an eclectic exercise. Several disciplines deal with work.
The sociology of work has been greatly enriched by reference to a wide
range of competing paradigms. An effort was made in writing this vol-
ume to introduce a range of paradigms providing insight into how work is
organized in Japan, and the views of those in industrial relations, manage-
ment studies, the organizational and administrative sciences, philosophy,
anthropology, and psychology are incorporated.
The study of work also embraces a concern with comparative issues.
Here it is important to balance an emphasis on Japan’s uniqueness with
an awareness of the universal. Japan is a society with a long social history.
Over many centuries various traditions and practices developed which
continue to shape the organization of work in Japan and the vocabu-
lary for talking about work. While Wigmore’s volumes on commercial
practices in Tokugawa Japan (1969–75) suggest that it would be wise to
eschew gross generalizations about work, even when referring to tradi-
tional Japan, a discernible rhythm to work in contemporary Japan never-
theless distinguishes it from work elsewhere. Knowledge of that ethos pro-
vides a general mindset or common ground for the Japanese to exchange
views about work. At the same time, the way work is experienced in con-
temporary Japan varies greatly as a result of one’s positioning in a complex
and very segmented labor market. Moreover, the organization of work is

increasingly being shaped by the logic of production technologies found
elsewhere and by developments in the global economy.
Over the years, the debate on convergence and divergence has centered
on Japan because it was the first Asian nation to industrialize (e.g. see Cole
1971; Rohlen 1974). Social scientists and other observers were interested
in whether Japan’s Asianness or its industrialization would be the more
influential factor shaping social life in Japan. Those believing in conver-
gence (such as Cole 1971) argued that Japanese society would gradu-
ally become more like Western societies as it adopted similar industrial
technologies. They saw convergence as a logical outcome of the push to
modernize. Other scholars (such as Rohlen 1974) argued that Japanese
society would remain culturally and socially distinct, reflecting Japan’s
different history and its unique culture. Rather than being dominated by
the logic of industrialism, they argue, Japan has achieved new levels of
economic choice which will allow it increasingly to articulate its difference
in economic terms and in the way work is organized.
A third position was taken by Dore (1973), who argued that reverse
convergence might occur, a position which seems reasonable given the
overseas interest in Japanese-style management in the 1980s. A fourth,
less optimistic, scenario would be that associated with Huntington’s
(1992) notion of civilizations tenaciously fighting to survive and con-
stantly jostling for position in the new world order. Whatever the process
of cultural diffusion and social change might be, the preceding discus-
sion in this chapter has underlined the importance of considering the
Japanese experience with work in a comparative perspective and in terms
of its linkages to the experiences of other countries.
The continuing debate on convergence and divergence raises interest-
ing and challenging questions about the nature of social change. The
debate has also injected into discussions of work in Japan the impor-
tant distinction between function and form. Cole’s (1971) discussion of
functional equivalents allows us to see similarities in terms of the over-
all functioning of society, while cultural differences remain in terms of
forms.
1.7 The structure of this volume

This chapter has provided a broad context in which the political economy
of work links hours of work to the nation’s economic competitiveness. The
next chapter introduces the Japanese literature on work, focusing on the
sociology of work and its attention to the paradoxical coexistence of high
levels of commitment to work and high levels of alienation born out of
the harsh conditions under which many Japanese have labored. It dis-
cusses eight streams of scholarship dealing with work and tells the story
of the uncovering of a dual consciousness among Japan’s employees. On
the distributive side, the poor working conditions and the constraints
imposed by management at the place of work are mentioned. The other
concern has been with efficiency – the dictates of the market and the real-
ities of the firm as a socioeconomic entity. Although it is the acceptance
of “managerial wisdom” that is usually associated with paternalism and
Japanese-style management, traditional concerns with social justice and
the associated emic vocabulary in the union movement still surface in the
everyday lives of employees and their families.
Chapter 3 develops further the framework beginning to take shape
in chapter 2. It identifies four paradigmatic approaches for considering
work in contemporary Japan, and then introduces four influential figures
writing about work in contemporary Japan. It concludes by presenting a
multilevel framework for considering work organization in Japan.
Chapter 4 presents data on hours of work in Japan, the aspect of work-
ways in Japan most commonly cited in the literature on Japan’s inter-
national competitiveness as setting Japan apart from advanced industri-
alized economies. As mentioned above, some cite long hours of work
as evidence of a strong commitment to the firm and to an especially
strong work ethic in Japan. For others, the same long hours symbolize the
extremes of unbridled competition and the excesses of an ultra-Fordist
approach to regimenting work. While the chapter concludes that hours
of work in Japan are probably long compared to those in many other
similarly industrialized societies, it also recognizes the long-term trend
toward shorter hours of work, and eschews a tendency to exaggerate
the extent to which work in Japan is characterized by excessively long
hours.
The remaining chapters focus on the meso-level milieu in which choices
about work are made by most Japanese individuals in the context of
their families. They describe a milieu in which many Japanese choose
to work or feel impelled to work long hours. They identify as the main
reason for the continuing trend toward a shorter work year in Japan the
gradual loosening of structural constraints rather than changing cultural
values per se. Chapters 5 and 6 consider how the labor market is struc-
tured. Chapters 7 and 8 consider how labor law and redistributive social
policies provide parameters shaping industrial relations and civil mini-
mums for Japan’s workers. Chapters 9 and 10 provide brief overviews
of management organizations and labor unions which, along with the
government and bureaucracy of Japan, share power in determining those
parameters and minimums.
The volume concludes with a look to the future, commenting on how

the elements go together and on the issues that have begun to surface at
the beginning of the twenty-first century as the economy and society of
Japan continue to internationalize in the face of globalization. Returning
to some of the issues raised in this chapter, the conclusion comments
on tensions currently shaping discussions about the future of work in
Japan.
As an introduction to understanding work in Japan, this volume is writ-
ten with two principal audiences in mind. The first consists of students
who are informed about industrial relations and the sociology of work
but who do not have a knowledge of work in Japan. The second consists
of students who possess a basic knowledge of Japanese society but do not
have a full grasp of issues concerning work.
In providing an introduction to the world of work in Japan, the
authors seek to provide a perspective useful in considering the following
questions:
(1) Why have the Japanese worked longer hours in the postwar period?
(2) How do meso-economic, political, and social environments limit the
choices Japanese employees have regarding their work?
(3) Who are the major actors shaping the choices which Japanese workers
have at the meso level?
(4) How much variation is there in the environments in which Japanese
workers find themselves?
(5) In what meso-level context are workways practiced in Japan, and how
does the Japanese context differ from those found elsewhere in other
similarly advanced economies?
(6) How are certain interests served by the competing perspectives on
the above questions?
(7) What forces exist to change the way work is presently conducted in
Japan?
While no chapter will deal with all of these questions, it is the
authors’ earnest desire that the volume as a whole will assist readers in
formulating their own answers to the questions listed above. As in any
introductory treatment, the brushstrokes are necessarily broad; signifi-
cant details and some issues have been glossed over. Nevertheless, the
authors have endeavored to provide a snapshot that will capture the com-
plexities characterizing work organization in Japan. They welcome any
feedback and hope there will be an opportunity to revise their thinking
in future writings on work in Japan.
2 Toward a sociology of work in postwar Japan
2.1 Perspectives on work in Japan
Scholars researching the organization of work in Japan can be charac-

terized in terms of their interaction with eight scholarly traditions. Each
grouping has had its own traditions, professional associations, and pub-
lishing outlets. Many scholars have worked across several of these tradi-
tions in their efforts to understand how work is organized in Japan and
what the resultant processes have meant for Japan, for the Japanese firm,
and for the individual Japanese worker. Although one can delineate a
number of coherent intellectual approaches as distinct streams of schol-
arship, one must also recognize that they overlap.
This chapter has three aims. One is to introduce eight streams of
research on work in Japan and to indicate how the insights of each bear
on our understanding of how work is organized in Japan. The second is
to trace some of the main arguments that have emerged in the attempt to
grasp how individual workers have come to develop a work ethic. These
overviews are presented as a means of encouraging readers to develop
multiple perspectives when formulating their views on the work ethic in
Japan.
The third aim is to have readers think about the methodology of study-
ing work. Compared with the approach taken to studying work by many
scholars in North America and Europe, Japanese intellectuals have been
reluctant to engage in participant observation or extended participa-
tion. Rather, they have conducted in-depth interviews with broad cross-
sections of workers. Exceptions include Kamata (1973 and 1982), a jour-
nalist who worked at a subsidiary of the large automobile manufacturer,
Toyota. Another would be Shimizu (1996), a novelist who has drawn
on earlier work experiences to portray the workplace and its inhabitants.
Although a small number of labor sociologists in Japan have shown an
interest in methodologies which result in interaction with working peo-
ple, the paucity of close encounters with the workplace and its inhab-
itants in Japanese studies of work contrasts with the heavy reliance on
24
Toward a sociology of work in postwar Japan 25
such approaches by foreign scholars studying work in Japan. The stud-

ies by Cole (1971), Rohlen (1974), Clark (1979), the contributors to
Plath (1983), Kondo (1990), Dalby (1985), and others rely on partici-
pant observation or other methods of close interactive observation and
stand out in this regard.
The next section of this chapter provides a brief overview of various
competing paradigms or streams of research that provide insight into how
work is organized in Japan. The development of the sociology of labor is
then discussed, with a focus on worker motivation. The following section
considers four paradigmatic approaches used by contemporary writers
on work in Japan.
2.2 Eight intellectual traditions focused on understanding

work in Japan
Although there is much overlap, meaningful distinctions can be drawn
between the approaches to studying work organization in terms of (a) the
phenomena on which each focuses, (b) the sense of relevance and the out-
come most commonly sought, (c) research methodology, and (d) the unit
of analysis most frequently used. An overview of the major approaches
is presented in table 2.1. A full list of the main persons associated with
each of the streams would show that many individuals have been active
in more than one stream.
The world of work has generated debate among Japanese academics
and other intellectuals over the past hundred years. One concern has been
with understanding how new technologies alter organizational require-
ments and power relations in ways that fundamentally influence work
culture and practices, the social stratification matrix, and the lines of
cleavage that fragment or segment the labor force and the larger society.
Another focus has been the mobilization and melding of the labor force to
achieve the aims of the state. A third has been the effect of new products
and services on Japan’s consumer culture and on the work ethos of ordi-
nary citizens as they attempt to mesh their work life (on the production
side) with family life and a certain standard of living (on the consump-
tion side). Over the years attention has focused on what appears to be the
paradox of the Japanese work ethic: the general tendency of Japanese to
accept long hours of work and other forms of discipline without the full
returns or the rewards generally associated with having done concomitant
work in many other advanced economies.
The discussion tends to progress from a consideration of approaches
most concerned with the social context in which work occurs to those
more focused on individual outcomes. A loosely chronological order is
Table 2.1 Approaches to understanding labor processes and the organization of work in Japan
A. B. C. D. E. F. G. H.
Social policy Studies on the Industrial sociology/ Industrial relations Human resource Labor Sociology of work Science of work
labor movement anthropology management economics (Labor sociology)
(Japanese-style
management)
Japanese term Shakai seisaku Rodo undo ron Sangyo shakaigaku Roshi kankei ron Nihonteki keiei ron Rodo keizaigaku Rodo shakaigaku Rodo kagaku
ron (roshi kankei ron) Sangyo jinruigaku
Intellectual Germany England England America Japan America England Germany
origins Japan America France
America
Japan
Phenomena Workability of Labor unions Institutions which System for the Personnel Workings of the Labor process Physiology of
most state policies and labor structure and regulation of the management labor market as it The workers’ work and fatigue
concerned concerning movement facilitate the collective (organized) strategies determines the consciousness Poverty
with work organization of work interests of the state, composition of the Union behavior (household
arrangement at the firm level employers, and work force, labor expenditures and
workers mobility, wages, the uses of time)
and other working
conditions
Significant Social unity A more effective Understanding of Economic Effective More effective A more Healthy work
outcome (fairness and labor movement work organization development personnel labor market and egalitarian society force
sought from integration of which better The management of management allocation of labor for workers and
research worker into serves the alienation generated in terms of having managers
society) interests of by work an efficient A more effective
maximizing workers vis-à-vis arrangements economy union movement
social the interests of
efficiency monopoly
capital
Main Government Interviews with Attitudinal and Government policy Case studies based Government and Interviews with Physiological
methodology policy labor leaders behavioral surveys documents on interviews with industry-based workers experiments
Documents Union Government management survey data and (Participant) Observation of
and statistics documents statistics Company statistics observation of the the workplace
documents Enterprise surveys workplace
Case studies based Surveys of Historical Analysis of
on interviews with individuals documents household
key players records and time
sheets
Major unit of The state and The union Employee and System disputes Management The individual and Division of work Body
analysis national policy interpersonal organization mechanisms The worker
relations Culture The union
Main Japanese OKOCHI TOTSUKA MATSUSHIMA NAKAYAMA TSUDA Masumi KOIKE Kazuo ODAKA Kunio FUJIMOTO
writers Kazuo Hideo Shizuo Ichiro IWATA Ryushi SANO Yoko MATSUSHIMA Takeshi
associated KOSHIRO YAMAMOTO MANNARI KOSHIRO NAKAYAMA ONO Akira Shizuo SHIMOYAMA
with the Kazutoshi Kiyoshi Hiroshi Kazutoshi Ichiro SHIMADA Haruo HAZAMA Fusao
approach HANAMI HYODO OKAMOTO HANAMI Tadashi HAZAMA Hiroshi KAGOYAMA
Tadashi Tsutomu Hideaki Hiroshi KAWANISHI Kyo
SHIRAI Hirosuke KAROSHI
Taishiro KAMATA Bengodan
FUJITA Wakao Satoshi
KUMAZAWA
Makoto
SHIMIZU Ikko
and similar
novelists
Major Shakai Seisaku Rodo Undo Nihon Roshi Kankei Nihon Roshi Kankei Soshiki Gakkai
academic Gakkai Kenkyusha Kenkyu Kyokai Kenkyu Kyokai Kei-eishi Gakkai
associations Shudan
Major journals Shakai Seisaku Gekkan Rodo Nihon Rodo Kenkyu Nihon Rodo Kenkyu Soshiki Gakkai Rodo Kagaku
Gakkai Nenpo Mondai Zasshi Zasshi Nenpo
Kei-eishi Gakkai
Nenpo
Major Nihon Rodo Nihon Rodo Rodo Kagaku
research Kenkyu Kiko Kenkyu Kiko Kenkyujo
organizations
Main writers Sheldon Joe Moore Robert Cole Solomon Levine Richard Pascale Robert Evans Jon Woronoff
in English to Garron Andrew Gordon Ronald Dore Ronald Dore William Ouchi Koji Taira Robert Cole
consult Ehud Harari Matthew Allen Rodney Clarke Robert Ballon KOIKE Kazuo
Thomas Rohlen Ronald Dore
followed to provide the reader with some sense of how each intellec-
tual milieu and ethos has evolved. A cursory examination of the com-
peting intellectual traditions reveals that their development reflects not
only stages in Japan’s industrial development, but also distinct peri-
ods in the political and social economy of Japan and the Japanese
state.
2.2.1 The Social Policy School ( Shakai Seisaku Gakkai)

As an urban working class began to emerge at the end of the nineteenth
century, the “labor problem” (rodo mondai) (the tensions arising out of
poor or exploitative working conditions and the need for intervention to
protect many in the labor force) began to draw the attention of policy-
makers and those with a serious interest in the directions in which the
nation was heading. Leaders in late developers like Japan and Germany
knew from the experience of early developers like the United Kingdom
that serious social unrest could easily result from the dislocations associ-
ated with industrialization. In Germany the Society for the Study of Social
Problems was formed in 1872 to promote studies facilitating the state tak-
ing an active role in regulating work and industrial relations, so that the
nation could develop and modernize as quickly as possible. Soon after-
wards the Japanese government began sending students to study social
policy in Germany, with the expectation that it too would develop poli-
cies to expedite Japan’s modernization and industrialization by carefully
dealing with a range of problems emerging from the dislocation and poor
working conditions experienced by its labor force. If not managed prop-
erly, it was held, the tensions produced by rapid social and economic
change could seriously delay or even derail Japan’s efforts to develop.
The Japanese state at that time was being structured around an impe-
rial ideology that promoted and legitimated paternalistic approaches to
work organization. To implement that ideology, policies were developed
to repress independent labor unionism. In that climate, the study of labor
unions and the working class was beyond the imagination of those who
formed Japan’s Society for the Study of Social Policy (Shakai Seisaku
Gakkai) in 1896. The Society’s first national conference in 1907 focused
on “The Factory Law and the Labor Problem” and supported the ame-
liorative approach being taken by “responsible” leaders at that time. The
Society was blatantly pro-capitalist, although its early thrust was reformist
rather than revolutionary. Following World War I an increasing number
of the Society’s members began to criticize the social policy approach
from a Marxist class-based perspective, and schisms within the Society
made it difficult for it to continue as an effective forum.
After the Pacific War, Professor Okochi Kazuo from Tokyo University
played a key role in reconstituting the Society for the Study of Social
Policy. Japan’s defeat left the prewar imperialists discredited. The right
to dissent came to be recognized, and trade unions were legalized for
the first time. The years immediately after the war were characterized by
militant unionism and open conflict in much of Japanese industry. While
there seemed to be a general agreement that the government needed to
intervene so that minimal standards and a safety net could be established
to ensure the welfare of the ordinary worker, as described in Okochi
(1970) and Kazahaya (1973), debate focused on the essence of social
policy. One group led by Okochi argued that social policy should be
driven by the needs of progressive capitalism. Another group gathered
around Professor Kishimoto Eitaro (Kyoto University) and Hattori Eitaro
(Tohoku University). It argued that a basic conflict of interest existed
between workers and capitalists, and that the different needs of the two
classes could not be ascertained simply by enlightened government policy.
Its view was that power relations between the two were central to any
understanding of workgroups.
While that debate was occurring, Okochi, Sumiya Mikio, and
Ujihara Shojiro led a group of scholars at Tokyo University’s Social Sci-
ence Research Institute (Shakai Kagaku Kenkyujo, which is commonly
referred to as “Shaken”) in developing a number of empirical studies on
the union movement and on the actual state of work in postwar Japan.
Their research shifted attention to the worker and took the understanding
of work organization in Japan to new levels (see Ujihara 1966). It dealt
with various aspects of labor market segmentation (focusing on tempo-
rary and casual employment, on small and medium-sized firms, and on
women workers), working conditions (pay levels, the wage system, and
hours of work), livelihood issues (related to economic security, household
budgets, housing, welfare and leisure), and industrial relations.
From the late 1970s, the union movement declined markedly, and
the state came increasingly to be concerned with (i) international pres-
sures for liberalizing the economy, and with (ii) the need for Japanese
firms to internationalize in order to maintain their competitiveness in
an increasingly globalized economy. Accordingly, social policy has often
been treated within the broader confines of economic policy. A look at the
membership of the Society for the Study of Social Policy will reveal that
economists, labor law specialists, and scholars with specialized and/or
practical knowledge of specific aspects of work organization have come
to play a dominant role in various academic associations. Many of its
members have served on one or more of the government’s many con-
sultative committees (shingikai). (Oddly enough, political scientists have
played only a minor role in the Society, and have tended to focus on labor
policy.) Although the Society has moved away from an emphasis on pure
basic research and philosophically reflexive concerns, the Society con-
tinues to be an influential professional body that brings together those
interested in the organization of work at the macro level in Japan.
2.2.2 Theories of worker–capitalist relations (roshi kankei ron)1

and the union movement (rodo undo ron)
For the first thirty postwar years economists and labor law specialists
were strongly influenced by Marxist thinking. Their starting point was
often the inevitable contradictions between the working and capitalist
classes. As the Society for Social Policy came increasingly to focus on the
development of ameliorative labor policies for a conservative government
bent on economic development at all costs, a small group of scholars at
Tokyo University’s Social Science Research Institute focused their work
on the inferior working conditions of Japanese workers (their excessively
low wages and exceedingly long hours of work) as major factors shaping
class relations in prewar Japan. Viewing the relations between workers
and capitalists in Japanese society as inherently exploitative, they tended
to sympathize with workers as the underdogs and felt morally compelled
to volunteer their knowledge and expertise as advisers to various leftist
elements in the union movement (which was itself rather factionalized).
Their views and research were regularly published in the journal Gekkan
Rodo Mondai (the Labor Problem Monthly).
As the major national center for organized labor on the left, Sohyo
(the General Council of Trade Unions of Japan) came under increas-
ing pressure from conservative governments, management groups, and
the more conservative national labor center, Domei (the Japanese Con-
federation of Labor), in the 1960s and 1970s. Totsuka Hideo, Hyodo
Tsutomu, Nakanishi Yo, and Yamamoto Kiyoshi responded by form-
ing the Labor Movement Researchers’ Group (Rodo Undo Kenkyusha
Shudan) in October 1976. Twice a year they published important sum-
maries of their research and views in special issues of Gekkan Rodo
Mondai, and called for union organizers to participate in the search for a
new leftist-oriented theory of the union movement. However, the union
1 The term roshi kankei is written in two ways in Japanese. One uses the character for shi
which indicates rodosha-shihonka kankei (the relations between workers and capitalists).
The other uses another character for shi which indicates rodosha-shiyosha kankei (labor–
management relations). The literature cited in this section tends to come from the tra-
dition that uses the first term; the literature in section 2.2.4 continues a tradition that
tended to use the second term.
movement continued to move to the right in the 1970s and the interest in
radical unionism faded. Gekkan Rodo Mondai folded late in 1981, and the
group disbanded shortly afterwards. However, a number of scholars (e.g.
Nitta Michio and Saguchi Kazuro) have continued the survey tradition
developed at the Institute, and some outstanding case studies have been
published on unions in Japan, on industrial relations at the plant level,
on industrial disputes, and on the introduction of new techniques.
2.2.3 Labor economics (rodo keizaigaku)

By 1960 the debate on the essence of social policy had petered out. Look-
ing for a new framework which could explain working conditions (e.g
wages and hours of work) and the overall positioning of individuals in the
labor market, Sumiya and Ujihara argued that attention should be shifted
from normative pronouncements on what should be the goals of the policy
to the forces actually shaping behavior at work. Sumiya (1954) had earlier
argued that attention should be shifted from the doings and thoughts of
capitalists and management to the actual lives of workers. In 1960 and
1965 he elaborated further with the proposal that research should bridge
the two domains in which the wage worker lived: the economic domain
in which his labor was sold in the labor market as an economic com-
modity and the social domain in which he existed (as a member of the
working class). To realize these ambitions a number of younger schol-
ars were sent to study labor economics in America. By the mid-1960s
Ujihara (1966: 2–19) was arguing that labor economics (rodo keizaigaku)
ought to develop as a social science focused on understanding the worker
as “economic man” (keizaijin to shite no rodosha).
By the late 1960s nearly all economists with an interest in labor and
work had shifted to the study of labor economics, reflecting a widespread
feeling that the social policy approach would not contribute much more
to the understanding of work behavior. The development of labor eco-
nomics in Japan from the Marxist and classical perspectives gave labor
economics in Japan its own characteristics. Nevertheless, the American
influence was dominant, and that approach to labor economics is sum-
marized in column F of table 2.1. The approach was explicitly compar-
ative in its orientation; it introduced sophisticated statistical analysis and
eschewed engagement with those interested in labor process.
Most prominent in developing the American brand of labor economics
(with an emphasis on the economics of education) was the Keio group,
which included Obi Keiichiro, Tsujimura Kotaro, Nishikawa Shunsaku,
Sano Yoko, Ishida Hideo, and Shimada Haruo (see Nishikawa 1980).
Also well known was Koike Kazuo. These scholars analyzed aggregate
government survey data, and made inferences about the thinking and
behavior of those in the labor force based on choices in the labor market.
The approach assumed that workers were autonomous actors. Much of
their research was commissioned by the Ministry of Labor or other gov-
ernment agencies. Some obtained quantitative data from a range of his-
torical documents to advance theories about the development of Japan’s
labor force over the past 100–300 years.
2.2.4 Industrial relations (roshi kankei ron)2

As Japan entered nearly two decades of high economic growth from the
late 1950s, the oligopolization of the economy became more pronounced.
The Miike struggle at the Mitsui Mines in Kyushu at the end of the 1950s
signaled not only a shift in power from labor to management but also
a greater willingness by the government to use the industrial relations
machinery to contain disruptive disputes in key industries while leaving
the determination of working conditions to collective bargaining and the
balance of power between labor and management at the enterprise level.
In 1958 the government passed legislation to establish the Japan Insti-
tute of Labour (JIL) (Nihon Rodo Kyokai). In 1968 the Japan Industrial
Relations Research Association (JIRRA) was formed and the Institute
came to house its secretariat. Under the leadership of Nakayama Ichiro
(second president of the Institute from 1961 to 1980), JIRRA devel-
oped an explicitly comparative agenda, and its members have been active
within the International Industrial Relations Association (IIRA) (Sumiya
was president of the IIRA from 1979 to 1983). In line with the institu-
tional approach developed by Dunlop (1958), Japanese scholars working
in industrial relations in the 1960s and 1970s tended to shift attention
from individual choice to the role of institutions in channeling Japan’s
labor–management relations in directions conducive to Japan’s long-
term development (see Sumiya 1969; Nakayama 1974 and 1975). While
Dunlop referred to the study of the government–management–labor
nexus as “industrial relations” (sangyo kankei), in Japan “roshi–kankei”
became the standard term for “labor” management relations.
With its focus on institutions, Japan’s industrial relations scholarship
overlapped with the social policy framework. Both traditions have shown
2 The character shi used here refers to management (i.e. upper-level employees) and shifts
attention from questions of ownership which were prominent in the late 1940s and 1950s
when the character for shi meaning capital (and implying that exploited wage labor stood
in opposition to the interests of management and the owners of capital) was widely used
in writings about work. From 1960 there is a sharp decline in the characters for labor–
capitalist relations and today only the characters for “labor–management relations” are
used.
an ongoing interest in labor law, the social welfare system, the machinery
for settling disputes, corporatism, and education. Many scholars have
participated actively in both groupings. From the early 1970s Shirai
(1983), Koike (1988 and 1995), and many others (e.g. Nishikawa 1980)
came to integrate (i) quantitative government data and (ii) data from
their own customized questionnaires. There have been few careful on-
the-ground case studies. The Japan Institute of Labor has come increas-
ingly to be seen as a policy research center for the management of labor
and issues relevant to the organization of work.
2.2.5 Japanese-style management (nihonteki keiei ron)

High economic growth and the reestablishment of managerial preroga-
tives gave Japanese conservatives the confidence to question the extent to
which many Japanese intellectuals had come to associate American-style
democracy with economic success and all prewar Japanese practices with
feudalism, economic backwardness, and Japan’s defeat in the Pacific War.
In the 1960s a number of scholars began to emphasize the merits of a
paternalistic “Japanese-style” approach to management. Without careful
comparative work, they argued that Japan’s work practices had been born
out of Japan’s unique culture that attached an especially strong value to
hierarchy, to group or organizational solidarity, and to consensus. Many
saw those values embodied in seniority wages, lifetime employment, and
enterprise unionism. Writers such as Hazama (1964, 1971, and 1997a),
Morikawa (1973), Tsuda (1976, 1977, 1982, and 1987) and Iwata (1974,
1975, 1980, and 1982) argued that Japanese-style management provided
a superior form of organization that blended mechanisms promoting eco-
nomic rationalism with humanistic structures. The detailed work of those
scholars, which was both historical and ethnographic, documented the
vocabulary used by employees in managing affairs within their firms and
provided a humanistic approach to human resource management. In pre-
senting the dynamics of ideological control as culture, some writers came
to impose on management an idealistically democratic model by ascribing
to it the moral essence of being Japanese.
The interest in Japanese-style management as a cultural phenomenon
both at home and abroad contributed to a worldwide interest in cor-
porate identity and commitment, and to a shift in the late 1980s and
early 1990s in emphasis from meso-economic to micro-economic reform
with quality assurance, just-in-time requirements, kaizen, and downsiz-
ing. Ironically the ready adoption of many “Japanese” techniques abroad
ultimately undermined many assumptions associated with the cultural-
ist arguments. An appreciation of the structural elements grew as those
techniques came under increasingly rigorous scrutiny when they were

adopted or transplanted abroad. A comparative perspective was fostered:
an outlook which brought with it a growing awareness that “Japanese-
style” management had precedents abroad (i.e. that it might not be
uniquely Japanese) and that it conformed to certain fairly universal prin-
ciples of management philosophy which had existed for long periods in
other countries as well. This requestioning initiated the debate on whether
Japanese-style management was post-Fordist or ultra-Fordist (as seen in
Kenny and Florida 1993 and in Kato and Steven 1991).
Once assumptions about cultural uniqueness were largely dispelled,
many propositions about the allegedly unique cultural underpinnings of
Japanese-style management lost their appeal. As an approach to under-
standing the organization of work in Japan and elsewhere, however, the
value of this tradition can now be seen in its emphasis on ethnographic
case studies. Although its adherents continue to focus on formal organiza-
tion and on manifest functions rather than discussions of power relations
at work, they developed a methodology firmly based on the management
ethos and emic vocabulary found on the shop and office floor. In doing so
they have clearly demonstrated the importance of paying close attention
to the emic vocabularies used to motivate workers in many large Japanese
firms.
2.2.6 Industrial sociology ( sangyo shakaigaku)

Industrial sociology was introduced to Japan from the US by Odaka
Kunio (who had come into contact with American sociologists stationed
in Japan after the war). Industrial sociology in America had grown out of
Elton Mayo’s famous Hawthorn experiments, and had developed around
the use of interviews and observation to ascertain the state of interper-
sonal relations on the shop floor. Odaka, however, relied heavily on ques-
tionnaires to gauge the extent to which workers were satisfied with man-
agement and their unions. Odaka (1952) concluded that most workers
felt loyalty both to the firm and to the union.
Odaka’s work provided the methodological foundations for much
research on workers in postwar Japan. Those following in his footsteps
have relied heavily on the questionnaire and sophisticated statistical pro-
cedures. They have frequently been commissioned to carry out large-scale
surveys for the government and its agencies. With the greatly enhanced
capacity of computers, Japan’s sociologists have refined this technique.
Critics point to the tradeoffs between reliability (high) and validity (low),
and emphasize the need for more involvement or contact with the workers
being studied.
Superior examples of this approach have appeared in the monthly

journal of the Japan Institute of Labor, Nihon Rodo Kenkyu Zasshi
(formerly the Nihon Rodo Kyokai Zasshi), Rodo Kenkyu Shoho published
by Tokyo’s Research Centre (Tokyo Toritsu Rodo Kenkyujo), the series of
research reports (Kenkyu Hokoku Shiriizu) produced by the Sogo Seikatsu
Kaihatsu Kenkyujo (a think tank affiliated with Rengo [the Japanese
Trade Union Confederation]) and Rodo Chosa which is published by the
Rodo Chosa Kyogikai (Association for Surveying Workers). Many union
and management federations at the industrial level have research divisions
that conduct surveys of attitudes and opinions on a regular basis. Such
surveys provide a useful basis for gauging changes in the consciousness
and everyday behavior of unionists, employees, and managers in Japan.
2.2.7 The sociology of labor (rodo shakaigaku)

In the mid-1950s Matsushima Shizuo and Kitagawa Takayoshi led a
group of scholars who did not feel the industrial sociologists’ ques-
tionnaire method had adequately grasped the underlying realities that
characterized work organization in Japan. They argued for a case study
approach that firmly situates the worker and his choices within a social
context defined by employment status, social class and interorganiza-
tional relations (e.g. between large and small firms). They rejected the
optimistic methodological individualism built into most survey research.
The structural approach of the labor sociologists emphasized the preemi-
nent importance of considering power relations. This contrasted with the
dominant ideology which tended to see collective behavior as the sum
total of individual choices, an attitude reinforced by the consumeristic
outlook associated with new choices resulting from Japan’s rapid eco-
nomic growth and the neo-nationalistic confidence born out of that suc-
cess. As the influence of the industrial sociologists became more promi-
nent in the 1970s and 1980s, structure came to be the preserve of those
in industrial relations and labor law at a time when it was fashionable to
set structures wholly within a cultural context. Those extolling the virtues
of Japanese-style management in the late 1970s and 1980s also shifted
attention from structures to culture. In the context of Japan’s prosperity
it became increasingly difficult politically to talk about the power rela-
tions and the processes which shifted economic surplus from workers to
management, and labor sociology came to be seen as the sociology of the
“unrespectable.” Young researchers were drawn to consider how work-
ers could best be managed in structural-functionalistic terms. The more
unsavory aspects of laboring (rodo modai) came to be overlooked.
To reinvigorate the tradition of labor sociology, Kamata Toshiko,

Kawanishi Hirosuke, and others established the Japan Association for
Labor Sociology (Nihon Rodo Shakai Gakkai) in 1988. They sought
a sociology that would tell the “real story” of workers laboring under
Japanese-style management, based on intensive interviews of workers and
detailed case study material that could be gleaned only by getting dirty
on the shop floor. Another aim was to train young scholars in that tradi-
tion and its methodology. A number of economists (such as Kumazawa
Makoto) and industrial sociologists (such as Mannari Hiroshi) have been
associated with this grouping and the Association’s membership stood at
290 members in 2003.
2.2.8 The science of labor (rodo kagaku)

The science or physiology of labor developed in response to the prewar
priority placed on having a reliable supply of healthy workers physically
and mentally fit to serve the needs of national socialism and the state.
This tradition has incorporated the work of physiologists and psychol-
ogists. The Institute of Labor Science (Rodo Kagaku Kenkyujo) was
formed in 1921 to direct research on fatigue, labor productivity, and
morale. It integrated sociological perspectives with the findings of nat-
ural scientists on the physiology of work. The prewar studies of Ando
(1941 and 1944) investigated the number of calories required to do
manual work. The wartime studies of Matsushima compared attitudes
toward work in Japan’s villages and cities and were published in 1951.
In the early postwar years that kind of research was linked to studies on
poverty and on the minimum household expenditure needed to support
a working adult (cf. Rodo Kagaku Kenkyujo 1943, 1954 and 1960). The
famous densangata wage system (which was common in many industries
from the late 1940s until the mid-1950s and remains influential as a
model even today) was one outcome of such research in Japan’s electric
power companies during the war.
The Institute contributed greatly to the postwar understanding of
poverty, civil minimums, and the need for safe working conditions
(Kagoyama 1953; Fujimoto et al. 1965). However, this tradition of schol-
arship lost some of its urgency as Japan’s affluence gave way to a belief
in the efficacy of corporate welfarism in the 1980s. In recent years the
Institute’s research has centered on fatigue and the relationship between
work and physical strength, body type, nutrition, health, intelligence,
housing, clothing, and other aspects of the workers’ daily lifestyle or
culture.
2.3 Human networks and the sociology of work

in postwar Japan
In the preceding discussion two motifs should have been apparent. One
is the central role played by academics at Tokyo University. The other is
the ongoing interest in issues related to the consciousness of workers as
they relate to management and their unions. This section deals with the
former and the following section considers the latter.
From 1945 to 1965 a small group at Tokyo University developed comp-
rehensive taxonomies and theoretical frameworks for systematically
describing and explaining work in Japan in terms of its labor markets,
competing union movements, labor–management relations, industrial
disputes, and technological change. The Tokyo University scholars ini-
tiated a large number of empirically based case studies and large-scale
surveys that still constitute the benchmark for research today. Some intel-
lectual traditions emphasized aspects allegedly peculiar to Japan, and
highlighted the emic vocabulary for describing work in Japan: dekasegi-
gata rodo (migrant labor), kigyobetsu kumiai (the enterprise union), nenko-
gata romu seido (seniority-based personnel practices). Many experimented
with several of the approaches introduced above. The Tokyo scholars
engaged in vigorous debate among themselves and integrated new theo-
retical perspectives from overseas. Over time this gave way to a growing
interest in some of the more universal processes associated with indus-
trialization, economic development, and modernization more generally.
Koike’s work in the 1980s on external and internal labor markets would
be an example of that trend. Nevertheless, reflecting their strong policy
orientation, a delicate balance was maintained between conclusions that
work practices and attitudes would inevitably be Westernized and those
pointing to other paths Japan might follow.
There were several groupings at the University of Tokyo. One was
centered in the Faculty of Economics and the closely aligned Social
Science Research Institute. Okochi Kazuo was the senior mentor who
had begun his career before the war and later served as president of
Tokyo University from 1963 to 1968. The first generation of scholars
under Okochi included Professors Sumiya Mikio (later the third pres-
ident of the Japan Institute of Labor from 1980 to 1988, president of
Tokyo’s Women’s College, and president of the IIRA in the early 1980s),
Ujihara Shojiro (head of the Social Science Research Institute), and Shirai
Taishiro (later professor of economics at Hosei University). The sec-
ond generation included Totsuka Hideo, Hyodo Tsutomu, Nakanishi
Yo, Yamamoto Kiyoshi, Takanashi Akira (later professor of economics
at Shinshu University and fifth president of the Japan Institute of Labor
from 1996 to 2001), and Koike Kazuo (later professor of economics at

Hosei, Nagoya, Kyoto, and again at Hosei). The third generation would
now consist of Nomura Masami (professor of economics at Tohoku Uni-
versity), Saguchi Kazuro (professor of economics at Tokyo University),
Mori Tetsushi (professor of economics at Tokyo University), Niita Michio
(professor of economics in the Social Science Research Institute at Tokyo
University), Kamii Yoshihiko (professor of economics at Saitama Univer-
sity), Inoue Masao (professor of economics at Rikkyo University), and
Ishikawa Akihiro (professor of sociology at Chuo University).
The Law Faculty of Tokyo University produced the leading experts in
labor law over the same period: Ishikawa Kichiemon, Hagisawa Kiyohiko,
Fujita Wakao (professor of labor law at the Social Science Research Insti-
tute and later at the International Christian University), and Hanami
Tadashi (professor of labor law at Sophia University and currently the
sixth president of the Japan Institute of Labor). In the university’s Depart-
ment of Sociology (in the Faculty of Letters), Professor Odaka Kunio led
a number of investigations into the nature of workplace culture, occu-
pations, and occupational mobility. Many students who studied aspects
of work at Tokyo University later occupied important positions in the
ministries of Labor and Social Welfare and in many government-funded
research institutions such as the Japan Institute of Labor.
Two other centers rate a special mention. Hitotsubashi University and
Keio University accelerated the shift from the somewhat normatively ori-
ented policy framework to that of the labor-market-oriented one. Before
becoming the second president of the Japan Institute of Labor (1961–80),
Nakayama Ichiro too had been a distinguished professor of economics.
A contemporary of Okochi, he was president of Hitotsubashi University
from 1949 to 1956 and had served as head of the Central Labor Relations
Commission from 1949 to 1960. In that role he had practical experience
in the famous Miike dispute.
Hitotsubashi’s Economic Research Center housed a number of Japan’s
leading authorities on Japan’s economic growth (e.g. Okawa Kazuo and
Tsuru Shigeto). By the early 1960s Hitotsubashi was at the forefront
of research on the history of Japan’s economic growth since the mid-
dle of the previous century. Central to explanations of that growth
were studies of the labor market. In addition to its quantitative labor
economists (e.g. Umemura Mataji and Ono Akira), Hitotsubashi could
also boast of having Japan’s foremost expert on Japanese-style manage-
ment, Tsuda Masumi (a product of Okochi’s group at Tokyo University).
His tradition of scholarship has been maintained by one of his students
(Hayashi Hiroki), while another of his students (Sato Hiroki) is currently
a professor of sociology at Tokyo University. Odaka Konosuke (son of
Odaka Kunio) is a professor of economics at Hitotsubashi. Kato Tetsuro

(a student of Maruyama Masao at the University of Tokyo) has been one
of the few political scientists writing about work organization.
The other early center of excellence was Keio University. Its labor
economists, many of whom were mentioned above, came to the fore in
the 1970s. One of their leaders, Tsujimura Kotaro, became the fourth
president of the Japan Institute of Labor from 1988 to 1996. Iida Kanae
and Komatsu Ryuji were known for their studies of unions; Chubachi
Masami was known for his work on household finances and their rela-
tionship to the motivation to work.
As Japan moved through the 1960s and 1970s, the number of private
universities expanded rapidly. The postwar baby boom and the higher
standard of living produced by Japan’s economic growth resulted in an
inflated demand for tertiary education. At the same time, Japan’s eco-
nomic successes, especially in the export of manufactures, stimulated
substantial public interest in the organization of work, and graduates
from the above-mentioned universities were soon found in a large num-
ber of “lesser” universities where they trained their own students and
prepared them for further study overseas (mainly in North America).
Accordingly, from the mid-1970s research on work in Japan is character-
ized by a greater diversity in style, problem consciousness, and ideological
orientation.
The 1970s was a watershed in terms of the fortunes of the main divi-
sions in scholarship on the organization of work. In the early 1960s the
schism between a democracy-first grouping on the left and those with an
efficiency-first orientation on the right became pronounced. The former
was critical of the shift in the union movement from militant confronta-
tion to outright cooperation with management. The second group felt
that the interests of the workers were maximized through cooperation
with management to lift productivity and thereby each employee’s mate-
rial standard of living. In general the left had boasted close ties with the
union movement, and its position was greatly undermined when the Japan
Council of the International Metalworkers’ Federation gave priority to
productivity. As a peak labor organization to the left of center, Domei
tacitly supported the determined efforts of successive conservative gov-
ernments to destroy strong left-wing unions (such as the Japan Teachers’
Union or the several unions organizing workers from the Japan National
Railways).
While many of the leading scholars of the 1950s (such as Okochi,
Sumiya, and Matsushima) had felt free to work across a number of
paradigms, movement between or across the streams decreased as the
schisms deepened in the 1970s and 1980s. By the early 1980s those
working in the conservative social policy framework, labor economics,

industrial sociology, and industrial relations had come to be the domi-
nant group. A loose group of dissenting scholarship was formed by those
concerned with the detrimental effects of social policy, relations between
workers and managers as the guardians of capital, the union movement
per se and how to reverse its decline, labor process and labor sociology,
and the older traditions of the science of labor. Those emphasizing the
cultural uniqueness of Japanese management have largely remained on
their own. The last project attempting to bring scholars from the two
major groups together was led by Ujihara in the late 1970s, but the fun-
damental differences remained and were reflected in the resultant volume
of unwieldy papers (Roshi Kankei Chosakai 1981).
While the conservative group was able to move ahead with research
money and support from the government, conservative unions, and busi-
nesses, the other group seemed to fade before the glitter of the economy’s
bubble years and the neo-nationalist sentiments of the 1980s. After the
bubble burst in the early 1990s, however, there seems to have been a
renewed interest in critical scholarship on the nature of work and society,
as ordinary citizens began to question the disparity between their high
average per capita income and their less salubrious standard of living, and
to worry about their vulnerability in terms of job security and retirement
needs.
2.4 Early postwar studies of workers as a community

Studies of working life immediately after the war include the research led
by Odaka Kunio (1948) at the traditional Izumo iron works in Shimane
Prefecture in 1945 and the research done by Matsushima Shizuo (1951)
at various mines in 1947 and 1948. During the war Odaka had researched
religious customs among Chinese leather workers on Kainan Island. An
officer in the Japanese Army, Matsushima had been responsible for per-
sonnel management. Although Odaka had written a volume introducing
a sociology of occupations (shokugyo shakaigaku) in 1941 and another
about changing notions of work in 1944, the research at Izumo presented
him with his first opportunity to empirically test this sociological perspec-
tive for understanding work. Prewar sociologists had focused largely on
kinship, village life, and neighborhood interaction, leaving the formation
of communities among workers to the economic historians and business
economists.
Going beyond the economist’s narrower functional concerns with pro-
duction and cost considerations, Odaka revealed (a) the extent to which
the skilled workers (shokunin) were tied together by a social network of
mutual obligations which encompassed their families, (b) the rigid status
delineations among occupational categories based on notions of skill,
(c) a work ethos which incorporated various beliefs which were part
of the workers’ folk religion, and (d) a strict set of rules by which
workers collectively regulated their own behavior. Although the research
was based on a partial recording of interviews with only the aged
workers, and thus provided a static snapshot of the work organiza-
tion in the emic vocabulary of those who were interviewed, it never-
theless documented the extent to which workers had independently
formed a community of their own that could influence the way work was
organized.
As a new graduate, Matsushima traveled from railway station to railway
station, getting off at a number of places where mines existed in Ibaraki
and Akita Prefectures. He too became critical of the economic analyses
that did not go beyond the formal organization of work. He argued that
the community life of workers determined the way work was actually per-
formed, and documented the terrible working conditions and the strong
desire of the workers to escape from their poverty. He reported on how the
miners had formed their own self-help relief organizations (called tomoko)
and identified a complex network of fictive kin relationships which formed
the basis of the workers’ community and everyday life. He noted the
oyabun-kobun relationships at the individual level. Those were the fic-
tive kin terms used by those in the paternalistic boss system of employ-
ment later described in the work of Bennett and Ishino (1963). The
boss system structured labor exchange and provided occupational train-
ing. Although the mines soon closed, Nakano (1956) and others found
the same oyabun-kobun relationships in their studies of an iron casting
town (Kawaguchi). They argued further that such relations were vital
not only in explaining work in manufacturing, but also for understand-
ing how unions and other associations functioned as living organisms in
contemporary Japan.
Similar studies linked this sense of community to the dynamics
of poverty. In their efforts to establish a baseline for conceptualizing
poverty, researchers were influenced by American scholarship and they
soon came to rely on surveys to capture the consciousness of workers.
Consequently, the amount of interaction between researchers and the
researched declined considerably. The first survey of worker attitudes
(rodosha ishiki chosa) was carried out in 1947 by the Department of
Sociology (Shakaigaku Kenkyushitsu) at the University of Tokyo (Odaka
1952). The economists at the Social Science Research Institute (Shakai
Kagaku Kenkyu Jo 1950) conducted a similar survey among unionists to
assess the state of the labor movement. The first study concluded that the
workers had not themselves produced the demands for change that were
being promoted by the union movement (Odaka 1952: 277). Although
the survey methodology positioned researchers outside the phenomena
they were studying, the economists accepted the union movement as an
existing reality that needed to be seen through the eyes of those involved,
and were prepared to accept that workers had the will to change social
relations (Okochi 1956).
The industrial sociologists sought to view the worker from a distance in
a detached manner by sending him surveys, interpreting the results based
on a priori assumptions not only about what the workers were thinking but
also about what they were (culturally) capable of thinking. Here we can
see the culturalist view emerging. A kind of cultural determinism closed
off the possibility that workers could change either their thinking about
the world or their willingness to accept the status quo and their harsh
working conditions. Some have criticized the sociologists for reaching
their conclusions before the research started, for then choosing a biased
sample, and for using loaded questions to obtain findings in support of
their beliefs or ideological positions. Kawanishi (1979: 205; 2001: 24)
noted that the survey was distributed to workers in eighteen very small
firms in industries that had no unions and only minimal leadership to
move in the direction of change. Workers in the heavily unionized sec-
tors (such as the electric power industry, the print media, and the public
service) were not surveyed. This was the beginning of a methodologi-
cal approach that dominated industrial sociology for the next thirty to
forty years and reinforced the role of sociologists in creating self-fulfilling
prophecies.3
The next large project launched by the Tokyo University group of schol-
ars was the “Imono no Machi” survey (Odaka 1956). The research team
set out to study the iron (imono) workers at Kawaguchi’s iron foundries.
With the exception of the research by Nakano (1956), which utilized
intensive interviews, the research at Kawaguchi was carried out through
surveys. A battery of three surveys was distributed to each worker to
ascertain his (i) consciousness regarding work, (ii) morale at work, and
(iii) socioeconomic characteristics. The inclusion of (ii) reflected an inter-
est in the Hawthorn studies in America and the fact that Odaka had
been considerably influenced by Max Weber’s work on the ethos of
3 The worst examples of the survey approach can be seen in the generation of the myth
of middle-class consciousness whereby Japanese respondents were invited to tick boxes
to show they were middle class almost as a reflex action, without any thought as to what
‘middle’ might actually mean, simply because they had come to read and/or hear from
the mass media that they were in the middle class.
work.4 The concern with stratification resulted from Odaka’s reading of

Warner’s Yankee City series (Nakano 1956: 71–2). The first two sur-
veys became the core for the dual consciousness surveys (niju kizoku
ishiki chosa) which were administered eleven times to a mammoth
sample (for the times) of about 20,000 persons between 1952 and
1962. Although the findings appeared to support the view that most
workers identified with both their firm’s management and their union
(Odaka 1956), the research was later criticized by Hazama (1967)
(who at the time of the research was a young scholar working
under the direction of Matsushima) for (i) yielding little more than
a series of cross-tabulations and for (ii) giving ideological approval to
the findings.
The third survey in the dual consciousness project became the basis for
the famous SSM (social stratification and mobility) surveys that have been
conducted every ten years since 1955. Under the leadership of Odaka’s
successor, Tominaga Ken-ichi, the research came to be dominated by
sophisticated statistical analysis that kept it in step with the most recent
studies of such phenomena in the US. Although the findings have come
to provide extremely important clues to understanding Japanese society,
as we note below in chapter 7, the approach took research a long way from
the place of work and the milieu which colored the everyday thinking and
interactions of workers on the shop floor.
In 1955 Matsushima returned to intensive fieldwork in the mining areas
he had first visited in 1947 and 1948. He was critical of those who sought
to avoid the issues of social class, and argued that the sociology of labor
ought to be concerned primarily with the contradictions that emerge at
work as a result of conflicting class interests (Matsushima 1956a and
1956b). Though the contradictions he wrote about were reflected in the
dual consciousness surveys, his research “on the ground” provided a basis
for linking that split consciousness to the objective realities surrounding
work. In their hand-to-mouth existence, he argued, workers sought to
survive economic adversity by forming horizontal tomoko-type associa-
tions, including unions, whose very existence was linked directly to the
workers’ need for livelihood guarantees (seikatsu hosho). Such unions pro-
vided a safety net and a minimal amount of economic security. At the same
time, he believed that the employees’ dependence on the firm created a
4 A number of Weber’s writings had been translated into Japanese at about the same pace as
they were becoming available in English. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, for
example, was translated into Japanese by Kajiyama Tsutomu and became available from
Yuhikiku in 1937, only seven years after Talcott Parsons’ English translation appeared in
1930.
need to cooperate with management and to demonstrate overt loyalty to

the work organization. His conclusion was that the two consciousnesses
were inextricably linked to the objective realities delineating the choices
confronting workers.
Matsushima joined with Kitagawa Takayoshi and Hazama Hiroshi to
conduct the famous Hitachi mine study in the early 1960s. Their research
yielded a portrait of how the workers’ consciousness was shaped by the
fact that Hitachi Mining had built a company town into a living com-
munity by looking after all aspects (as distinguished from all needs) of
the employees’ everyday lives. The company provided the housing, the
bathhouse, the barbershop, recreation and sporting facilities, the school,
and the hospital. To appeal to workers, unions had to obtain credit either
for establishing social minimums at the national level or for obtaining var-
ious fringe benefits at the enterprise level. The first approach left them
on grounds that were too abstract for workers living on a day-to-day
basis. The second left them disadvantaged because they could not con-
trol financial resources to the extent that management could. However,
while left-wing economists and union activists saw the emerging enter-
prise unions as the end of effective unionism, the research at the Hitachi
mine documented ways in which enterprise unions could effectively win
from management various forms of welfare and concessions on how the
labor process was organized.
While noting the importance of the union in fighting for social welfare
at the national level, Hazama and Matsushima argued that workers found
in the enterprise union a most rational way ( jisshitsu gorisei) to improve
their situation given the circumstances. They averred that it was the way
unions functioned, not the form of unionism, that mattered. Seeing the
conflict of interest between labor and management primarily in terms of
livelihood guarantees (seikatsu hosho) for the workers (i.e. in terms of the
allocation of monies coming into the firm), they did not investigate the
form, role, or process of labor disputes either at the enterprise level or
on the shop floor. Hazama and Kitagawa (1985) noted how management
sought the ideological high ground by presenting livelihood guarantees in
ways which management could manipulate as company benefits aligned
with sociocultural values. They suggested that workers were being indoc-
trinated to believe (i) that honest work required them to be extra thrifty,
hard-working, and non-complaining and (ii) that such behavior was an
inborn cultural trait. Their view was that any push by workers individu-
ally or collectively for better conditions could be presented as selfish or
anti-social behavior. This ideology, they argued, was seen as legitimating
management’s efforts to contain wages, expenditures on safety, and other
labor-related costs.
This point is crucial to understanding Hazama’s later writings.

Although he has often been interpreted as having successfully (and
approvingly) substantiated that that group-oriented culture of self-denial,
hard work and strong commitment to the firm was culturally ordained
(e.g. see the interpretations given by Motojima 1965 or Okamoto 1964),5
it is important to remember that Hazama’s starting point was the assump-
tion that Japan’s workers were always economically insecure and had
always had an ethos which encouraged them to act strategically, cog-
nitive of their own interests and interested in taking positive steps to
maximize those interests. Commenting on the formative period when a
Japanese management ideology for personnel management was emerg-
ing after World War I, Hazama clearly states (1964: 16) that it would
be absurd to dismiss the Japanese worker as leading a passive slave-like
existence. Morale was obviously high among workers in Japan’s most
advanced industries, which were rapidly introducing new technologies
after the war. He has also expressed his skepticism for cultural theorists
who tried to explain the worker’s consciousness simply by reference to a
special Japanese work ethic.
The problem for Hazama was how to explain such high morale among
workers given their extremely poor working conditions. Hazama felt that
important answers would be found in the way management organized the
work force and in the paternalistic ideology it used to legitimate various
labor processes. Hazama was quite clear that work ideology was manage-
ment driven and controlled. He is less clear as to the techniques used to
maintain the ideology, the treatment of those who spoke out against it,
and the system of remuneration used to reward those who supported it.
Rather, Hazama focused on how the vocabulary of the family or ie had
been employed to lock management and workers into a world view cir-
cumscribed by the firm and its interconnected (extended-family) firms
(keiretsu kigyo). As the economy continued to grow, the firm came to
be seen as a successful model. Hazama’s original problem conscious-
ness and his belief in the intellectual independence of the worker were
given little attention by others as the focus on economic organization in
Japan shifted to the firm as a fully integrated holistic entity. This had two
5 Perhaps this was partly owing to the title of his mammoth work, Nihon Romu Kanri Shi
Kenkyu (Research on the History of Personnel Management in Japan) (1964). In any
case, many people have read that volume as a study of the personnel management system
and the history of its formation in Japan. The term nihonteki romu kanrii (Japanese-style
personnel management) – as opposed to nihon romu kanri (personnel management in
Japan, without reference to its uniqueness) – later came to be used by those who read and
adapted Hazama’s research findings for their own uses, and the popular term nihonteki
keiei (Japanese-style management) was later picked up and used inadvertently by Hazama
himself.
effects. One was to legitimate the ideology and transcribe it as a “true

cultural” norm in a way that often occurs with self-fulfilling prophecies.
The second was to blur further the distinction between “real” and “false”
consciousness. Returning to Kassalow’s (1983) formulation, the need
to project Japanese-style management as a viable alternative model no
doubt increased as Japanese exports made inroads into other economies,
because suspicions about social dumping were aroused and doubts about
the consciousness of Japanese workers and the nature of their work ethic
persisted.
2.5 Modernization theory and the culturalist reaction

Following defeat in 1960 at Miike and in their struggle to stop the
renewal of the Mutual Security Treaty with the US, militant unions
and other citizens’ movements began to lose confidence in their cause.
Both struggles involved the mass mobilization of whole communities
(machigurumi), with families and friends protesting in the streets and
on barricades. As workers lost confidence, the belief of researchers in the
autonomous ethos of the working classes waned. The nation’s attention
soon shifted to the meaning of rapid growth for Japan as it continued to
industrialize and the material standard of living improved considerably.
The Japanese media subjected its audiences to daily comparisons of per
capita GNP figures for the major countries of the world as the Japanese
economy climbed from insignificance to being the world’s second-largest
economy.
In the 1950s and 1960s Japanese intellectuals were influenced by a
cold-war regime that posed questions about the world in terms of the
choice between socialism and the market system. Modernization theory
provided perspectives ideologically favorable to the interests of American
policymakers and portrayed America as “Number One.” Many Japanese
intellectuals were drawn into the modernization mode of thinking by
the “Princeton series.”6 With regard to the organization of work, Totten
(1967) and Levine (1967) adopted the structural-functionalist framework
6 The Princeton series consisted of six volumes on Japan published by Princeton Uni-
versity Press. Known also as the “Modernization Project on Japan,” the series brought
together many of America’s foremost scholars with expertise on Japan with the explicit
purpose of undermining Marxist or conflict-oriented perspectives. The project was seen
as an American attempt to assist Japanese scholars to see Japan in much more holis-
tic, structural-functionalistic terms, geared to the promotion of economic development
through market mechanisms. For a short account of that research and references to other
discussions of the Princeton series see Mouer and Sugimoto (1986: 27–32 and 47–9).
A number of Japanese were involved in the project and the series received considerable
attention in Japan.
of the modernization theorists in explaining what was happening in

Japan’s industrial relations.7 They and others predicted that many unique
features of work organization in Japan (especially the familial ideology,
lifetime employment, and seniority wages) would gradually fade as Japan
industrialized further. This was the crux of what came to be known as
the debate on convergence and divergence.
Hazama and other Japanese scholars quickly came to have serious
doubts about the suitability of modernization theory as an explanation for
what was happening in Japan. Taking technology as the major indepen-
dent variable, he conducted some case studies to examine how person-
nel management practices were affected by the importation of Western
technologies. He looked at firms that had been newly created to imple-
ment those new technologies and at the more established firms that were
also absorbing such technologies at a rapid rate. He then distinguished
between (i) the early stages during which the technologies were intro-
duced and (ii) the next stage when they had been fully adapted to the
needs of the Japanese firm. The study considered how personnel prac-
tices in Japan were altered to accommodate technological requirements,
and the extent to which technologies were adapted to accommodate exist-
ing Japanese management practices. He found that different personnel
practices were adopted in the first stage, but that in the second stage the
earlier practices were reinstated. He further argued that over time tradi-
tional practices became more entrenched rather than being undermined
(Hazama 1964). Hazama (1962 and 1963) had clearly come to the opin-
ion that the Japanese experience could not be adequately explained by the
theories generated by Western experience, and at that point he seemed
happy to conclude that the practices were nihonteki (uniquely Japanese).8
Debate soon focused on whether and in what ways, if any, conver-
gence was occurring in a wide range of social organizations, from the
7 This is not to say that either author subscribed fully to the tenets of modernization theory.
Each did, however, fulfill the brief – to test the usefulness of modernization theory in
explaining labor–management relations in postwar Japan. Both probably concluded that
to some extent “modernization” and the accommodation of worker and management
interests were occurring as Japan industrialized.
8 Hazama’s view was that workers had a certain view of the world, and could not be forced
by management to work in a new way simply because a new technology had come along.
While management may have created an ideology to control labor costs and raise morale,
he argued that managers were then also bound to that same ideology by the workers,
who would act based on what made sense to them. Missing from his historical analysis
in 1964, however, was an account of how militant workers had taken the initiative in
institutionalizing “Japanese-style management” for all workers in the late 1940s and early
1950s. That link was later supplied by one of his students (Kawanishi 1977), through
his studies on the large industrial union in the electric power industry (Densan) and its
position in the labor movement immediately after the war.
work domain to the family domain. One of the early non-Japanese con-
tributions to the debate was provided by Cole (1971). He argued that the
working class would eventually become like working classes elsewhere,
and that the relatively unsophisticated and docile workers who had come
into Japan’s urban factories from rural agricultural areas would gradually
become cynical and politically astute. He concluded that the conscious-
ness linking workers horizontally would eventually override more tradi-
tional notions of loyalty to their firm’s management. And, to be sure, as
late as the early 1970s Japan still had a quite militant union movement,
and the political outcomes in terms of how work would be organized were
not obvious.
Following on from the growing interest in the merits of Japanese-style
management, Dore (1973) provided an interesting twist to the conver-
gence position. He held not only that Japan had caught up with the West
industrially, but also that it had done so at such a rapid pace that it had
leapfrogged over many Western nations. The result, he argued, was a
state of affairs in which Japanese management was leading the pack with
a kind of postmodern mix of elements that ideally suited it for organizing
work in the post-industrial era. He predicted a kind of reverse conver-
gence. This was later disseminated through Vogel’s Japan as Number One
(1979), a volume which extolled the virtues of Japan’s postwar successes
and exhorted Americans to adopt various organizational approaches from
Japan.
The growing appreciation of the merits of Japanese-style management
was greatly reinforced by two OECD reports on Japan’s manpower plan-
ning (1972 and 1977). Outside Japan a plethora of books appeared that
described and praised various features of Japanese-style management. By
the early 1970s Japanese scholars had tied together a number of indepen-
dently observed features of work organization in Japan into the codified
formula which treated lifetime employment, seniority wages, and enter-
prise unions as three inextricably linked phenomena. Known euphemisti-
cally in Japanese parlance as the sanshu no jingi (three sacred treasures) of
Japan’s industrial relations, these practices were soon presented overseas
in the popular tracts on Japanese management as keys that would unlock
the secrets of Japan’s economic success at the firm level (e.g. Pascale
and Athos 1981; Ouchi 1981; OECD 1977). Soon a new genre of writ-
ings about corporate identity, worker commitment, and human resource
management had been created, and perhaps that has been Japan’s great
contribution to our understanding of how work is organized, not only in
Japan but in many other advanced economies as well.
This volume seeks to counter depictions of work organization in Japan
that rely heavily on cultural explanations, and it is important to note, along
with Hazama, Matsushima, and many of their contemporaries, that those

who emphasized the uniqueness of Japanese-style management worked
mainly on Japanese social phenomena. Without comparative data, they
usually accepted at face value Western theories about work in the West,
assuming that Westerners knew about the West. Accordingly, though a
great deal had been written about company towns and paternalism in
Western societies, those dealing with Japanese personnel practices and
ideology began to report on such phenomena in Japan as somehow being
nihonteki (peculiarly Japanese).9 Reflecting on the research of the 1960s
that eventually gave way to the infatuation with Japanese-style manage-
ment, it is important to note that the research of Matsushima and Hazama
had been based on the assumption that relations at work were ultimately
based on a conflict of interest between management and its labor force.
Kitagawa (1956: 237–8) had argued that the use of surveys had shifted
attention away from the labor union as an important social fact. He sug-
gested that attention needed to be directed away from management, a
theme also taken up by Sumiya (1954). Kitagawa stressed the need to
research the possibility that workers and labor unions might develop an
ideology different to the one described by Hazama – one which could
successfully counter the paternalistic rhetoric generated by management.
As mentioned above, there was a feeling that surveys had come by and
large to be administered through management to employees as employees
(jugyoin) rather than being distributed directly to the workers as workers
(rodosha or romuin) or as unionists (kumiaiin).
Kitagawa (1956: 240–1) pointed to another methodological challenge.
He believed that conflict between labor and management needed to be
treated as an ongoing and ever evolving phenomenon. He noted that
it would be difficult to discern the true nature of labor–management
relations as long as one side held the upper hand, even though on the
surface it might appear that all conflicts had been resolved. According
to Kitagawa (1965), the new technologies would be introduced in an
effort to reinforce management’s ideological control (shiso kanri). He
predicted that the company-oriented consciousness based on a sense that
there was a living community of workers (seikatsu kyodotai or shokuba
shudan) would be undermined whenever a new labor process was tried. As
9 Readers are referred to a similar account in Mouer and Sugimoto (1986: 60–2 and 147–8)
of how Nakane Chie came to see an emphasis on vertical relations as the distinguishing
feature of Japanese society. They argued that much of the literature in the 1970s on
Japanese-style management as a manifestation of peculiarly Japanese cultural traits needs
to be understood in terms of a Japanese society that was at the time questioning its sense of
national identity as Japan’s place in the world changed. Just as Japan was again becoming
a player on the international stage, a new world order was beginning to reveal itself and
the Japanese had good reason to think about their place in the sun.
workers came to feel sure that they would always have food on their tables,
personnel management (and union policies) based on notions of securing
the workers’ livelihoods would no longer be effective. The changes in the
consciousness of workers that would accompany affluence – the type of
transformation which would later be picked up by Goldthorpe and his
colleagues in their studies of the affluent worker in Britain (1968 and
1969) – were foreshadowed. Much later the introduction of IT would
lead to other questions about the ability of unions and management to
compete ideologically.
2.6 The coming challenge to the sociology of work in Japan

By the mid-1970s references to the study of work organization had
become mainstream across the curriculum at many universities in Japan.
Economic growth was driving society. In foreign and domestic policy
it was economics first, and the agendas of large Japanese corporations
had become the business of Japan. With the two reports by the OECD
on work in Japan in the 1970s, Japan’s approach to work organization,
industrial relations, and human resource management came to occupy a
central place in explanations of Japan. It is not surprising that university
courses incorporating those views were popular across all faculties.
The 1970s was a decade when research on all aspects of work bur-
geoned. Scholars were especially concerned with mapping out the future
of work in Japan in terms of incomes policy, human resource devel-
opment, participation in management, the quality of working life, and
other trendy perspectives. However, in the 1980s the very success of
Japan’s large corporations in competitive industries, and the collapse of
Japan’s left-wing unions, resulted in work being dropped from the polit-
ical agenda. By the early 1990s academic and student interest in the
organization of work had waned considerably, perhaps reflecting a grow-
ing conviction among many that Japan had solved the major work-related
issues confronting capitalist societies. Based on a belief that high levels
of work commitment had been achieved without the alienation found in
other advanced capitalist societies, and that high levels of employment
had been achieved without the stagflation plaguing many other advanced
competitor economies, some observers even came to suggest that bodies
such as the Ministry of Labor had no real function to perform in Japanese
society. Given these changes, few were surprised when the Ministry of
Labor and the Ministry of Welfare were merged in 2001.
3 Competing models for understanding
work in Japan
3.1 Toward an appreciation of competing models

The sociology of both work and industrial relations is multidisciplinary
and multiparadigmatic. Introductory textbooks in those traditions often
begin by describing several competing paradigms. Deery, Plowman, and
Fisher’s Australian Industrial Relations (1981), for example, identifies four
distinct approaches to industrial relations: the unity approach, the plural-
ist approach, the Marxist approach, and the systems approach. In writ-
ings about work in Japan the delineations are slightly different, as indi-
cated in the preceding chapter, but at least four major frameworks stand
out. Although a single paradigm seldom covers all aspects of work, taken
together a fairly comprehensive grasp of the major issues is attained. This
volume presents four perspectives, and then looks at the contributions of
four major writers on work in Japan.
3.1.1 The conflict approach

In the early 1900s some Japanese came to be interested in socialism
and other ideologies that focused on social inequality and advocated
social change to alter the relations of production. Peasant uprisings and
other disturbances in pre-Meiji Japan occurred sporadically and were
easily put down by a very centralized system that controlled the instru-
ments of repression. New ideologies in Europe, including Marxism, pre-
sented Japanese dissidents with a new and more systematic vocabulary for
expressing concerns about inequality. Anarchism attracted a following,
and journalists exposed horrific working conditions and other inequities.
The spread of democratic socialism and the formation of the Japan Com-
munist Party in 1921 further emboldened those holding such views.
These developments were severely repressed by conservative forces within
society, including the government, although there appears to have been
a period of progressive liberalism in the 1910s and 1920s. Many critical
of power relations in Japanese society were forced underground by the
51
upsurge of ultra-nationalists and militarists who came to dominate public

life in Japan from the early 1930s.
After the war, the public reacted against the “fascist forces.” Under the
Occupation many leftists were released from jail, and left-wing unionists
and scholars critical of fascist elements came to have considerable influ-
ence. Focusing on the wrongs of the prewar and wartime regime, they
utilized social class as a key concept for understanding Japanese society.
Many Japanese came to adopt a Marxist framework in which conflict
was assumed to be an integral part of industrial relations in capitalist
societies. For them the outcomes of work-related disputes were deter-
mined largely by the relative amount of power the working class could
generate.
Much of the scholarship on work and industrial relations in Japan
during the 1950s and 1960s reflected these concerns. Okochi, Ujihara,
and the scholars around them wrote profusely about the labor movement
in Japan, the plight of day laborers and the urban poor, ongoing con-
flicts in firms and industries, and the “ganging-up” of government and
management groups on employees. They attached special importance to
the superstructures which ordered labor process at the meso or national
level: the absence of safety nets, the segmentation of labor markets and
its accompanying dualities, the “red purges,” the packing of government
“advisory” bodies with conservatives, and government policies designed
to counter radical industrial unionism in the public sector.
Writers such as Hidaka (1984) have written about consumerism and
the embourgeoisement of Japan’s working class and salaried employees.
Important questions were raised about alienation and motivation; they
argued that choices at work were increasingly coming to be circumscribed
by a new capitalist regime. Much of that questioning continues to be
relevant as the Japanese assess the merits of Japan’s economic growth
over the past fifty years. These perspectives continue to provide important
understandings of the backdrop against which work is performed in many
firms. While a huge Japanese literature was produced in this vein, little
of it has appeared in English. Exceptions can be found in the research
of Moore (1983) on the Japanese union movement immediately after the
war, the translation of Kamata’s (1982) diary about life as a worker in the
automobile industry, Woronoff’s reports (1982 and 1990) on alienation
and various contradictions at work, Chalmers’ report (1989) on work
in Japan’s small firms, Kawanishi’s large volume (1992a) on enterprise
unionism in postwar Japan, and Kumazawa’s essays (1996 and 1997)
about the pressures of work in a society dominated by the business firm.
Today many of the scholars working in this tradition are affiliated to the
Japan Association for Labor Sociology (see table 2.1).
Competing models for understanding work 53
3.1.2 The institutional approach

Although the United States was instrumental in democratizing Japan
immediately after the war, it shifted its stance as the cold war began
to take shape. Conservative Japanese authorities were allowed to dilute
early reforms, and the Occupation came to support successive conser-
vative governments from the early 1950s (when Japan regained its inde-
pendence). The US government invited numerous young industrial rela-
tions scholars to American universities for training in American theories
of industrial relations. During the 1960s the systems approach of John
Dunlop and others focused attention on the role of institutions that man-
aged industrial conflict and balanced the power of labor, management,
and government.
Some of those young scholars returned to Japan and became affiliated
with the Japan Institute of Labor (JIL) which had been established by
the Japanese government in 1958. Their work focused on institutions
shaping industrial relations in Japan and carefully examined the way in
which management organizations and labor unions were structured and
interacted in various public forums. Hanami would be one of the out-
standing scholars associated with this approach. This perspective also
appears in English in many of the contributions to Workers and Employ-
ers in Japan, a large volume edited in the mid-1970s by Okochi, Karsh
and Levine. These scholars provided a systematic overview of the legal
framework in which employment relations occurred. Those affiliated to
the Institute often had privileged access to bureaucrats who administered
relevant legislation and gathered relevant data. However, this approach
tended to limit analyses to Japan’s unionized sector (i.e. employees mainly
in Japan’s large firms and some public sector industries and the civil
service).
3.1.3 The behavioralist approach

By the mid-1970s a new brand of American-trained scholars was coming
to the fore. They formed a third grouping loosely affiliated with the JIL.
Many had completed postdoctoral work in the US, and were skilled in
statistical analysis. Their comparative perspective began to influence dis-
cussions of work from the early 1970s. Several in that group were labor
economists who commented on wage determination, hours of work, and
labor turnover. Sano’s regression analysis became the basis for predicting
outcomes of the Spring Wage Offensive. Koike’s work on the nature of
the seniority wage system is also well known. Koshiro was another scholar
associated with this approach. Their work appeared in volumes edited by

Nishikawa (1980) and Shirai (1983).
The behavioralists utilized surveys and other techniques to study the
way workers perceived their experiences at work. Whitehill and Takezawa
(1968) used surveys that were administered in the late 1960s and then
again in the late 1980s to capture change over time (Takezawa 1995).
Inagami was another well-established researcher in this mode. Today
many young scholars are trained in this approach and actively engage
in survey research.
3.1.4 The culturalist approach

A fourth approach focusing on the allegedly unique features of work orga-
nization in Japan has highlighted the role of a distinctly Japanese culture
in shaping the main institutions that structure how work is organized. Its
adherents distinguish between the official legal framework and the actual
practices shaping work on the shop floor. Abegglen (1958) and Bennett
and Ishino (1963) were early writers presenting that view of work in
Japan. Numerous Japanese scholars traced the origins of Japanese work
practices to the early twentieth century, arguing that they grew out of the
Japanese cultural preference for group-oriented forms of social organiza-
tion. They argued that Japanese culture had given the Japanese a special
attachment to vertical social linkages (which were contrasted to horizon-
tal emphases believed to exist in an individualistically oriented West). A
notable volume edited by Ballon (1969) puts forward this orientation.
This view of work was common in many of the more popular English-
language depictions of work organization in Japan in the 1980s and
early 1990s. Its emphasis on lifetime employment, seniority wages, and
enterprise unionism became the basis for the attention given to such
practices as bottom-up consensual decision-making, humanistic manage-
ment, and corporate welfarism. This approach to understanding work in
Japan is best assessed in the context of more general holistic interpre-
tations of Japanese society known as nihonjinron, an orientation which
came under heavy criticism during the 1980s as unsubstantiated ideol-
ogy (e.g. see Mouer and Sugimoto 1986 and 1995). Nevertheless, it is
still the framework that appears most frequently in popular discussions of
Japanese management. In Japan established academics such as those in
Hamaguchi (1993) and the Research Project Team for Japanese Systems
(1992) continued to emphasize the unique Japanese cultural context as a
major factor spawning the group-oriented employee as a corporate actor
quite distinct from his more individualistically programmed counterpart
overseas.
While this volume is generally critical of the culturalist viewpoint, its

authors see in the writings of the culturalists a good deal of the emic
vocabulary that is indispensable when tapping into Japanese discussions
of work. It would be difficult to discuss work organization in Japan with-
out reference to nenkoteki chingin (seniority wages) as a uniquely Japanese
phenomenon, even though similar age-wage profiles exist in many other
advanced economies where the term “seniority wages” is not part of the
day-to-day vocabulary of most workers. In English a number of ethnogra-
phies continue to be an important reference to the vocabulary of every-
day Japanese and will be cited where relevant. Accordingly, this volume
introduces a range of Japanese terms commonly used in sophisticated
discussions of work in Japan.
3.2 Some competing perspectives

Paradigms are created in a political context. For writings about work in
Japan, the 1970s was a watershed. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, work-
ers in many North American and European countries seemed suddenly to
revolt against the over-regimented structures of Taylorism. Absenteeism,
drugs, and the distraction of affluence seemed to be factors undermining
the productivity of firms. Then came the successive “oil shocks,” stagfla-
tion, and the continuing high levels of unemployment. The Japanese
economy seemed to emerge unscathed, and was soon generating huge
balance-of-payments surpluses with what appeared to be an unbeat-
able productive capacity. While some saw that capacity as something
to be feared, others agreed that Japan might have some organizational
lessons for other societies. They explained Japan’s success in positive
terms, and encouraged Western managers to visit Japan and learn those
lessons. Such adulation later gave way to more critical appraisals in the
1990s.
Four Japanese writers are introduced here to indicate how think-
ing on work in Japan has evolved over the past two decades. Particu-
larly important is the move away from culturalist theories as the labor
economists come to the fore, and a concerted effort is made to under-
stand social change in Japan in terms of the more universal processes
involved in industrialization/post-industrialization, modernization/post-
modernization, and, more recently, globalization.
3.2.1 Koike Kazuo and the environment conducive to skill formation

Perhaps the Japanese writer on work best known overseas is Koike Kazuo.
He has been prolific not only in Japanese (1977, 1978, 1991, and 1994),
but also in English (1983a, 1983b, 1988, 1989, 1995, and 1997). He
is one of the few Japanese scholars who have worked within an explic-
itly comparative framework. His early research (1977) examined the role
of the union on the shop floor in American and Japanese manufactur-
ing firms. He then (1978) shifted his attention to participation in man-
agement in West Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, France, and
Japan. He is best known today for his work on skill formation and reward
structures within the framework of the economics of education and inter-
nal labor markets.
Koike’s theory of worker motivation has three major components. The
first is the behavioralist assumption that workers are independent eco-
nomic rationalists who behave in order to maximize their own economic
well-being (Koike 1989). He sees the Japanese system of management as
cleverly conceived to maximize the benefits flowing from the employee’s
own rationalism. He believes that workers see benefit for themselves when
they acquire skills, and that the system can be transferred to other societies
because the conditions for skill formation lie largely in the institutions that
any society can institute.
Job placement, promotion, and job security are seen as important for
the economic wellbeing of all employees. In Koike’s view, a developed
internal labor market provides all three. Labor turnover is seen by labor
and management as undermining such markets. Larger firms have more
robust internal labor markets that make possible long-term career pro-
gression for each worker through on-the-job training and job rotation.
The result is an internalized career (naibuka shita kyaria) as intellectual
skills (chiteki jukuren) become deeper and more broadly based. To the
extent that all employees gain skills and promotion through the firm’s
internal labor market, the entire labor force is constantly being upgraded
and the employee’s economic wellbeing comes to be tied directly to the
prosperity of the firm. The Japanese are seen as working diligently for
their employer not out of a culturally ordained work ethic or desire
for paternalistic care, but for their own economic advantage. They are
accommodated within win–win relationships for the worker and for
management.
Within this framework that places productivity first, the worker’s pay
is seen as being a function of his intellectual skill (chiteki jukuren) (as
opposed to manual skills). These skills result from carefully structured
promotions (shoshin) and job rotations (haichi tenkan) so that employees
have the necessary opportunities for skilling. While recognizing a certain
universality in the internal labor markets for white-collar workers in large
firms, Koike emphasizes the extent to which Japanese firms, especially
large ones, institute personnel systems that “white-collarize” large seg-

ments of the blue-collar labor force. Koike believes career paths are most
developed within Japan’s internal labor markets.
The third element in Koike’s vision is the way unions function on the
shop floor. A union’s most important functions are guaranteeing that
opportunities for skilling exist for its members and limiting the arbitrari-
ness with which management makes decisions that most affect the pro-
cess by which skills are formed. His feeling is that the enterprise union
is the form of unionism that will best ensure that internal labor markets
function smoothly. He contrasts three types of union: (i) the American-
Japanese type, in which the union has a solid formal organizational struc-
ture embracing all members at the shop-floor level, (ii) the British type,
in which unionists are bound together by informal organizational struc-
tures, and (iii) the German type, in which all employees are members of
a works’ council. For Koike, the way a union functions on the shop floor
is more important for skill formation than union activities at the indus-
try or national level. The Japanese approach to participation in man-
agement is also important. Koike distinguishes (i) participation in the
top management decision-making bodies from (ii) participation through
feedback at the factory and firm level and (iii) participation through
ownership and profit sharing. He posits that the second form of par-
ticipation is most important for skilling since it allows employees to influ-
ence matters concerning promotion, placement, and job security. While
conceding that enterprise unions are not always as vocal in expressing
the views of their members as unions in some other countries (e.g. the
Anglo-Saxon countries), he feels they are on a par with unions in West
Germany and Sweden, and stronger than their French counterparts. Any
weakness of the enterprise union is offset by the existence of very strong
work groups (sagyo shudan) that function as fairly autonomous units and
assert the views of their members. One outcome is management flexibility
when it comes to job placement, job security, and other issues related to
skilling.
Koike seems to assume the Japanese approach to work organization is
based on universal elements in the human psychic makeup. He sees skill
formation as a critical concern of all workers. Accordingly, rather than
restricting the competitiveness of Japanese firms and any tendency to
social dumping, Koike argues that firms in the other advanced countries
need to become more competitive by adopting the Japanese approach. He
sees no need to apologize or to use cultural arguments and the principle
of cultural relativism when defending practices he sees as characterizing
work organization in Japan.
3.2.2 Inagami Takeshi, the affluent worker, and

corporatistic arrangements
The sociologist Inagami Takeshi has also been a prolific writer with a clear
view of worker motivation (1981, 1988, and 1994; Inagami and Kawakita
1988). His early work was based on in-depth interviews with members
of Doro (the Union of Train Engineers), a strong left-wing union that
organized train drivers working for the Japan National Railways. That
research clearly established that a strong work group existed which was
similar to the shop-floor mateship-based groups in the United Kingdom.
Inagami has conducted a large number of questionnaire-based research
projects dealing with the consciousness of workers, many commissioned
by the government through the Japan Institute of Labor, the Labor
Survey Association (Rodo Chosa Kyogikai) and various unions such
as Denki Roren, Tekko Roren, and Zendentsu. The general conclusion
which emerged from that research was that affluence was not having the
same effects in Japan as elsewhere. The theoretical and comparative base
informing the surveys and his conclusions was the series of reports on the
affluent worker in Britain issued by Goldthorpe and his colleagues (1968
and 1969).
The British study identified three basic outlooks among workers in
the UK. One was a materialistic view whereby work was seen wholly as
a means of obtaining the income necessary to enjoy a certain lifestyle
away from work. Semi-skilled and unskilled blue-collar workers formed
the core of those subscribing to this view. Those in this category were
seen as being rather self-interested and calculating in dealing with their
firm, the union, and political parties. Their main interest was in rela-
tionships outside work rather than in advancement with their employer.
A second type of consciousness was found among white-collar work-
ers focused on career advancement within bureaucratically structured
organizations. They served their firms, unions, and political interest
groups to progress in their careers. Promotions were seen as being
linked to larger incomes and higher status. The third type was found
among workers in the traditional trades where the culture of worker
solidarity was strongly entrenched. Work was conceived as part of a
living social community which linked the shop floor and family life. For
those with this consciousness, work was not divorced from the rhythm
of daily life. Goldthorpe and his colleagues predicted that workers pos-
sessing the first type of consciousness would increase with rising levels of
affluence.
Based on his extensive surveys, Inagami came to a different prediction
for Japan. He concluded that affluence would result in workers coming
to adopt the second consciousness. His view of worker consciousness in

Japan was based on an assessment of several aspects of work organiza-
tion. First was the advanced level of white-collarization among blue-collar
employees. He argued that the difference between white-collar and blue-
collar workers was minimal in terms of wages, participation in decision-
making, and lifestyle. This view was consistent with the notion that
90 percent of Japanese formed a broadly based middle-class society. The
white-collarization of blue-collar work into internalized careers meant
that the traditional worker had largely disappeared. Rather than striving
to protect vested interests tied to traditional ways of laboring, Japan’s
workers recognized the need for change and accepted that ability and
performance should be the basis for promotion and the ordering of work.
He stressed that the attitudes and thinking of Japan’s blue-collar workers
were converging with those of Britain’s white-collar employees. In assert-
ing that Britain’s blue-collar workers would catch up with the intellec-
tual outlook and attitudes of their Japanese counterparts, his views were
similar to those of Koike.
Unlike in other countries where the identity with one’s enterprise
evolved out of a normative attachment to an egalitarian ethos emphasiz-
ing mateship, notions of social justice, and mutual assistance, he claimed
that the Japanese sense of community was more in terms of a shared eco-
nomic fate. The outlook of each employee was tied not only to the fate of
other employees but also to the fate of their enterprise. The emphasis was
on each individual’s contribution to the wellbeing of the firm rather than
egalitarian treatment. Whereas workers in Britain were seen as increas-
ingly coming to see their private life apart from (and more important than)
their life at work, Japanese workers tended to believe their private lives
depended upon the success of their firm and were influenced by the pro-
ductivity of social relationships and organizational arrangements at work.
Inagami concluded from his data that this orientation became stronger
as Japanese employees progressed through internal career structures.
The third critical element in Inagami’s vision of work was informal
organization at the shop-floor level and the inclination of workers to
become involved in the work of others in their shop. This meant that
work could be flexibly organized at this level, with workers having ample
opportunity to expand their skills and responsibilities at work. The fore-
man played a key role as the intermediary between more senior manage-
ment and the ordinary employee. As a representative of the workers, one
of his roles was to ensure that the shop functioned semi-autonomously.
Perhaps because of job rotation, the sense of identification with the work
group in the shop (shokuba kyodotai) was more ambiguous than that which
bound the workers to the firm as a community (kigyo kyodotai). Inagami
evaluated highly the contribution of the quality control (QC) circle

(shoshudan) to the sense of productive spontaneity. In addition to activat-
ing the talents of the most skilled workers, it also promoted the “gray-
collarization” of the blue-collar work force, assisted workers in internal-
izing the goals of their firm, improved personal interaction, and allowed
each employee to feel that they were tangibly helping to enhance their
firm’s performance.
Inagami saw the union as less important on the shop floor than did
Koike. He found that many unionists did not identify with their union
and disapproved of the way their union was managed. Most workers in his
study wanted more opportunities for involvement in the union’s decision-
making and some form of direct democratic participation. Because the
union was not seen as active at the shop level, Inagami’s workers were
more likely to present their grievances to the foreman than to the union
representative. By participating in management on the shop floor, work-
ers were able to identify with management’s goals of achieving higher
productivity. As the structures supporting internalized careers expanded,
Inagami predicted, the enterprise union would increasingly have to find
ways to strengthen the competitive position of the firm that employed its
members.
Both Inagami and Koike saw the enterprise system as central to under-
standing the outlook of Japanese workers. However, whereas Koike saw
economic self-interest and the ability of the individual to make eco-
nomically rational choices as key ingredients, Inagami tended to take
a structural-functionalist perspective. For Koike work organization in
Japan was a clever device that could harness the energy of rational work-
ers. Inagami tended to see the enterprise system as antecedent, existing
before the Japanese worker was employed and socializing workers who
came into its world.
Although Koike and Inagami arrive at similar conclusions from differ-
ent starting points and using different methodologies, both share sim-
ilar shortcomings. Both are based on observations of regular employ-
ees in Japan’s large-scale sector, whereas 60 percent of the labor force
is in firms with less than a hundred employees. Many in Japan’s large
firms are not regular employees. Both have gathered their data from
firms in the advanced automated sectors in Japan’s economy – electrical
machinery, steel, and automobiles – or from workshops in which career-
linked skill progressions are most noticeable. There is considerable vari-
ation between industries in this regard, and even within some industries,
where subcontracting is prevalent. Finally, neither pay much attention
to women, part-timers, and others who form Japan’s peripheral work
force.
3.2.3 Nomura Masami: skilling and the segmentation of work

Critical of the views espoused by Koike and Inagami, Nomura Masami
(1993a, 1993b, and 1994) has focused on (i) weaknesses of the enterprise
union, (ii) the extent to which management can arbitrarily structure work
arrangements and command labor, (iii) the skills-linked segmentation of
the labor market and the extent to which skilling is conceived in terms
of management prerogatives rather than the interests of employees, and
(iv) the use of the wage system as a mechanism for social control.
Nomura introduces a sociology of knowledge perspective, and argues
that Koike’s theories about skill may be seen as speculative ideology aris-
ing from the general intellectual milieu of the 1980s (Nomura 1993b: 55).
He characterizes the 1980s as a period of rising neo-nationalist confidence
in the superiority of all things Japanese, when the strong yen allowed
Japanese interests to acquire cultural assets overseas. Nomura argues
that productivity results not just from the skilling of Japan’s workers;
it also depends upon the overall level of technology in each industry, the
cost of raw materials, the price elasticity of what is sold, and market-
distorting monopolistic arrangements. Moreover, Nomura doubts the
extent to which Japan’s production workers are more skilled, suggesting
that they have low-level all-round skills and perhaps a limited array of
specialized skills.
Nomura attaches importance to the role of the traditionally skilled
worker (senmonko) in Japan. He feels that writers like Koike overlook such
workers and the fact that the skills they possess are very similar to those
acquired by their counterparts overseas. Central to work organization in
Japan, he argues, is the division of the labor force into those doing repeti-
tious and monotonous work and those who are allowed to do the skilled
work. He criticizes Koike for not being clear about the type of workers
that support the allegedly superior Japanese approach to skilling work-
ers. Although Koike is quick to note differences in the types of workers in
American and European firms, Nomura argues that Japanese workers are
not all incorporated within Koike’s white-collarization process. Nomura
is particularly concerned with developing a framework that can incor-
porate women and other workers who tend to be left outside standard
treatments of the labor force.
Nomura’s view is that the power relationship between labor and man-
agement is critical. He does not see the wage system as being driven by
the market or by some mutually agreed-upon arrangement designed to
stabilize each firm’s internal labor market, and calls on Koike to pro-
vide evidence on how wages are decided. That the age-wage profile is
consistent with the view that there are economic returns to education
and to skilling does not mean it is designed only to provide those returns.
Averaged curves do not show individual variation. Nomura pays attention
to the use of personnel appraisals to establish wage differentials between
employees. In arguing that the differentials heighten competition among
employees, a similarity with Inagami and Koike emerges: all three see
the employee’s commitment to their firm as being based on self-centered
materialism. However, Nomura sees such competition in zero-sum terms
which compel employees to compete with workmates. Nomura posits that
power relations are also reflected in the general weakness of the enter-
prise union. He criticizes Koike for not supplying facts showing that the
influence of Japan’s enterprise unions is on a par with that of manage-
ment councils (Betriebsrat) in West Germany. He avers that the enterprise
union is outspoken on few issues of vital importance to its members. He
notes the limits placed on union involvement in meaningful managerial
decision-making. For these reasons he does not see the workplace as a
community in which workers spontaneously take the initiative to skill
themselves or to work with management to enlarge the pie. He feels that
the contribution of QC circles and the kaizenhan (progressive change
groups) to significant change is frequently orchestrated, with the tra-
ditionally skilled worker (senmonko) and supervisory staff (kantokusha)
taking the lead. These perspectives move the discussion more into the
framework of labor process.
3.2.4 Kumazawa Makoto and the inordinately competitive

society which is the Japanese firm
Unlike the preceding three scholars, who come from the Tokyo area and
are committed to empirically based research, Kumazawa represents the
Kyoto penchant for speculative scholarship. A professor of economics at
Konan University, he is best known for his case study approach to oral
and intellectual histories of work. Rather than relying on observations and
systematic interviews or surveys on the shop floor, Kumazawa’s contact
with the workplace comes from his involvement as an activist defending
the human rights of workers and from the feedback he receives at his
frequent public-speaking engagements. As a result his arguments tend
to fall back on anecdotes and impressions; his style is journalistic. An
English translation of his work (1996) brings together chapters selected
from his earlier work in 1981 (five chapters) and 1986 (four chapters).
Much of his thinking over the past twenty years is brought together in a
very readable paperback (1997).
Kumazawa’s main message is that Japan’s enterprise society (kigyo
shakai) needs to be revamped if work life in Japan is to become more
humane. His point of departure can be found in his writing (1983)

about the decline of the British union movement and the British Labour
Party in the 1960s. Another influence has been Beynon’s Working for Ford
(1984). He seeks to provide an explanation for the relative weakness of
the Japanese union movement and the absence of the strong sense of
mateship which, he believes, characterizes workplace social relations in
the UK.
In examining the ethos and milieu of the workplace in the postwar
Japanese enterprise, he is struck by the strong desire of workers to achieve
an average standard of living, a kind of “keeping up with the Watanabes
or the Tanakas.” Kumazawa searches for the intangible qualities that
distinguish individual volition from corporate culture. Aware of the con-
trol mechanisms which regulate work and the lives of Japan’s employees,
he seems to indicate that workers have been socialized or goaded into
accepting that control.
Kumazawa cites two factors as contributing to the behavior of employ-
ees. One is the set of structures and the corporate ideology that foster
competition among workers. He contrasts reward systems in Western
countries that explicitly give weight to skill and job responsibilities with
those used in Japan that are tied to a more total evaluation not only of
performance but also of more nebulous criteria such as potential, atti-
tude, and character. While the Japanese system may be a fairer system
in some ways, it also keeps employees in the dark and constantly on
their best behavior. The result is a kind of self-censorship and exces-
sive self-discipline. Individuals choose to focus on immediate tasks and
conceal their own shortcomings from colleagues. The results are stress,
workmates in constant competition, and a tension-producing system in
which one’s best efforts are never good enough. Kumazawa argues that
kaizen practices, quality control circles, and other group activities need
to be understood within that context. Although such activity manifestly
functions to produce solutions that make work easier, it also invariably
functions latently to intensify work and competition. Kumazawa believes
the resulting atmosphere is inherently alienating, and much of his writ-
ing focuses on individual accounts and anecdotes of how the system has
drained the life-blood of employees. He describes a system in which there
are no safety nets or social compacts to protect the individual from over-
work and the tragedy of being constantly fatigued.
Although Kumazawa provides a more sanguine assessment of work
organization, he tends, like Koike and Inagami, to focus on elite male
salaried employees in Japan’s large firms. Although all of them write about
women, minorities, the handicapped, and others in the peripheral labor
force, for the most part they remain outside those visions of enterprise
society. For Kumazawa their presence is a constant source of the fear

felt by core employers at the thought of downward mobility. While there
are methodological problems which make it difficult to generalize from
Kumazawa’s account, he provides acute insight into some of the contra-
dictions which influence the way many Japanese think about work. He
also begs a fundamental question about work in Japan: if Japan’s elite
employees face problems, how much more trying is the environment in
which Japan’s non-elite employees labor?
3.3 Toward a framework for understanding work and labor

process in contemporary Japan
The discussion in chapters 1–3 raises several issues that must be incorpo-
rated into any vision of work in Japan. First is dual consciousness of work-
ers. While it is impossible to assess Japanese employees as autonomous
and rational actors, one can be aware of the context in which workers
have to choose at work. Many accounts of work in contemporary Japan
draw attention to power relations at work, but few present a systematic
framework for assessing the effect of those relations on notions of political
correctness, self-censorship, and rational choice.
When arguing that power relations are taken as a starting point for
analysis, it may be useful to stand back from the majority of analyses of
work in Japan that focus on what happens within the enterprise. At the
enterprise level many writers have approached the workplace through
behavioralist formulations (e.g. by surveying individuals) developed out
of managerial perspectives. Those who have entered the workplace have
been more inclined to deal with labor process and the ways in which work
allocation relates to power relations. It is necessary to return to some of
the concerns of the more traditional industrial relations and social policy
scholars. Their research provides a view of the larger socioeconomic con-
text that is characterized by variation at work. Although the most coherent
views of work are those which focus on the elite white-collar male per-
manent employee in Japan’s large firms, critics note that such employees
are heavily subsidized by a much larger number of less-privileged work-
ers (including women and those in various forms of casual employment
and/or in smaller firms).
In this volume labor process at the meso level is considered in terms
of factors that segment or stratify the labor market and limit the plau-
sible outcomes for each entrant. Japan’s labor market is not a pool of
homogeneous labor. Despite a huge body of literature on cultural and
social homogeneity in Japan, the Japanese enter the labor market on an
unequal footing and that inequality has consequences in terms of their
bargaining power and their choices with regard to work. This volume
rests on the premise that consequences of labor process at the micro
level within the firm can only be understood once labor processes at the
meso level are understood. Many researchers interview workers without
considering carefully the consequences of higher-level processes, even
though these are often taken for granted by the workers being studied.
Power relations at the micro level often depend upon the structure of the
external labor market and the opportunities to walk out of a given place of
work. Those conditions are often defined at the meso level. For example,
many women put up with sexual harassment and discrimination at work
because the opportunities elsewhere are limited. For this reason chapters
5–10 focus on the labor market, labor policy, and the power relationship
between organized labor and management groups. Only upon that foun-
dation can the everyday life processes which link the worker to his or her
family and to the local community be meaningfully discussed in terms of
the choices they make at work.
Part II
The commitment to being at work

4 Hours of work, labor-force participation
and the work ethic
4.1 How hard do the Japanese work?

Well into the 1990s many foreigners and Japanese alike perceived that the
Japanese were working harder than their counterparts in other advanced
economies. This view was held not only by critics of Japan (who felt
that Japanese worked too much), but also by advocates of the Japanese
model who saw in long hours of work enviable levels of commitment to
an employer. Many who associated long hours of work with high levels
of motivation saw in Japan an approach to management that would take
human resource management in Japan and other advanced societies into
the twenty-first century.
Most assessments of how hard the Japanese work are implicitly com-
parative. To the extent that Japanese workers are perceived as work-
ing very hard, workers overseas come to be seen as not working hard
enough. Lincoln and Kalleberg (1996) cite the short working hours of
German employees as a major concern for Japanese managers stationed
in that country. Japanese managers in Australia have been quick to fault
Australians for not working hard enough (Meany et al. 1988; Mizukami
1993: 23). “Large, Lucky and Lazy” was the title of one study of Japanese
managers who criticized Australian workers for their reluctance to work
overtime or at the weekend (Ormonde 1992). Managers in other coun-
tries have taken such views on board, arguing that their employees should
adopt what the managers see as being a superior work ethic.
The assumption that the Japanese do work harder than others begs
key questions about the motivation of the Japanese to work. In setting
the agenda for a discussion of work in Japan, this chapter asks: how hard
do the Japanese really work? The question is comparative, and some key
concepts require careful consideration. One approach equates hard work
with effort. Most societies acknowledge that the amount of effort required
to accomplish the same work varies significantly according to the work
environment. Hardship allowances are compensation for the additional
effort required to work in extreme heat or cold, with noxious fumes,
69
70 The commitment to being at work
or with deafening noise. These adjustments often give some sense of

fairness to workers within a particular society. However, the comparisons
and resultant compensations more often than not remain internal to a
single firm or industry. For the most part, they do not extend across
national boundaries. Workers in a Toyota plant in Bangladesh are not in
a position to claim hardship simply because their Japanese counterparts
work in more comfortable conditions. A further difficulty with the focus
on effort is that employees are often compensated for earlier investments
of time and resources. The return to education is well documented. The
acquisition of many skills, physical fitness, and social capital yields similar
returns.
Even more vexing is the notion of output. As experience with piecework
has shown, finished work is often of uneven quality, meaning that the same
work is seldom performed by any two workers. With increasingly higher
levels of specialization and the international division of labor, meaning-
ful comparisons of individual productivity within and across societies
become more problematic over time. The factors affecting the produc-
tivity of any given individual in a plant are considerable. Many connect
holistically to all other aspects of the production process, but are external
to the workers themselves. Differences in equipment, in layout, in the
goods produced or the services provided, in raw materials used, and in
various other factors all impact upon the physical work requirements, the
work environment, and the output that can reasonably be expected in
many jobs.
4.2 Hours of work: comparisons and trends

References to the Japanese work ethic invariably come with data show-
ing that the Japanese work longer hours than other people. However,
the most simple comparison of hours of work in manufacturing in five
countries provides ambiguous results at best. Table 4.1 presents figures
on average weekly hours of work for five countries at five-year intervals
for the forty years up to 1995. Japan would seem to record the high-
est number of hours worked per week in manufacturing in five of the
eleven years: 1960, 1985, 1990, 1995, and 1999. Moreover, the trends
in Japan, the US, and the UK seem to move together, suggesting that per-
haps some common underlying cross-national dynamic may be at work
in those societies. Some time ago, Koike (1969) argued that the hours
of work registered in Japan might better be understood in terms of the
overall process of economic development. He suggested that hours of
work had been longer and that work had been more arduous in the UK
and many other advanced societies when they were in the early stages
Labor-force participation and the work ethic 71
Table 4.1 International comparison of weekly hours of work for production

workers in manufacturing
Year Japan USA UK France Germany
1956 47.5e 40.4e 48.2e 45.6e 47.8e

1960 48.1e 39.7e 47.4e 45.7e 45.6e
1965 44.3e 41.2e 46.1e 45.6e 44.1e
1970 43.3d e 39.8d e 44.9d e 44.8d e 43.8d e
1975 38.8d 39.5b d 42.7b d 41.7b d 40.4b d
38.6b
1980 41.2a b c d 39.7a b c d 41.9b d 40.7a b c 41.6a b c d
42.3c 40.6d
1985 46.2a 40.5a 43.7a 38.6a 40.7a
1990 45.7a 40.8a 44.3a 38.7a 39.5a
1995 43.5 41.6 42.2 38.7 38.3
1999 42.7 41.7 41.4 n.a. n.a.
Notes: The definitions used by each country vary slightly:

Japan: hours actually worked by males and females in firms with 30+
employees.
USA: hours paid for males and females in firms of all sizes.
UK: hours actually worked by males aged over twenty-one in firms of
all sizes (later becoming figures for adult males and females).
France: hours actually worked by males and females in firms with 10+
employees.
Germany: hours paid for males and females in firms with 10+ employees.
Sources: (1) All of the figures for 1995 and 1999 are from Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo
Tokei Joho Bu (2002a), p. 327.
(2) The other figures are from one or more of the following sources:
a Rodo Daijin Kanbo Seisaku Chosa Bu (1995), p. 333;
b Rodo Daijin Kanbo Seisaku Chosa Bu (1985), p. 266;
c Rodo Daijin Kanbo Seisaku Chosa Bu (1996a), p. 257;
d Rodo Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (1982), p. 219;
e Rodo Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (1976), p. 337.
of development, later falling as GNP per capita lifted. Figures from the
Ministry of Labor’s monthly survey (Maitsuki Kinro Tokei Chosa) (begun
in 1944) reveal that there has been a long-term trend toward shorter
hours as Japan has developed economically over time (Ogura 1996: 46).
International comparisons of hours of work are not straightforward;
nations collect such statistics in different ways. For a long time, the UK
collected figures only for males aged over 21. Few countries collect figures
throughout the year (as Japan does); most use the first full week of work
in certain months or at the beginning of each quarter, and do not capture
institutionalized fluctuations that characterize the annual rhythm of work.
Firms of different sizes are surveyed, and in some instances individuals
Table 4.2 Annual hours of work in twelve countries, 1988–99
Country 1988 1991 1992 1997 1999
Japan 2,152 2,139 2,017 1,942 1,942

America 1,898 1,847 1,957 2,005 1,991
UK 1,938 1,835 1,911 1,934 1,942
Belgium 1,628 1,517
Italy 1,622
France 1,657 1,619 1,682 1,677
Australia 1,595
Denmark 1,571
Sweden 1,568
Holland 1,560
Norway 1,540
Germany (West Germany 1,613 1,499 1,567 1,517
until 1991)
Sources: 1988 Kusaka (1989), p. 65.

1991 German Research Center as reprinted in Osono (1995), p. 153.
1992 NHK Kokusai Kyoku (1995), p. 99.
1997 Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2001), p. 247.
1997 and 1999: Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2002a),
p. 247.
rather than firms are surveyed. Some governments survey for the hours
paid (including paid leave), while others survey only for the hours actually
worked. None record unofficial work – overtime, training, and networking
that is done outside the place of work and not recorded.
Despite these and other difficulties in making international compar-
isons,1 rough comparisons with adjusted figures point to the likelihood
that annual hours of work vary considerably from country to country and
that they have until recently been considerably longer in Japan than in
other comparably developed economies (table 4.2). Most countries can
be placed in one of three categories: those with relatively short hours
of work, those with relatively long hours of work, and those in between
(table 4.3). Sano (1988: 248) suggested that annual hours of work in
Japanese firms with over thirty employees rose to 2,111 hours in 1987.
She argued that this was roughly 200 hours above the levels recorded
1 For example, the conversions between weekly, monthly, and annual hours of work (the
most commonly used timeframes when statistics are collected and compared) are difficult
to decipher. Apparently conflicting figures appear even in the different publications of the
Japanese Ministry of Labor, as is evidenced when comparing the figures in its White Papers
(the Rodo Hakusho) with those in its Annual of Labor Statistics (the Rodo Tokei Nenpo) and
those in its handbook of labor statistics (the Rodo Tokei Yoran). The conversions to, and
the measuring of, hours of work over a lifetime are fraught with even greater difficulties.
Table 4.3 International groupings by annual hours of work
Country group Countries Annual hours of work
Countries with relatively Italy 1,500–1,650

short hours France
Germany
Countries with medium Australia 1,800–1,950
number of hours UK
United States
Japan (circa 2002)
Countries with relatively Japan (circa 1990) over 2,100
long hours
for American and British workers and some 500 hours above the levels
recorded for their German and French counterparts. Recognizing this
fact over a decade earlier, another noted economist, Tsujimura (1980:
67), observed for 1970 that:
Although the difference of several hours per week may not seem like much, the
weekly difference of 5.6 hours between Japan and the United States means an
annual difference of 291 hours per worker . . .This means that annually the
Japanese are working four to six weeks more than their counterparts overseas. A
difference of more than one month per year is not insignificant.
It is easy to see logic in the commonly voiced complaint that Japanese

employees were working 14–15 months a year while their Italian and
French counterparts were keeping to 12 months. There may have been
a competitive advantage in the ability of Japanese firms to lower labor
costs, to honor delivery times, or to secure contracts with a “last-minute
push” and more overtime.
While official data on weekly and annual hours of work in Japan (e.g.
in tables 4.1 and 4.2) led to different conclusions, the national public
broadcaster’s exhaustive survey on how the Japanese use their time sup-
ports the view that working hours in Japan have been very long. Using
a sample of nearly 160,000 Japanese with a return rate of 75 percent,
the survey provides valuable insight into how time is used on weekdays,
Saturdays, and Sundays. The figures in table 4.4 are for 1990 and 2000.
They represent the average time spent working by all Japanese on differ-
ent days of the week. Breakdowns are given for six different age groups.
When viewing the figures, it is important to remember that the hours of
work are averages for all in that age group – including both those who
are working and those who are not working. In other words, the average
hours worked by those who are actually employed would be even longer
Table 4.4 Hours of work based on the NHK surveys on the uses of time in Japan,
A F G H
Age Hours of work for all males Total weekly Female hours of Total annual
group hours worked work as a percentage hours of work
B C D E by women of male hours for men (52E)
Weekdays Saturdays Sundays Total (100F/E)
(5B+C+D)
1990
20–29 7:30 5:37 2:30 45.6 30.3 66.4 2,371.2
30–39 9:03 6:17 2:36 54.1 20.9 38.6 2,813.2
40–49 8:42 6:07 2:40 52.3 29.5 56.4 2,719.6
50–59 8:08 6:05 3:11 49.9 26.6 53.3 2,594.8
60–69 5:10 4:28 2:40 33.0 17.9 54.2 1,716.0
70+ 2:25 2:24 1:57 16.4 7.6 46.3 852.8
2000
20–29 7.42 5.26 3.20 47.3 33.3 70.4 2,459.6
30–39 9.40 5.10 2.22 55.9 22.6 40.4 2,906.8
40–49 9.01 5.45 2.30 55.3 25.4 47.7 2,771.6
50–59 8.45 4.59 2.37 51.4 26.4 51.4 2,672.8
60–69 4.37 3.35 2.05 28.8 12.8 44.4 1,497.6
70+ 1.26 1.52 1.20 10.4 6.6 63.5 540.8
Note: (1) The figures in columns B, C and D are given as hours and minutes, “7:30” meaning 7 hours and 30 minutes.
represented as “7.5.”
(2) The figures are averages for the entire population in a given age group, including individuals not in the
Source: NHK Yoron Chosa Bu (1992), pp. 350–7.
NHK Hoso Bunka Kenkyu Jo (2002), pp. 350–7.
than the figures given in table 4.4. Moreover, the figures do not include
the time the Japanese spend commuting to work.
Three conclusions may be drawn from the NHK findings. First, annual
hours of work are exceptionally long for men (over 2,500 hours), confirm-
ing the view that there is probably a good deal of unreported overtime
in Japan that is not captured in official figures. Second, despite their
relatively high labor-force participation rate, Japanese women are less
involved in work outside the home than men, reflecting the peripheraliza-
tion of their involvement in the labor force on a part-time basis. As the
figures in columns I–K of table 4.4 show, Japanese women engage in a
lot of housework. Adding that to work done outside the home, women’s
contribution to hours worked for the household economy looms large.
Third, despite a nominal retirement age in the early sixties for many
men, in 1990 males in their sixties were still working a weekly average
of 33 hours, and then an average of 16.4 hours every week of the year
for the rest of their lives after the age of 70. This is a far cry from the
1990 and 2000
I J K L M N O P
Total annual Weekly Weekly Annual Annual hours Total annual Total annual Ratio of annual
hours of work hours of hours of hours of of housework hours of all hours of all hours of work
for women housework housework housework done by work done work done by women to
(52F) done by done by done by women (52K) by men by women those of men
men women men (52J) (H+L) (I+M) (O/N)
1,575.6 3.6 22.6 187.2 1,175.2 2,558 2,751 4.08

1,086.8 4.6 43.6 239.2 2,267.2 3,052 3,354 1.10
1,534.0 3.9 35.6 202.8 1,851.2 2,922 3,385 1.15
1,383.2 4.1 34.0 213.2 1,768.0 2,808 3,151 1.12
930.8 7.2 34.0 374.4 1,768.0 2,090 2,699 1.29
395.2 8.5 27.3 442.0 1,419.6 1,295 1,815 1.40
1,731.6 3.8 17.2 197.6 894.4 2,657 2,262 0.99

1,175.2 4.6 40.5 239.2 2,106.0 3,146 3,281 1.04
1,320.8 5.4 36.5 280.8 1,898.0 3,052 3,219 1.05
1,372.8 3.7 31.8 192.4 1,653.6 2,865 3,026 1.06
665.6 4.6 34.3 239.2 1,783.6 1,737 2,449 1.41
343.2 7.8 24.8 405.6 1,289.6 946 1,633 1.73
The figures in columns E through O are given as hours and fractions of hours, with 7 hours and 30 minutes being
work force and those on any form of leave.
cultural norm described some time ago by Kaneko (1980: 106–10), who
portrayed the ideal for each worker’s declining years as a golden interlude
when they could expect to enjoy a comfortable retirement in a home that
they owned. The figures in tables 4.1 and 4.2 nevertheless suggest that
work hours continue to fall, and that the gap between Japan and other
advanced economies closed considerably during the 1990s.
How do the Japanese work those hours that they do work? How is their
decision to work structured? Before turning to answer such questions in
the remaining chapters of this volume, however, the statistics on hours
of work can take us a little further in our understanding of the situa-
tion. When considering the subtleties of organization and the thoughts
and outlooks which employees take to work, the statistics are important
because they point to two sorts of structural difference. One is in terms
of labor-force participation and the temporal organization of work. The
other is in terms of variation. Japanese do not all do the same amount
of work, and the patterns in the amount of work performed by different
types of individuals provide important clues as to how work is structured
in Japan.
4.3 Labor-force participation and the organization of time:

some comparisons and trends
How are hours of work constituted in Japan? How much discretion do
Japanese workers have in organizing their life at work? These important
questions require answers before levels of motivation and the level of
commitment in Japanese firms can be assessed. This section considers
how workloads are assembled.
4.3.1 The two-day weekend

Notions of work can be deconstructed by looking at the spread of work
across the week and “after hours.” The figures in tables 4.4 and 4.5 sug-
gest that Japan’s workweek is spread out a fair bit and a good deal of work
is done on Saturdays and Sundays. In the early 1970s the government
began to respond to foreign criticism of Japan’s long hours of work. One
corrective was the two-day weekend, and large firms took the initiative
(see table 4.5). Shorter hours of work in larger firms tended to attract the
more able graduates. Many less able graduates and others not employed
by the larger firms have had to labor at weekends in Japan’s smaller firms.
Although established institutional arrangements, intertwined with vari-
ous traditions and cultural proclivities, mediated the introduction of the
five-day workweek, the main determinant was productivity. Tsujimura
(1980) demonstrated that productivity correlated inversely with hours
of work. Firms had to alter organizational molds built around the five-
and-a-half-day workweek. Many did so by shifting a half day of work
from Saturdays back into the week (albeit with longer hours during the
week). Taking commuting and preparation time into consideration, that
small shift freed up a whole extra day each week for many employees.
The increased amount of usable leisure time resulted in a much greater
appreciation of its value. By the 1990s most employees had the two-day
weekend in some form (table 4.5).
4.3.2 Overtime
Overtime is another practice involving not only the hours worked, but also
the discretion of employees in planning for time outside normal hours of
work. Numerous writers have mentioned the extent to which the willing-
ness to work overtime has been reflected in the hyotei (the evaluation of
employees which management in many Japanese firms uses to decide on
promotions and other decisions ultimately affecting the earning poten-
tial of each employee within the firm). Table 4.6 reveals that recorded
Table 4.5 The implementation of the two-day weekend by firm size: 1994
Firms with two-day

Firms with two-day weekends twice Firms with two-day Firms with other
Firms with two-day weekends every every month or once weekends once arrangements including a
weekends every week three weeks every other week every month weekday off Percentage of
employees in firms
Percentage Percentage Percentage Percentage Percentage Percentage Percentage Percentage Percentage Percentage with a system which
of firms of of firms of of firms of of firms of of firms of allows for flexible
Firm Size employees employees employees employees employees working hours
1,000+ 70.1 80.8 17.3 12.0 9.4 15.8 1.4 0.7 1.1 0.5 46.4
300–999 44.9 48.5 28.2 28.5 19.5 40.7 4.0 3.3 4.4 2.4 38.1
100–299 30.9 33.3 20.3 20.3 34.6 41.2 7.2 6.9 6.7 5.3 28.9
30–99 18.7 19.8 15.8 17.5 35.6 34.7 16.0 14.3 13.6 12.3 26.7
Average 24.3 53.9 17.6 17.6 33.7 18.9 13.0 5.0 11.1 4.0 37.9
Source: Rodo Daijin Kanbo Seisaku Chosa Bu (1995), pp. 254 and 263.
Table 4.6 Monthly standard hours of work, overtime, and total hours of
work in Japan, 1960–2001
Year Standard hours Overtime Total hours worked Percentage of overtime
1960 180.8 21.9 202.7 10.8

1965 176.4 16.5 192.9 8.6
1970 169.9 16.7 186.6 8.9
1975 161.4 10.6 172.0 6.2
1980 163.0 12.7 175.7 7.2
1985 161.0 14.6 175.6 8.3
1986 160.8 14.4 175.2 8.2
1987 161.1 14.8 175.9 8.4
1988 160.2 15.7 175.9 8.9
1989 158.2 15.8 174.0 9.1
1990 159.0 13.0 172.0 7.6
1991 156.3 12.3 168.6 7.3
1992 154.7 10.5 165.2 6.4
1993 150.5 9.5 160.0 5.9
1994 149.8 9.4 159.2 5.9
1995 149.6 9.6 159.2 6.0
1996 149.7 9.7 159.9 6.1
1997 147.3 10.3 157.6 6.5
1998 146.8 9.6 155.9 6.2
1999 143.8 9.5 153.3 6.2
2000 144.6 9.8 154.4 6.3
2001 143.6 9.4 153.0 6.1
Notes: The figures for 1980–98 are for firms with thirty or more employees. The figures for
all other years are for firms with five or more employees.
Sources: 1960–80: Rodo Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (1982), p. 161.
1980–89: Rodo Sho (1995), p. 384.
1985–91: Rodo Daijin Kanbo Seisaku Chosa Bu (1992), p. 95.
1991–96: Rodo Sho (1999), p. 590.
1997–2001: Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2002a), p. 113.
overtime has fluctuated somewhat, but shows the same long-term decline
as is seen in the normal workweek and the days at work each month.
Overtime continues to be used by firms to adjust their labor force and
to regulate labor costs. Studies following the oil shocks in the mid-1970s
estimated that the actual unemployment rate in Japan rose to perhaps 6–8
percent, but that increase did not show up in the official statistics because
it was spread across the labor force through across-the-board reductions
in overtime.
4.3.2.1 Overtime and the wage system

The relatively high percentage of overtime worked in Japan partially
reflects the fact that salary systems are institutionalized for regular
employees in Japan’s more established firms. Florida and Kenny (1993)
suggest that this is one benefit won for workers by a very powerful union
movement following the war. Unions strove to abolish the status system
that had explicitly divided workers into white-collar employees (on guar-
anteed salaries) and production workers (on fluctuating wages which were
directly linked to the number of hours or days worked). Salaries tend to
fix labor costs and to divorce remuneration from work performed and
other considerations of labor productivity. For this reason management
in many firms has striven to restructure their remuneration systems in
ways that enhance their ability to adjust labor costs.
One technique has been to keep the standard workweek well within
the hours of work needed and to institutionalize overtime. While this
may initially increase the costs of labor by a small amount (the legally
prescribed rate or premium for overtime being only 25 percent), it greatly
increases the discretion management has over the overall supply and cost
of labor.2 Although working conditions are generally much better and the
overall number of hours worked is lower in larger firms, overtime as a pro-
portion of all hours worked actually increases with firm size (table 4.7).
4.3.2.2 Overtime and the bonus system

Another device to regulate labor costs is the deferred payment of a con-
siderable portion of the employee’s wages. Bonuses are dependent on the
2 The following example might help to clarify the workings of such an arrangement. A
firm which must pay ¥100,000 to employ a worker for forty hours a week might go
about arranging its workweek of fifty hours in two different ways. One way would have
a standard workweek of fifty hours. The cost would be another ¥25,000 in salaries for
the additional ten hours per week. However, a cutback to forty hours if business declined
would not be accompanied by a drop in average costs, as all workers would be on a
salary of ¥125,000. The second approach would be to set the standard workweek at forty
hours and pay separately for ten hours of overtime. This would cost the firm an additional
25 percent for those ten hours, bringing the total cost of labor to ¥131,250. However, labor
costs would drop to ¥100,000 when weekly hours fell to forty. Aware of the extra income
involved, unions in the 1960s and early 1970s often included a demand for a shorter
standard workweek in the annual Spring Wage Offensive. However, it has been argued
that unions did not want shorter hours of work but a reduction in the standard workweek
so that more of their hours would qualify for the overtime rate and incomes would be
increased for their members. The tradeoff for the unions and the bonus for management
was that management then had a free hand to regulate up to 20 percent of their wage costs
for the initial payment of a 5 percent differential for the additional ten hours required of
workers. Because overtime has actually been in the realm of 10–15 percent of standard
hours (as appears in table 4.6), the number of hours that could be adjusted and the
premium paid by management would have been smaller than shown in this example.
Table 4.7 Total annual hours of work and the percentage worked as overtime by firm size: 1960–2000
Firm Size 1960 Percentage 1970 Percentage 1975 Percentage 1980 Percentage 1985 Percentage 1990 Percentage 1995 Percentage 2000 Percentage
of overtime of overtime of overtime of overtime of overtime of overtime of overtime of overtime
500+ 1,987 12.5 2,225 11.5 1,999 6.5 2,093 10.0 2,102 10.9 2,066 11.9 1,912 8.4 1,898 9.1
100–499 2,027 10.0 2,236 8.9 2,063 6.6 2,090 7.7 2,101 8.6 2,054 9.3 1,914 7.4 1,852 7.7
30–99 2,070 9.9 2,254 7.4 2,106 5.5 2,134 6.5 2,117 6.9 2,042 7.5 1,912 6.5 1,850 6.7
5–29 n.a. n.a. 2,351 n.a. 2,192 n.a. 2,214 n.a. 2,173 n.a. 2,081 5.5 1,914 4.5 1,844 4.8
1–4 n.a. n.a. 2,570 n.a. 2,410 n.a. 2,312 n.a. 2,234 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.
Source: 1960–75 Rodo Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (1982), pp. 162–3.
1980–2000 Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2002a), pp. 113–15.
Table 4.8 Bonus payments as a multiple of monthly salaries in

non-agricultural industries excluding services, 1955–2000
Year Firms with thirty or more employees Firms with five or more employees
Summer Year-end Total of Summer Year-end Total of

bonus bonus bonuses bonus bonus bonuses
1955 0.71 0.91 1.62

1965 0.95 1.24 2.19
1970 1.15 1.34 2.54
1975 1.39 1.72 3.11
1980 1.55 1.78 3.33
1990 1.51 1.79 3.30 1.24 1.46 2.70
2000 1.31 1.44 2.75 1.13 1.20 2.33
Sources: Rodo Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (1982), p. 96.

Rodo Daijin Kanbo Seisaku Chosa Bu (1992), p. 120.
Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2002a), p. 130.
company’s overall performance (i.e. its ability to pay). Many firms, espe-
cially large and well-established ones, pay bonuses twice a year equivalent
in total to 2–6 months’ salary (table 4.8). A payment of bonuses equiva-
lent to two months’ salary twice a year means that one-fourth of a firm’s
labor costs can be tied to its productivity. Many employees in Japan’s
larger firms depend upon overtime pay and bonuses to cover mortgage
repayments and other large obligations. Together these might account
for 40 percent of annual income if 10 percent of working hours are
overtime and biennial bonuses total six months’ salary. Many mortgage
contracts establish a repayment schedule requiring that two large lump-
sum repayments be made at bonus time. Because bonuses are linked
to (a) the company’s overall profitability, (b) what is recorded in each
employee’s hyotei (the permanent record of management’s evaluation of
an employee’s contributions and attitude) and (c) the employee’s position
in the firm (which results from hyotei-based promotion), many employees
have difficulty refusing overtime.
4.3.2.3 Free overtime

Many employees feel the need to provide the firm with unpaid overtime
(known as “service overtime” [sabisu zangyo] in Japan). The provision
of such labor is not captured in Ministry of Labor surveys (which are
completed by firms rather than by workers themselves). This may well
explain a good part of the sizable difference between the estimates pro-
vided by the Ministry of Labor and those from the NHK survey. One
internal document from Zen Shokuhin Domei (National Federation of

Food Industry Workers’ Unions) estimated that its members performed
huge amounts of unaccounted and unpaid labor in 1993: an average of
500 hours annually on top of the 2,400 hours officially reported by the
industry.
Large amounts of overtime and sabisu zangyo tell us not only a story
of employees’ commitment to their work or their firm (in the ordinary
sense of the work ethic), but also a tale about the extent to which ordinary
employees battle to keep their heads above water financially. Kawanishi
(1992a) tells of one employee in a Hiroshima firm who was cynically
referred to by his workmates as ofurokakari (the bath captain) because
he felt that he had to stoke the bath heater at the home of his immediate
supervisor in order to maintain his position in the firm. While that is
an extreme example, Japan’s popular culture provides many examples of
the pressures put on employees to work those extra hours. That culture
includes the business novels by Shimizu Ikko (1987 and 1996), Hirose
Niki (1983 and 1989), Takasugi Ryo (1992 and 2000), and others. The
stress flowing from such impositions is also a major theme in the work of
Kumazawa whose writings were introduced in chapter 3.
4.3.2.4 Overtime away from the place of work

A good deal has been made of the after-hours demands placed on
Japanese employees, either for tsukiai – entertaining clients – or for social-
izing with workmates (Atsumi 1979). Such hours have been the subject
of considerable controversy. In this regard, it is interesting to note that
very little time is reported as being spent in such activities in the NHK
data (which shows considerably less than an hour a week being used for
socializing with one’s workmates). This suggests that the publicity given
to a small number of elites who visit classy cabarets and bars on unlim-
ited expense accounts in the large urban centers might have resulted in
the creation of an urban legend about a lifestyle that many young male
employees might aspire to (but seldom achieve). One might add to this
the demands made by some small and medium-sized firms that young
employees participate in weekend training camps. Every now and then
reports of excessive bullying and physical hardship inflicted on employ-
ees appear in the media. Such practices remind one of the rigid training
schedules imposed by many high school and university sporting clubs on
their members during holiday periods, phenomena not too distant from
pledging and other rites of passage associated with group membership in
the US several decades ago.
Table 4.9 The average number of hours spent commuting, 1990
A B C D E
Age group Weekly hours Weekly hours Annual hours men Annual hours
men spend women spend spend commuting women spend
commuting commuting (=52B) commuting (=52C)
20s 5.5 4.1 270 213

30s 5.7 1.8 296 94
40s 5.9 2.2 307 114
50s 5.6 2.0 291 104
60s 3.1 0.7 161 36
70s + 0.7 0.2 36 10
Source: NHK Yoron Chosa Bu (1992), pp. 350–7.
4.3.3 Time spent commuting

Although stopping off at a bar or at other such establishments is not
covered by the Law on Workers’ Compensation for work-related injury,
time spent in commuting between the place of work and home is, although
such time is not normally counted in hours of work. Tables 4.9 and
4.10 show that considerable time is spent commuting. Obviously, this
time is greater for office workers in the larger cities than for those in less
urbanized areas, production workers in factories on the outskirts of large
cities, and the unemployed. Still, commuting adds another 250 hours to
the annual hours given for men in table 4.4.
4.3.4 Hours of work and family life

Visitors to Japan often comment on the number of Japanese sleeping on
the train. The long hours consumed by activities related to work have
resulted in a fatigue which must surely affect the ability of many employ-
ees to work creatively and take active pleasure in their work. It would
seem likely that the time demands of work undermine the quality of
family life (Mouer 1995). Over the last decade many Japanese have started
to consider why the quality of their own lives remains so impoverished
amidst affluence, while a growing number of observers have commented
on the fatherless family as a major characteristic shaping social life and the
nature of interpersonal relationships in postwar Japan. Kumazawa (1996:
249–54) argues that long hours of work are both a source and an outcome
of the stress which comes from “working like mad to stay in place” simply
to maintain an average standard of living.
Table 4.10 Percentage distribution of the labor force by commuting time in

twelve countries, 1988
Country 0–30 30–60 60–90 90–120 Over two

minutes minutes minutes minutes hours
Japan 55.6 28.9 14.3

Into Central Tokyo: 1975 3.4 39.0 40.0 14.7 2.9
Into Central Tokyo: 1985 2.7 35 41.0 17.0 3.5
All EC countries 75 15 5
Belgium 72 20 8
West Germany 73 25 2
Denmark 82 16 2
France 74 18 8
Ireland 70 26 4
Italy 78 20 2
Luxembourg 81 17 2
Holland 81 15 4
UK 75 20 5
Source: Based on data from the Prime Minister’s Office (Somucho Tokei Kyoku), the
Ministry for International Trade and Industry (Tsusan Sho) and the Ministry for Trans-
portation and Communications (Unyu Sho) as provided in Osono (1995), p. 129.
4.3.5 Working away from one’s family

A different form of commuting further highlights the powerlessness of the
employee in Japan’s corporate world: the phenomenon known as tanshin
fu-nin, when a parent is given a work assignment requiring him or her
to live apart from their family for an extended period in order to have
a career in the corporate world. This occurs primarily in Japan’s larger
firms. While size allows a firm to provide its employees with higher wages
and with a measure of social status, it also brings an extensive internal
labor market and offices at distant locations. Those transferred far away
by their employer are mostly men.
Another group similarly situated consists of those stationed overseas.
For a good while, especially before 1970 when foreign exchange restric-
tions were still in place, many employees were sent on overseas assign-
ment as kaigai fu-ninsha. While the number working abroad who are
accompanied by their families has increased dramatically over the past
twenty years, Tsuchiya (1995: 169–75) writes that family separation
has posed serious problems for some employees, and that a number of
cases of “abnormal behavior” can be attributed to enforced “bachelor-
hood” abroad. He goes on to indicate that many firms have started to
relax restrictions on family members joining fathers on their overseas
assignments, and that some firms have even encouraged them to reside
abroad with the employee. The point to be made here is that firms only
accommodate the interests of their employees when it is largely in the
interest of the firm to do so. A careful reading of the literature on this
phenomenon will reveal that companies link decisions on these kinds of
matters to considerations of productivity. Management often expects its
employees to adjust their lifestyle to accommodate the interests of the
firm.
Associated with the overseas posting of businessmen are the prob-
lems of the kaigai-kikoku shijo (children overseas and returnee children).
Having received considerable attention in the 1980s and early 1990s
(Mabuchi 2001), the barriers confronting these children in the education
system have steadily receded, and many returnees now find themselves
advantaged in some ways when it comes to obtaining entry to a good
university (Goodman 1992). While one might conclude that this reflects
the spread of more multicultural values, as more Japanese come to appre-
ciate the merit which flows from being proficient in other languages and
familiar with other cultures, many of the changes have resulted from
the pressure placed by Japanese management on “the system.” Man-
agers have used the vocabulary of “internationalization” (kokusaika) and
“living together in the world community” (kyosei) to press for changes
in the system of education that will primarily benefit their own off-
spring. Mabuchi (2001) has argued that the dynamics of social class
have been overlooked in much of the discussion on the kaigai-kikoku
shijo.
4.3.6 Absenteeism
Numerous writers on worker motivation have used low absenteeism as
a measure of high commitment to work and the work organization (e.g.
Whitehill and Takezawa 1968; Azumi and Hull 1982; Marsh and Mannari
1976). However, several features contribute to historically low levels of
absenteeism in Japan. Japanese firms do not have a recognized system for
sick leave. Employees do not have a right to phone so many mornings a
year and simply report without documentation that illness is keeping them
from work. To the extent that firms acknowledge the need for such time
off, it is granted more in the form of compassionate leave. This contrasts
to some European countries where employees have abused their use of
“sickies” by claiming RSI or other injuries in order to take a holiday.
Japanese firms also take a much stricter approach to lateness. In the
past a considerable slice of the day’s pay has often been deducted for
undocumented lateness.
Table 4.11 International comparison of working days

lost to industrial disputes in the early 1990s
Country Days lost per 1,000 employees
Japan 2.26
USA 46.14
UK 66.59
France 21.74
Germany 12.21
Italy 217.72
Source: The figures were calculated by the authors from figures

on days lost in 1993 owing to industrial disputes and the number
of persons in each labor force in 1990 as appeared in Rodo Daijin
Kanbo Seisaku Chosa Bu (1995), pp. 334 and 336.
Table 4.11 reveals considerable variations among nations in working

days lost owing to industrial disputes. Kumazawa’s data (1996: 5–6)
clearly shows, however, that these differences among countries narrowed
considerably between 1970 and the early 1990s. Sugimoto’s (1977) com-
parison of industrial disputes in Japan and Australia in the 1950s and
1970s showed a long-term decline in both countries. Kumazawa argues
that the global trend is for days lost to decline when liberal governments
sympathetic to labor are in power, noting that Japan is an exception,
with disruptive action declining under a firmly entrenched conserva-
tive government. Global movements in ideology and a general spread
of the conservative, anti-unionist ideologies associated with Thatcherism
and Reaganomics have probably been a more important factor behind
the long-term decline in disputes. Free-market ideology enjoyed a long-
term ascendancy as the cold war progressed and was eventually won
by the forces for capitalism. Such ideologies were further legitimated
by the Western attention given to the Japanese miracle and the subse-
quent “learn-from-Japan boom” that accompanied the decline of social-
ist systems in the 1970s and 1980s. These changes also accompanied the
decline in unionization rates in most of the advanced economies.
4.3.7 Underutilization of accrued annual leave

Another facet of low absenteeism in Japan is the underutilization of annual
leave. Teruoka (1990: 119) presents data collected by Zenkoku Kensetsu
Kanren Rokyo (the National Federation of Construction Workers’ Asso-
ciations) in the late 1980s showing that workers feel compelled to save
Table 4.12 The accrual and use of annual leave, 2001
A B C
Firm size (number Average number Average number of Leave consumption
of employees) of days of annual days of annual paid rate (100B/A)
paid leave accrued leave actually used
1,000+ 19.4 10.6 54.6

300–999 18.2 8.7 47.6
100–299 17.1 7.7 45.4
30–99 16.4 7.3 44.6
Source: Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2002a), p. 122.
accrued annual paid leave for a rainy day. Forty percent of the workers in
that survey reported that they used some of their paid annual leave enti-
tlement for illness; 30 percent did so for days they were simply too tired
to get out of bed; and another 30 percent did so to look after family mem-
bers. Although the law provides for menstruation leave, it is unpaid, and
17 percent of the women in the survey said they took annual leave on days
when they had severe menstrual pain. Only 30 percent replied that they
used annual leave for leisure or recreation. Twenty percent said they used
annual leave to take care of legal matters, to attend a wedding, and to deal
with other official matters. Only 2 percent answered that leave was used
for community or organizational activities. Teruoka (1990: 120) also cites
a Ministry of Labor Survey showing a steady decline in the willingness
of workers in firms with thirty or more employees to use their annual
leave. The consumption rate dropped from 62.1 percent in 1970 to
50.2 percent in 1987 and then from 54.1 percent in 1990 to 49.5 per-
cent in 2000, albeit with an increase over that same period in the absolute
number from 14.4 days accrued in 1980 to 18.0 days in 2000 (Rodo Dai-
jin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu 1982: 176; and Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo
Tokei Joho Bu 2002a: 123).
Table 4.12 reveals sizable differences in the amount of paid annual leave
accrued by workers in Japan’s large and small firms. It also highlights two
other facts. First, employees in all firms generally use only half of their
accrued leave. While this is often interpreted as evidence of a strong
work ethic, the institutional constraints explained above in section 4.3.6
need to be considered. Second, even in consuming only half of their
annual leave, many employees in Japan’s large firms still take close to ten
days a year, roughly equivalent to the situation in many American firms
where the practice of providing only two weeks of annual paid leave to all
employees is fairly well entrenched.
4.4 Labor-force participation

Consideration of labor-force participation provides another perspective
linking the work ethic, social structure, and the economy’s overall per-
formance. For the economy to grow, competitive sectors with high pro-
ductivity must expand their labor force. More skilled labor is drawn to
those sectors by recruiting new employees from outside the labor force
or by shifting workers from activities with low returns to activities with
high returns. The likelihood of getting persons to shift jobs and change
firms is enhanced when replacements can be found for those lower down
the productivity chain. The first wave of replacements was brought from
agricultural activity to secondary industry at a frantic pace in the 1950s
and 1960s. Thereafter came the expansion of part-time and other forms
of casual employment.
A number of mechanisms facilitated the shift of workers from sunset
industries to sunrise industries. The spread of part-time work accompa-
nied the movement of women into the labor force, although care needs
to be taken in making this argument, as the labor-force participation for
women has remained remarkably stable at around 50 percent for some
time. The long-term impact of the Douglas-Long-Arisawa effect (the
propensity of married women to withdraw from the labor force as their
husband’s salary increases over time) seems to have been offset by the
desire of households to achieve the ever more expensive lifestyles associ-
ated with the upper middle class. Obi (1980) observed this in the early
1970s. Since then many women have shifted from full-time employment
with relatively poor working conditions to part-time work with relatively
better conditions, thereby maintaining income while also limiting the
opportunity costs accruing to the household when a family member works
outside.
Many countries have overcome “labor shortages” by importing work-
ers, either as guests (e.g. in Germany and Japan) or as new members of the
body politic (e.g. in multicultural Australia or in the American “melting
pot”). Japan’s reliance on outside labor has been negligible; most addi-
tions to its labor force have come from within (e.g. as part-time workers
[housewives], as contracted sessionals [older workers over the nominal
retirement age], or as arubaito [students]). Though Japan generally failed
to absorb large numbers of refugees from Vietnam in the late 1970s, the
bubble years were accompanied by a tightening of the labor market. The
high aspirations spawned by the bubble years lowered the willingness of
many Japanese to do work characterized by “the three Ds” (danger, dirt,
and difficulty) (known as “the three Ks” in Japan: kitanai, kikenna, and
kitsui). The strong yen also drew many foreigners to Japan to work both
legally and illegally. By the late 1990s over one million foreigners were
living in Japan, and one out of every forty persons living in Tokyo was a
foreigner with permanent residency. This is an important fact not only
when considering the directions in which Japanese society is moving in
terms of its internationalization and multiculturalization, but also when
considering hours of work and the work ethic in Japan.
Much has been written over the last decade about the changing values
of the Japanese. Some have argued that a new generation has brought a
different outlook to the workplace. Many catchphrases have been used to
capture the essence of the new attitudes: yawarakai kojinshugi (soft indi-
vidualism), shinjinrai (the new humanism), etc. However, the percentage
of men aged between 15 and 64 who are working has remained remark-
ably stable over time. So too has the percentage of women, although there
has been a slight rise in the participation rate of women in the middle age
groups.
Despite the apparent shifts in the lifestyle and perhaps the thinking of
many Japanese over the past ten to twenty years with regard to work, other
factors have also been important. One of these has been the changing age
profile of the population. Although the labor-force participation rate of
those aged 15–64 has been rather stable over that period, the propor-
tion of the population constituting that age group has grown throughout
the postwar period. Moreover, a good number of people aged over 65
are working. As a result, the percentage of the total population gainfully
employed grew by three percentage points between 1980 (47.29 percent)
and 2000 (50.79 percent) (Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu
2002a: 20 and 30). As items I and J in table 4.13 indicate, consider-
ably more Japanese were gainfully employed in the early 1990s than were
their counterparts in several other advanced economies. While five out of
every ten Japanese were actually working to produce goods and services,
only four out of ten persons in Italy and France were doing so. From
the point of view of the national economy, this means that each working
person in Japan was supporting one other person, whereas in the other
two countries every person was supporting 1.5 other people. Arguments
about productivity aside, the consequences for national savings and their
contribution to economic productivity should be obvious. These consid-
erations move key reference points even further from simple notions of
labor productivity in terms of the hourly output of individual workers.
Another consideration here is unemployment. Until the 1990s Japan
had exceptionally low unemployment. One benefit to economies with
low unemployment is that fewer persons drain surplus from the econ-
omy while not making any contribution to it. Japan’s approach to man-
aging unemployment has reaped other benefits as well. These include
Table 4.13 Comparative figures on labor-force participation for six countries

in the early 1990s
Japan USA UK France Germany Italy

1993 1993 1993 1993 1992 1991
1. Overall labor-force participation rates

A. Total population (in millions) 124.7 259.4 57.2 57.5 64.7 57.1
B. Labor force (in millions) 66.2 129.5 28.8 25.7 31.9 24.2
C. Number of persons in the 0.246 1.914 0.294 0.432 0.246 n.a.
military: 1992 (in millions)
D. Civilian labor force (in 65.9 127.6 28.5 25.3 31.6 n.a.
millions)
E. Percentage of the population 63.8 63.3 62.4 55.0 58.3 50.1
aged over 15 in the labor force
F. Percentage of total population 53.1 49.9 50.3 44.7 49.3 42.5
in the labor force (=100B/A)
G. Percentage of total population 52.9 49.2 49.8 44.0 48.9 n.a.
in the civilian labor force
(= 100 D/A)
H. Unemployment rate (%) for 2.5 6.8 10.4 10.8 6.7 10.9
(B) above
I. Percentage of the total 51.8 46.5 45.1 40.0 46.0 37.9
population actively employed
when corrected for
unemployment
[=F ×(100−H)]
J. Percentage of the total 51.6 45.9 44.4 39.2 45.6 n.a.
population actively employed
in the civilian labor force when
corrected for unemployment
[=G × (100−H)]
Japan USA UK France Germany Italy
2. Labor-force participation rates by age group and gender

Males 15–19 19.0 39.8 61.1 9.8 39.4 32.2
Females 15–19 17.4 38.4 58.0 6.7 34.3 19.3
Males 20–64 90.3 80.5 85.5 74.6 82.2 83.0
Females 20–64 58.2 66.8 66.8 60.5 59.5 44.0
Males 65+ 37.7 15.2 7.4 2.5 4.9 8.1
Females 65+ 15.9 7.5 3.5 1.3 2.0 2.2
Note: Some figures may appear to be slightly out as the raw figures with more significant digits
were used for some calculations.
Sources: Rodo Daijin Kanbo Seisaku Chosa Bu (1995), pp. 332 and 334.
Yano Tsuneo Ki-nenkai (1993), p. 562 (for row C only).
the maintenance of social order and an incidence of crime lower than

in some societies with institutionalized poverty. Some have argued that
Japan’s lower unemployment rates were accompanied by high levels of
compulsion to work and the associated stress. The unemployment sys-
tem still adopts a rather punitive and coercive approach that makes the
dole an unattractive option for most Japanese. While benefits paid to
the unemployed may be satisfactory and training is provided in a pos-
itive manner, the fact remains that the benefits for many stop after a
maximum of 180 days. The fact that the unemployed in Australia could
until recently receive quite generous benefits for an unlimited time is
very difficult for many Japanese business persons and policy makers to
comprehend. This meant that with a 10 percent unemployment rate
Australia was a society in which over 90 percent of the relevant popu-
lation worked without any compulsion, whereas in Japan 2–3 percent of
that population chose not to work even though considerable pressure to
do so was exerted. Put this way, it is not so obvious that Japanese have
had the better work ethic, despite the fact that a larger percentage of their
population was in some way employed. Another factor to consider is the
relationship between the centrally determined living wage and the unem-
ployment rate. Management and government advisers in Japan tend to
argue that higher minimum wage rates contribute to higher unemploy-
ment. Although Japan enacted minimum wage legislation in 1958, the
rate has always been below the going rate in the open labor market and
has not served as a safety net for anyone. This points to tradeoffs which
need to be recognized not only in evaluating work organization in Japan
in normative terms, but also in considering the weight to be given to
cultural factors when looking for explanations.
Returning to consider Japan’s savings rate and general economic com-
petitiveness, one might also note the small number of resources Japan
devotes to defense. This is not simply a matter of shifting expenditure
from military to investment goods. It is also a matter of how the labor
force is assigned to spend its time. Large powers like the US, Russia, and
China – and a few highly mobilized societies such as Israel or the Koreas –
have large numbers of people in the military. Japan has a small military,
and a larger proportion of its work force is employed in factories and
offices. This adds to the percentage of the population that is gainfully
employed in ways linked to the production of GNP and the economy’s
international competitiveness.
When adjustments are made for those in the military and for those
who are unemployed (rows C and H in table 4.13), substantial differences
emerge in terms of the percentage of the entire population which is work-
ing (row J). Japan has a larger working population (though not necessarily
Table 4.14 Real difference in hours of work per person in the population,
circa 1992–3
A B C D E
Country Percentage of Annual hours Index with Hours worked in Index with
population in the of work in Germany economic production Germany set
civilian labor force who 1992 (from set at 1.00 per person in the at 1.00
are actively employed table 4.2) population
(Row J in table 4.13) [=(A×B)/100]
Japan 51.6 2,017 1.29 1,041 1.46

USA 45.9 1,957 1.25 898 1.26
UK 44.4 1,911 1.22 848 1.19
France 39.2 1,682 1.07 659 0.92
Germany 45.6 1,567 1.00 715 1.00
Source: The figures in this table have been taken from tables 4.2 and 4.13.
one with a more developed work ethic). The figures on annual hours of
work in table 4.2 and those on labor-force participation in table 4.13 have
been brought together in table 4.14 to provide a further perspective on
the different amounts of labor Japanese and Western Europeans put into
their respective national economies on a per capita basis for the entire
population (as opposed to just the gainfully employed). The differences
in the early 1990s were not negligible.
Japanese management has continued in public forums to lament that
the work ethic of the younger generation has declined and to exhort
employees to work harder. Older employees have romanticized their long
hours of work in the past. On the other hand, younger employees have
been enthusiastic for more leisure-time activity. These generational dif-
ferences are not unique to Japan. They generally fit into a Mannheimian
framework, and more sanguine observers look to the demographic pro-
file to explain these perspectives. A 1997 study by the Kokuritsu Shakai
Hosho Jinko Mondai Kenkyujo (National Institute for the Study of Social
Welfare and the Population) indicated that the Japanese population will
likely drop from the 2010s onwards, but notes that the number of per-
sons aged between 15 and 64 (an age group that increased throughout the
postwar period) will drop even more dramatically (Nihon Keizai Shimbun
[chokan], 28 March 1997, pp. 1 and 3). This means that Japan will come
to have a population with proportionally fewer people working and an
increasingly large group of dependent individuals unless the already high
labor-force participation rate for those over 65 increases further.
These changes will slow down the Japanese economy and result in
attention shifting from the alleged work ethic of the Japanese. At the
same time, the drive to secure good-quality labor will be reflected in the
way the organization of work is revamped in Japan over the next ten to
twenty years. That will in turn impact significantly on how Japan inter-
nationalizes. With regard to bringing in foreign labor, Japan is likely to
follow a path between the American and the Australian experiences. The
melting pot approach of the US has allowed successive waves of migrants
to flow in at the bottom of the labor market to do work characterized
by the three Ks and then to be “bumped up” the occupational ladder as
newer arrivals replace them in the bottom labor markets. The multicul-
tural approach of Australia has been somewhat more careful in targeting
skilled persons, with migrants from a broader spectrum of social classes
integrating into society. The costs associated with the enculturalization of
newcomers are not insignificant, and the tradeoffs between productivity
and reformulated notions of social justice will likely alter perceptions of
the work ethic in Japan.
Part III
Processing labor through Japan’s

labor markets
5 Change and challenge in the labor market
Today is May Day, eighty some years on from the first May Day in
1920 . . . It has been a bleak year for labor. This year’s Spring Offensive
resulted in no gains for most, and even a cut in wages for some. Job
security, a traditional priority for Japan’s unions, has been undermined
by corporate lay-offs . . .
There is also positive news in signs of an economic recovery. However,
real economic growth, meaning restructuring, is needed. More effort
must be put into creating . . . opportunities for students to acquire the
new IT technology that can be immediately used at work. Steps need
to be taken to implement work sharing. Changes are needed so that
demand for nursing care and other services can be met. Employers must
stop forcing workers to put in unpaid overtime . . . The gap in working
conditions for regular and part-time workers must be closed . . . With-
out movement in these directions, new ways of working will not
emerge (editorial in the Tokyo Shimbun [morning edition], 1 May 2002,
p. 4).
5.1 The winds of change

The decision of many Japanese to work as they do is fundamentally shaped
by their options in a very segmented labor market that tends to lock
each individual into a clearly delineated niche. A number of dualities
characterize Japan’s labor market. Internal labor markets are also dif-
ferentiated. Educational histories determine entry into the labor market
and entrenched hierarchies influence job choices in the segmented labor
market. The 2002 May Day editorial above argues that Japan is being
challenged to replace that labor market. As China displaces Japan’s role
as a major manufacturing center, labor market reform will be crucial to
any plan to revitalize Japan’s economy.
Figure 5.1 shows how Japan’s labor market has been structured over
the past forty to fifty years. It compares the situation in Japan with that
in Australia. Mobility in Japan is primarily downward or laterally out of
the privileged large-scale sector. Some time ago Koshiro (1982b) wrote
97
A. Labor market flows in Japan
Educational system
Primary
M Secondary M+F
M Tertiary F+M
PERMANENT EMPLOYEES ON NON-PERMANENT EMPLOYEES

CAREER TRACKS (LARGELY FEMALES)
Primary labor force

Large firms The aristocracy of labor
(largely males)
SECONDARY LABOR MARKET

Small and
medium-
sized firms
B. Labor market flows in Australia

Educational system
Primary
M+F Secondary M+F
M+F Tertiary M+F
PERMANENT EMPLOYEES ON NON-PERMANENT EMPLOYEES

CAREER TRACKS (LARGELY FEMALES)
Primary labor force

Large firms The aristocracy of labor
(largely males)
SECONDARY LABOR MARKET

Small and
medium-
sized firms
Figure 5.1 The structuring of the labor market in Japan, entry into its
segments and the paths for downward mobility (circa 1990).
Source: Mouer (1989), p. 118.
Change and challenge in the labor market 99
about the scarcity of good jobs and the difficulty of gaining employment
in the privileged sectors of Japan’s labor market.
Many Japanese focus on how they and others are positioned in a num-
ber of cross-cutting labor markets. Graduates compete hard to get into
the best-placed market and then strive to avoid slipping into a less well-
positioned one. Entry into the elite market of Japan’s largest and most
prestigious firms has traditionally been reserved for male graduates from
Japan’s better universities and a few select high schools and technical
institutes.
For many Japanese competition for the superior jobs began in middle
school and this has shaped a good deal of the behavior in postwar Japan:
examination hell, the cramming and various psychological ploys associ-
ated with entrance examinations, the annual round of hiring ending in
March each year, internal politics in many firms, amakudari (the prac-
tice of well-positioned bureaucrats being allocated sinecures in the private
sector after a career in the public sector), and the maneuvering for promo-
tion in private firms in order to secure the best post-retirement positions
in affiliated firms. The sagas of the moretsu shain (the gung-ho company
employee) unfolded in firms large enough to have internal markets and
competitive jostling was the basis for a whole genre of business novels
as discussed by Tao (1996). Authors such as Shimizu Ikko, Shiroyama
Saburo, and Takasugi Ryo come immediately to mind. When firms came
under financial pressure they simply demanded more of their employ-
ees, and the phenomena associated with karoshi (death from overwork)
emerged.
This chapter describes multiple ways in which Japan’s labor market is
segmented, the tiering of markets, the difficulty of moving from lower to
higher markets, and the consequences of cascading down the tiers when
someone does not live up to expectations. In the 1990s Japan’s labor
markets were altered by a number of changes: increased international
competition owing to globalization, government policies deregulating the
labor market, industrial restructuring, rising unemployment, a record
number of bankruptcies, a greater willingness of individuals (especially
young people) to critically assess options in the labor force, and new
corporate strategies to adapt to these kinds of changes. New levels of
affluence and the appreciation of the yen presented Japan’s youth with
options altogether outside the labor market.
This chapter looks briefly at Japan’s rising unemployment rate and
then at the legal framework that delimits the labor market in Japan. After
discussing the organization of internal and external labor markets, the
chapter examines the markets for new graduates, women, employees in
foreign firms, and the growing number of foreign workers.
100 Processing labor through Japan’s labor markets
5.2 The overall dimensions of the labor market

As discussed in chapter 4, Japan has a fairly high labor-force participation
rate. Table 5.1 shows the participation rate falling for males aged over
14 from around 85 percent in the mid-1950s to just over 75 percent
at the turn of the century. It fell for women from 55 percent in 1955
to just under 46 percent by 1975, but it has risen to hover around 50
percent since 1990. Table 5.1 also reveals a steady shift between 1955
and 1995 in the distribution of the labor-force toward employment and
away from entrepreneurial engagement. For women the movement has
also been away from family-run businesses to which they contributed
without formally being remunerated. The gross figures do not reveal the
extent to which employment has been casualized. The other major change
has been the rising unemployment rate during the 1990s.
The labor-force participation rate of those aged over 65 stands out.
Table 5.2 shows how labor-force participation varies by age. First, there
is very little gender difference for those aged 15–24. Nearly everyone
becomes employed upon graduation (at 18 for most school leavers and
for most tertiary graduates). Second, labor-force participation drops off
markedly for females aged over 60. Third, the M-shaped labor-force par-
ticipation curve for women has begun to flatten out. The dip still exists,
but it is now much less pronounced than in the early 1970s. Women
aged 25–35 have noticeably increased their participation. Several changes
account for this. The curve for women with higher education is rounded
upwards without the dip; the traditional M-shaped curve now fits only
those with a senior high school education. The postponement of marriage
and childbirth has spread out the absence of women from the labor force
so that the dip is less pronounced for women in their early thirties.
Table 5.2 shows that the participation rate for Japanese aged over 65
is high by international standards. Policymakers in contemporary Japan
have frequently commented on the falling ratio of the working population
to the dependent population as society ages. They are concerned about
Japan’s ability to support its retired labor force adequately. The propor-
tion of the population aged over 65 has increased from 7.9 percent in
1975 to 16.7 percent in 1999, while the proportion of the population
aged under 15 (for which the participation rate is zero) has dropped
from 24.3 percent to 14.8 percent and the number of Japanese of work-
ing age between 15 and 65 have increased from 67.7 to 68.5 percent
(Yano Tsuneta Ki-nenkai 2001: 43). As the aged population continues
to expand, any downward shift in the currently high labor-force participa-
tion rate among Japan’s older population will require a major adjustment
in a range of social institutions.
Table 5.1 Labor-force participation for males and females in Japan, 1955–2000
1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
Number in the labor force (in 10,000 s) 2,455 2,884 3,270 3,503 3,843 3,858 3,892 3,858 3,831 3,817
M Labor force as a % of total population 56 59 59 58 62 62 63 62 61 61
A Participation rate as a % of population
L aged 15+ 86 82 81 78 78 78 78 77 77 76
E Unemployment rate 2.6 1.1 2.0 2.6 3.1 3.4 3.4 4.2 4.8 4.9
S
Distribution of as employees 52 69 76 79 84 84 84 84 84 84
gainfully as self-employed 32 23 20 18 14 14 14 14 14 14
employed in family employment 16 8 4 3 2 2 2 2 2 2
F Number in the labor force (in 10,000s) 1,740 1,903 1,987 2,367 2,701 2,719 2,760 2,767 2,755 2,753
E Labor force as a % of total population 38 38 35 38 42 42 42 42 42 42
M Participation rate as a % of population
A aged 15+ 57 51 46 49 50 50 50 50 50 49
L Unemployment rate 2.3 1.3 1.7 2.7 3.2 3.3 3.4 4.0 4.5 4.5
E
S Distribution of as employees 31 48 59 67 78 79 79 79 80 81
gainfully as self-employed 16 14 14 12 8 8 8 8 8 8
employed in family employment 53 36 25 20 12 11 11 11 11 11
Source: Taken from successive reports of the Rodoryoku Chosa (Labor Force Survey) which has been conducted monthly since 1947 and is now
administered by the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecomunications. The figures in this table
have been transferred and processed from the Labor White Paper for 2001 (Kosei Rodo Sho 2001a), pp. 234–6.
Table 5.2 Male and female labor-force participation rates by age

group, 1990 and 2001
Males Females
Age group 1990 2001 1990 2001
15–19 18.3 17.9 17.8 17.5

20–24 71.7 71.9 75.1 72.0
25–29 96.1 95.4 61.4 71.1
30–34 97.5 97.2 51.7 58.8
35–39 97.8 97.8 62.6 62.3
40–44 97.6 97.7 69.9 70.1
44–49 97.3 97.2 71.7 72.7
50–54 96.3 96.3 65.5 68.2
55–59 92.1 93.9 53.9 58.4
60–64 72.9 72.0 39.5 39.5
65+ 36.5 32.9 16.2 13.8
Americans aged 65+ 16.9 8.9
Germans aged 65+ 4.5 1.6
Note: The data for America and Germany are for 1999.
Source: The figures for Japan are taken from successive reports of the Rodoryoku
Chosa (Labor Force Survey) which has been conducted monthly since 1947 and is
now administered by the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Public Management,
Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications. The figures in this table have been
transferred and processed from the 2001 White Paper on the Labor Economy
(Kosei Rodo Sho 2001a), pp. 234–6. The figures for America and Germany are
from the ILO’s Yearbook of Labor Statistics as published in the 2001 Welfare and
Labor White Paper (Kosei Rodo Sho 2001b), p. 43.
5.3 Unemployment
After four decades of extremely low unemployment rates, the situation
deteriorated considerably in the 1990s. The unemployment rate doubled
from just over 1 percent in the 1960s to just under 3 percent in the 1980s.
It then surpassed 3 percent in 1995, 4 percent in 1998 and 5 percent in
July 2001. Considering how narrow the definition is for counting the
unemployed in Japan’s statistics and the downward adjustments made in
overtime, the situation is likely to have a greater impact on ordinary people
than is shown in the statistics. The oil shocks of the 1970s reminded
policymakers that a good deal of unemployment was disguised as a result
of across-the-board reductions in overtime. In the 1990s employers were
more willing to concentrate unemployment on a few individuals rather
than spreading it across their entire workforce.
It is interesting to note that about 40 percent of women leaving jobs
did so for personal reasons (jihatsuteki rishoku). Only a quarter of female
separations involved the women being “pushed out” (hijihatsuteki rishoku)

as opposed to about 40 percent for men. These patterns have been fairly
stable over the past two decades. However, the statistics are blurred by
the practice of recruiting large numbers of “voluntary” retirees (kibo
taishokusha) for whom the pain of separation may be eased by the use of
an early retirement scheme. The statistics also do not include as involun-
tary separations many others who receive no package but are informally
tapped on the shoulder and told their time is up (a practice known as
“katatataki”).
It is important to note that the definition of unemployment used in pro-
ducing Japan’s official statistics is very narrow. To be counted as unem-
ployed in the monthly Labor Force Survey, a respondent must have been
completely unemployed but actively looking for work during the last week
of the preceding month. Those who have worked as little as one hour in
the last week after being completely unemployed over the first three weeks
of that month are not counted as unemployed. The “employed” include
unpaid family workers, those on various forms of leave, and those doing
no work but still on an employer’s payroll. Those who are so unem-
ployable that they have given up actively looking for work through the
Employment Security Office are not counted as unemployed. Japan’s
narrow definition of unemployment contrasts to that used in America
where all who have looked for work over the past month are counted
as unemployed. In Germany and France the unemployed are those who
have received unemployment benefit during the period covered by the
survey.
Given the difficulty of making international comparisons, one cannot
simply conclude that Japan’s unemployment rate has been low. Some time
ago Nakamura (1995: 59 and 165) suggested that a distinction should be
drawn between full employment and total employment. Japan has tradi-
tionally been good at having large numbers employed (total employment)
in non-productive activity that resulted in considerable underutilization
(less than full employment). This situation was noted recently in a survey
of the Japanese economy undertaken by the OECD (2001: 44–7) which
commented on the variation in total factor productivity between various
sectors of the Japanese economy.
5.4 Structural change and insecurity

The recent increase in Japan’s official rates of unemployment reflects
larger changes accompanying Japan’s integration into the global economy.
The work culture of Japan was for a long time cast in terms of the country’s
prodigious manufacturing sector. However, Japan’s competitive edge in
manufacturing was challenged in the 1990s. In Japan’s established auto
industry Matsuda decided in 2001 to release 2,210 employees. Isuzu

followed with 740; and then Mitsubishi Motors with 1,382. Sony
announced plans to close fifteen of its seventy factories in Japan (ASC
25 August 2001: 7). A succession of established firms followed: Fujitsu
(16,000 persons), NEC (4,000), Aiwa (a Sony subsidiary) (400), Toshiba
(20,000), and Matsushita (5,000). The new economy offered little
certainty even for employees in Japan’s largest and most elite firms.
The above companies all had well-established reputations for providing
employment security above all, in line with the founder of Matsushita/
Panasonic Matsushita Konosuke’s outspoken promotion of paternalis-
tic management and his rhetoric fully embracing all employees even in
the worst economic downturn. The prestige associated with the unions
at these firms had also rested on the perception that they had success-
fully fought to protect their members’ jobs above all else. The symbolism
of those layoffs for ordinary Japanese was not lost: employment was no
longer guaranteed in any segment of the labor market.
Japan’s financial crisis in the early 1990s contributed significantly to
fracturing the understandings and the confidence upon which old ways
of doing business had been based. Although direct foreign investment
began in the early 1970s, when small manufacturers in textiles and other
light industries began to move operations overseas following the floating
of the dollar in August 1971, the rising costs of domestic production,
the demand for greater accountability financially and environmentally,
the advantages of producing on the other side of tariff barriers, rapidly
accumulating reserves of foreign exchange, and further appreciation of
the yen motivated many of Japan’s larger manufacturers to step up the
transfer of production to overseas sites.
The effects of these trends were recently summarized by the president
of Nihon Densan (Japan’s top manufacturer of small precision motors):
Manufacturing today is characterized by a labor surplus in some areas and by

marked shortages in others. While we face high labor turnover among newly
employed graduates, we are also stuck with a good proportion of middle-aged
employees who are being paid more than their productivity warrants. The problem
is that in terms of skills and seniority we have some serious mismatches [in the
labor market](ASC, 4 September 2001: 13).
The loss of Japan’s competitiveness in manufacturing is now a big con-

cern in Japan. From late 2001 the media has suggested that Japan
is at a crossroads. The influential Asahi Shimbun, for example, ran a
series entitled “The Strength of Manufacturing: The Cornerstones for
Recovery” (29 April – 4 May 2002). It acknowledged China’s unbeatable
competitive edge in labor-intensive areas, and noted the drop in Japan’s
overall international competitiveness, citing European research which

indicated that Japan had dropped from first position in 1991–3 to
thirteenth in 2002 (3 May: 11). The series concluded with an empha-
sis on the need for business leadership to motivate Japan’s labor force
(4 May: 7). Nissan’s three-year 108 Plan calls for the company to open a
joint venture in China (NKSC, 10 May 2002: 3; ASC, 10 May 2002: 3).
Mitsubishi’s plans to cooperate with Germany’s Daimler to manufacture
in China have also attracted attention. Another special feature article in
Nikkei Bijinesu (6 May 2002) questioned whether small businesses, the
backbone of the Japanese economy, would survive. Many, such as Yoshida
(2001), a distinguished professor of economics at Osaka and Kyoto uni-
versities, recognize that Japan has somehow fallen behind and that the
change necessary to catch up is going to be particularly painful for those
in Japan’s labor force.
Globalization has also worked to free up Japanese markets to imports.
In 2002 most observers predicted that there would be continuing pressure
on firms to restructure. In their special report for the Far Eastern Economic
Review, Kruger and Fuyuno (2002) describe how cheap Chinese imports
have undercut the centuries-old ceramics and textile industries in Gifu
with labor costs that are one-tenth to one-thirtieth those in Japan. For a
long time Japanese believed they were manning the factory of the world;
now China has taken over that mantle. At the same time large-scale retail-
ers muscle in with more cheaply produced goods from China. Such com-
petition cannot be met by the myriad of small shops which constitute sta-
tion shopping areas (shotengai) throughout Japan. Reports in 2002 that
Wal-Mart might soon be opening outlets in Japan is disturbing news for
Japan’s retailers. At all levels economic life is being rationalized.
The Ministry of Welfare and Labor distinguishes between structural
unemployment owing to friction or mismatching in the labor market
(resulting from long-term shifts in the market for goods and services) and
unemployment owing to a drop in demand for a specific product or service
(because of short-term cyclical fluctuations). Reflecting wider recession-
ary conditions during the 1990s the contribution of structured unem-
ployment to overall unemployment fell from over 90 percent to under
80 percent. However, long-term unemployment continues to result from
the difficulties labor markets are having in shifting labor to more produc-
tive activities, as businesses attempt to recast Japan’s industrial structure
in the face of globalization. These difficulties are one measure of how
effectively Japan’s various labor markets are functioning. While internal
labor markets, tiered subcontracting and the use of multiple employ-
ment statuses have enhanced the leverage of management in dealing with
labor, inefficiencies in Japan’s labor markets have been exposed by global
competition – not just in terms of individual firms but also in terms of

the national economy. Reacting to this situation, large-scale players in the
private sector have pushed hard to deregulate the labor market.
In the past firms adjusted costs by cutting off subcontractors, by alter-
ing conditions, by not hiring part-time or other non-regular workers on
annual contracts, and by regulating overtime. (In this discussion, it is
important to remember that reductions in hours worked do not reduce
costs for most of Japan’s regular employees, white-collar and blue-collar,
who are on a salary.) Although each of these strategies reinforces the
sense of economic insecurity among non-permanent employees, they do
not seriously alter patterns of labor market segmentation. Permanent
employees are still permanent employees, and their market in the large-
scale sector still attracts an army of hopeful aspirants who work hard to
position themselves as best they can in the education system as a prelude
to entering into one of the tiered labor markets.
Until the 1990s, much of the structural change was in terms of
small shifts in demand (requiring, for example, either a change in the
volume produced or an alteration to products already being produced).
These shifts required a relatively simple expansion (or contraction) of
the labor force. This could be managed by hiring (or releasing) non-
regular employees and subcontractors who provided duplicate labor, by
“multiskilling” or “reassigning” employees through elaborate job rota-
tion schemes, or by adjusting the working hours (e.g. the overtime or
scheduling) of regular employees who did duplicate or repetitive work.
Globalization has come to require (a) a more complex or sophisticated
mix of employees who are more differentiated and specialized than in the
past, and (b) a much shorter turnaround time. This has meant a lower
ratio of (i) permanent (core) employees in supervisory positions and in
more inflexible forms of employment to (ii) non-permanent staff doing
repetitive work whose relationship with management can be altered much
more easily, and to (iii) more individually specialized professionals whose
labor could also be regulated more easily.
Many core employees now need a much greater range of conceptual
and interpersonal skills at much higher levels than on-the-job training
or other in-house schemes can provide. Staff who do repetitive work are
also being required to acquire higher levels of proficiency in very specific,
often technical, sets of skills that firms find difficult to impart and then use
elsewhere when operations change. Accompanying the shift from import-
ing technology to creating their own as a means of gaining competitive
advantage, professionals are being asked to be more adventurous in pro-
ducing new ideas. Professionals who concentrate their efforts on develop-
ing new technologies increasingly bear the risks when their efforts do not
succeed – something that management is now less willing to do. Strate-

gies designed to meet challenges faced by the Japanese economy as a
whole add new dimensions to the external labor market. By the late
1990s Japanese firms recognized the need for labor market flexibility
beyond that provided by attrition and the slow process of multiskilling
associated with traditional Japanese approaches. International compet-
itiveness in the modern world encourages firms to hive off operations
that are not economical to parties better prepared to make them prof-
itable, and to acquire operations they can revitalize. Whether buying or
selling, the speed and the ability to be decisive at the right moment are
critical. Long-term employment practices compromise a firm’s ability to
reduce the labor costs associated with having a large coterie of salaried
professionals.
With greater transparency in personnel matters, Japan’s large firms
have been more willing to rely on external labor markets. While this no
doubt reflects the influence of economic rationalism as an international
ideology, conservative Japanese businessmen have in the main always sub-
scribed to such a philosophy. This has been reflected in the policies advo-
cated by Nikkeiren (the Japan Federation of Employers’ Associations) at
times such as the Spring Wage Offensive. Management has long acknowl-
edged the importance of labor process at the meso and the micro levels as
a means of maintaining the bottom line and expropriating today’s labor
surplus for tomorrow’s investment (and for managerial remuneration).
The last quarter of a century has seen the balance of power between
organized labor and organized management shift to the latter. As
chapter 8 indicates, the reasons for the decline in the political influence of
Japanese labor unions, especially left-wing unions, are complex. Many of
these reasons are not peculiar to Japan. They include domestically driven
restructuring, casualization, and the changing aspirations of new gradu-
ates entering the labor force. Without concrete evidence to the contrary, it
would seem likely that the development of highly networked global com-
munications has initially helped management more than labor unions
in Japan. More knowledge about why that is so is critical for any prog-
nostication about the future of work in Japan. The dissemination of new
international vocabularies has given Japan’s management groups a means
of repackaging the rhetoric for expressing old concerns. Although some
Japanese workers have enjoyed the fruits of globalization, especially as
consumers, there is also considerable disquiet among certain segments
of the labor force, and it cannot be assumed that they will continue to
benefit from globalization in net terms.
It is still too early to know how the more disciplined use of Japanese
labor will impact upon labor markets. As long as firms remain committed
Large tenshin enjo seido

(job transfer assistance scheme)
numbers kibo taishoku
(voluntary early retirement)
sentaku taishoku
(planned early retirement)
Number of
haichitenkan (redeployment) or teinen no hikisage
employees (rotation within the firm)
(lowering the firm's

retrenched shukko (temporary relocation compulsory
to another enterprise) retirement age)
fuhoju (natural attrition) saishushoku assen (assistance with re-employment)
ichiji kikyu (temporary leave

without pay)
oen haken (secondment) tokubetsu kyushoku seido

(special leave)
tenseki (permanent
transfer to another firm)
Small katatataki (singling out underperforming employees)

numbers shimei kaiko (the firing of
designated employees)
Minimal effect Substantial effect
Severity of the recession

Figure 5.2 Strategies used by firms to reduce labor costs by the severity
of the recession and the number of employees needing to be retrenched.
Source: Shibata (1988), p. 54.
to old patterns of adjusting labor inputs, fundamental change is not

likely. Figure 5.2 shows fourteen strategies listed by Shibata (1988) that
Japanese firms have commonly used to reduce labor costs. The more
drastic means are located in the upper right-hand corner of the diagram.
While tight comparisons are difficult, results from a survey of firms in
four other advanced economies are shown in table 5.3. The reduction of
overtime is the first line of action in all four countries. The major dif-
ference setting Japan apart from the US and France (and presumably
Britain and Germany, although information was not collected for those
countries on the same categories) is the use of job sharing. With regard to
firings and temporary layoffs, OECD data (Kosei Rodo Sho 2001a: 181
and A74) suggests that Japanese firms rank only in the middle among
twenty-six OECD countries in terms of employment security. Using an
index derived by quantifying over a dozen separate measures, the study
indicates that firms in the US and the UK are more likely than Japanese
firms to let employees go, whereas those in Italy, Germany, and France
are less likely to do so.
Table 5.3 Percentage of firms using different means of reducing their

labor costs in four countries in the late 1990s
America France UK Germany

Means of reducing labor costs (1997) (1998) (1996) (1996)
Cutting overtime 82.1 82.0 85.0 89.6

Letting casual employees go 76.4 63.0 77.0 62.7
Relocation 76.4 82.0 87.5 63.7
Cutting back on hirings 74.7 69.0 80.5 88.6
Job sharing 72.5 69.0 n.a. n.a.
Layoffs 57.2 50.0 59.0 49.8
Cutting back on the standard 51.1 77.0 48.0 48.3
workweek
Moving workers to affiliated 48.0 54.0 56.5 52.7
firms
Promoting early retirement 47.6 80.0 78.5 66.2
Firing regular employees 30.1 37.0 34.0 46.8
Demoting regular employees 6.6 49.0 n.a n.a.
to temporary or casual
status
Source: This table has been compiled using data provided in an ILO study, Kaigai
Rodo Jijo Chosa Kekka Hokokusho (Report on a Survey of Work Overseas) and
cited in the 2001 White Paper on Japan’s labor economy produced by the Kosei
Rodo Sho (2001a), p. 181 and p. 74 of the Appendices.
It is difficult to sort the voluntarily retired from the involuntarily retired.

When Japanese firms offer early retirement packages, more employees
apply than are wanted. Behind that behavior is a psychology of fear.
Employees know they are likely to be in an even worse situation if they
wait. The offer of a package is seen by many employees as a veiled warning.
The Asahi Shimbun (ASC, 25 August 2001: 3) reported that Matsuda had
2,210 applicants on the first day when it asked for 1,800 employees to take
an early retirement package in 2001. Of the 1,588 successful applicants
living in the same prefecture, 16 percent already had other jobs waiting.
Mitsubishi Motors advertised 1,200 packages but had 2,028 applicants
before applications closed. Firms offering such inducements have had
to bear the added expense of (i) offering more packages than originally
budgeted for and filling unexpected vacancies, or (ii) coming up with a
plan to allocate a fixed number of packages in a manner which appears
to be fair in order not to undermine further the morale of the employ-
ees they retain. As for the cost, many firms have had to offer benefits
equivalent to twice the normal retirement benefit. While packages seem
to provide attractive financial inducements to employees suffering from
work intensification, older employees have more difficulty than younger
ones in finding suitable reemployment, and many aged over 65 need to

supplement their pension benefits with employment income.
Job sharing has recently received attention in Japan as a means of
spreading employment (and unemployment). However, management has
not been enthusiastic. It is still attached to the idea that it can simply cut
the hours put in by regular staff and have that work done more cheaply
by casuals or by outsourcing. Japanese firms have been unwilling to have
employees on a shared basis. Rather than lowering costs, as outsourcing
and casualization do, job sharing results in the same unit cost for labor.
Firms must cover additional welfare benefits and pension contributions
and make their health and recreational facilities and other fringe benefits
available to greater numbers. Of more serious concern, job sharing would
lead to a blurring of the separate labor markets that have clearly differenti-
ated between regular and casual employment over the past half-century.
Changing this arrangement would fundamentally alter power relations
between firms and employees and among different groupings in the
labor market. Employees who worked a standard week of 40 hours plus
10 hours of unpaid overtime might start to work half-time for only
20 hours to fully benefit from the job share, thereby leaving the firm
to hire one more half-time employee (and pay 25 percent more in labor
costs for the same work) to make up the difference of 40 hours.
Such change would force managements to be much more transparent
in justifying their expropriation of labor surplus. The sense of total control
was much clearer in the past when management could force workers, in
military fashion, to sing company songs, recite company mottos, and
listen to morning pep talks. This is not to argue that management has
the upper hand in all of its dealings with labor. It too is responding to
wider events it cannot control. With a much higher standard of living than
in the past, potential workers, particularly Japan’s young consumers, are
able to withhold or to withdraw their labor in a way that could only be
dreamed about in the past. Thus, if ordinary Japanese must compete for
scarce jobs, as Koshiro suggests, firms too must compete to recruit good
staff. More will be said about this below, but farreaching changes on the
supply side of the labor market cannot be ignored.
5.5 Deregulation of the labor market

In the 1990s, management groups pushed the Japanese government
into deregulating the labor market. In the past Nikkeiren has been torn
between members supporting deregulation and those arguing that social
stability and order at work could best be maintained by honoring a
kind of social contract with the labor force (Nihon Kei-eisha Dantai
Renmei 1995). After the bubble years, Nikkeiren and the government
sought to regain Japan’s industrial competitiveness. Two sorts of reform
were critical to management’s ability to command labor. One was to
enhance management’s right to have employees work at its own conve-
nience. The other concerned the ease with which work could be out-
sourced. The opposition of organized labor to the proposed changes
resulted in amendments to the Labor Standards Law being delayed in the
Diet for more than a year, with passage not occurring until September
1998. Disagreement between labor and management over this legislation
was pronounced on four points.
A designated work system (sairyo rodo seido) The proposed leg-

islation allowed for work to be delegated to employees against a nominal
time standard. Essentially a return to piecework, it allowed employees to
complete their designated tasks faster or slower than the standard time
(i.e. without reference to the actual time required). Although the law had
allowed for this to occur in very limited areas, management had pushed
vigorously for employers to be able to allocate work in this manner to all
white-collar employees. Labor unions argued that this would only pro-
mote competition among such employees and result in labor intensifica-
tion and an increase in karoshi (deaths from overwork). Implemented
from September 1999, the legislation fully incorporated the views of
management.
Restrictions on overtime In the past the Labor Standards Law of

1947 allowed labor and management to negotiate at the firm level limits
on the amount of overtime employees could be required to work, with
no set upper limit on overtime. Labor and management in many firms
had agreed, however, that employers could require male employees to do
overtime up to 15 hours per week, 45 hours per month, and 360 hours per
year. Management pushed to remove all legal constraints. Labor wanted
the legal limit on annual overtime set at 360 hours for male employees,
dropping to 150 hours for all employees once the amendments to the
Male-Female Equal Employment Opportunity Law came into effect in
April 1999 (thereby removing the annual limit of 150 hours of overtime
applying only to women). The final outcome was that the 360-hour limit
was legislated, with the 150-hour limit for women being extended to
April 2002. Nevertheless, as mentioned in chapter 4, the standard work-
week has dropped from 176 hours in 1965 to 143 in 2000. Even with
considerable overtime, the total workweek for most people today would
be shorter than the standard workweek of their parents.
Table 5.4 The effects of introducing a variable workweek scheme on wage costs: some hypothetical cases
Labor cost
Hours worked per week Total hours worked for the year
Standard Weeks C1 salary C2 cost of overtime C3 total cost
Case Workweek worked Standard Overtime Standard Overtime Total for period with 25% loading C1 + C2
A 48 26 48 – 1,248 – 1,248 2,600 – 2,600

26 48 – 1,248 – 1,248 2,600 – 2,600
Totals 52 48 – 2,496 – 2,496 5,200 – 5,200
B 48 26 48 12 1,248 312 1,560 2,600 553 3,153
26 36 – 936 – 936 2,600 – 2,600
Totals 52 2,184 312 2,496 5,200 553 5,753
C 48 26 48 12 1,248 312 1,560 2,600 – 2,600
26 36 – 936 – 936 2,600 – 2,600
Totals 52 2,184 312 2,496 5,200 – 5,200
D 40 26 40 1,040 312 1,352 2,600 975 3,575
26 28 728 – 728 2,600 – 2,600
Totals 52 1,768 312 2,080 5,200 975 6,175
E 36 26 36 12 936 312 1,248 2,600 1,083 3,683
26 24 624 – 624 2,600 – 2,600
Totals 52 1,560 312 1,872 5,200 1083 6,283
F 40 26 40 12 1,040 312 1,352 2,600 975 3,575

26 28 728 – 728 1,820 – 1,820
Totals 52 1,768 312 2,080 4,420 975 5,395
Cases: A Employee with no overtime in firm without a variable workweek scheme when the standard workweek is 48 hours and the employee
is on a monthly salary.
B Employee with heavy overtime for six months offset by light workload for six months at a firm without a variable workweek scheme
when the workweek is 48 hours and the employee is on a monthly salary.
C Employee with heavy overtime for six months offset by light workload for six months at a firm with a variable workweek scheme when
the standard workweek is 48 hours and the employee is on a monthly salary.
D Employee with heavy overtime for six months offset by light workload for six months at a firm with a variable workweek scheme when
E Employee with heavy overtime for six months offset by light workload for six months at a firm with a variable workweek scheme when
F Employee with heavy overtime for six months offset by light workload for six months at a firm with a variable workweek scheme when
the standard workweek is 40 hours and the employee is on an hourly wage.
Notes: (1) It is assumed that all salaried employees are paid a monthly salary of ¥100,000.
(2) It is assumed that all employees are paid overtime pay at 1.25 times the normal hourly rate of pay.
(3) The hourly wage for the employee in case F was calculated as one fortieth of the salary of the other employees for whom the standard
workweek is 40 hours.
(4) The cost of overtime in column C2 was calculated as being equal to [C1 × (B2/B1)] × 1.25.
Comments: (1) Comparing Cases B and C, the cost per employee for the firm not using a variable work system scheme is 10.63 percent.
(2) Comparing Cases B, C, and D, when the standard workweek is lowered from 48 to 40 hours and then again to 36 hours, the
cost of not using a variable workweek scheme jumps to 18.75 percent and then climbs further to 20.8 percent.
(3) Comparing Cases D and F, the cost to Japanese firms with a salary system and a variable workweek scheme spreading overtime
over the year is still 3.75 percent lower (at ¥5,000) than the cost of such labor for firms (overseas) which use a wage system
(¥5,395).
The standard workweek and the standard work year Management

pushed for the right to extend the variable workweek (henkei rodo jikan
seido) so that overtime would be calculated in terms of overtime for a
standard work year. By giving time off equivalent to the amount of over-
time worked during busy periods, management has in the past been able
to have employees work up to 10 hours a day and 52 hours a week for
up to three months without paying overtime rates. After three months
the limits were set at 9 hours and 48 hours respectively. Management
wanted employees to work the 10 hours a day and 52 hours a week for
more extended periods without being liable for overtime. Unions wanted
the 40-hour standard workweek respected every week. The revisions to
the Labor Standards Law fully incorporated management’s demands.
Given that the overall number of hours worked remains the same, this
may seem like a small point. However, as the hypothetical example in
table 5.4 shows, the difference of paying for overtime can be as much as
10 percent when the standard workweek is 48 hours and employees are
utilized fully for 12 hours of overtime each week for half the year and
are not utilized for 12 of their 48 hours during the other half. Moreover,
when the standard workweek shrinks to 40 hours, the cost savings for
management are more pronounced. It is not surprising, then, that an
increasing number of firms have introduced variable workweek schemes
over the past fifteen years (table 5.5).
Length of the employment contract (rodo keiyaku kikan) Previ-

ously the legal maximum length of time for a labor contract was one year.
Regular employees, however, without a long-term contract worked on
the basis of an informal agreement with management recognizing their
firm’s policy of having a fixed retirement age. (In the late 1970s and early
1980s courts began to rule that firms could not set different standards for
males and females.) The debate on labor contracts mainly concerns two
groups of workers. One consists of casual employees hired as part-timers,
arubaito, shokutaku, rinjiko, or other temporary help. Management has
argued that such employees would be able to organize their own every-
day affairs at home with more certainty were they on longer contracts
of up to five years. This of course would mean that management could
“lock in” its casual labor force and have its own measure of certainty.
It also meant that the distinction between the labor markets for regular
and non-regular employees would be reinforced. Behind this there was
also perhaps the idea that many regular employees in highly technical or
professional jobs might in the future be hired on such contracts. This cer-
tainly seemed to be the suggestion in the above-mentioned paper issued
by Nikkeiren in 1995. It is too early to know how this will play out, but
Table 5.5 Change in the percentage of firms using a variable workweek

scheme, 1989–2000
Percentage of firms Percentage of firms Percentage of

Percentage of firms balancing out balancing out firms having
with a variable variations over a variations over a flexi-time
Year workweek system one-month period one-year period arrangements
1989 7.0 6.0 0.1 0.8

1990 9.8 8.4 0.3 1.2
1991 13.2 10.7 0.6 2.2
1992 18.1 14.8 1.0 2.7
1993 27.7 23.3 1.5 3.5
1994 27.4 22.7 1.6 3.9
1995 31.3 21.2 7.6 3.6
1996 30.4 18.3 8.7 4.3
1997 40.5 22.4 15.1 4.8
1998 54.4 16.3 35.9 4.4
1999 54.8 17.5 34.3 5.1
2000 53.00 16.6 33.3 5.7
Source: Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2002a), p. 125; and Rodo Sho
(1998), p. 241, and p. 118 of the Appendix.
there is the possibility that the dual market arrangement will give way to a
triple market arrangement whereby repetitive labor stays on one- or two-
year contracts, professionals and skilled technicians have medium-term
contracts, and only a small number of managers enjoy the benefits of
longer-term employment and career-track employment in Japan’s large
firms. The new law lifted the limit for contracts from one year to three.
It is clear that management will in the future be much more selective in
deciding who to hire as regular employees.
The other legislation of particular relevance to the labor market is the
Law for Dispatching Workers. First passed in 1986, the law provided
for certified companies to supply labor to cover (temporary) shortages in
thirteen highly specialized occupational categories. In its implementation
the number of such categories was increased to sixteen. In 1994 Nikkeiren
called for categories to be opened up, and the number was raised to
twenty-six in 1996. After further lobbying by Nikkeiren, the supply of
such labor was in principle opened up for all occupations in December
1999, and a system of longer-term job placements through temporary
assignments (shokai yotei haken seido) was established in 2000.
While organized labor has been able to slow deregulation in some areas,
management’s push to deregulate has made headway overall; further
changes will likely follow. Like management elsewhere, management in
Japan prefers self-regulation without punitive measures. Business pushed

hard for the first equal employment opportunity legislation in the mid-
1980s to impose on management the obligation only to endeavor to
remove discrimination without any penalty for not doing so. The leadup
to this legislation in the late 1990s provides an interesting insight into how
international public opinion was used by progressives in Japan to get light
penalties built into the new legislation. Nikkeiren has also argued for the
abandonment of the cumbersome industry-by-industry and prefecture-
by-prefecture approach to setting minimum wages, provisions in the
Labor Standards Law for the eight-hour workday, and restrictions on
private job placement providers and dispatchers of temporary help.
5.6 Looking to the future

Organized labor has not responded to these kinds of proposals. Its con-
tinued emphasis on increasing penalty rates for overtime suggests it still
gives priority to increasing the income of its members. However, the fail-
ure to obtain any increase at all in the 2001 and 2002 Spring Offensives
underlines the difficulty of their position in the face of increased inter-
national competition and the prolonged recession. Unlike the bubble
years when firms had plenty of resources, reports in the new media and
the shelves in bookstores early in 2002 suggest that the public mood had
become very somber. The feeling is that Japan must somehow restructure
its industries and find a new formula for restoring Japan’s international
competitive edge. Many acknowledge that Japanese are somehow better
off having a cheap Chinese labor force taking over responsibility for run-
ning the world factory. “Being responsible for the world factory” is seen
as a source of the stress experienced by many Japanese workers over the
past three decades. At the same time globalization has brought a deep
uneasiness in terms of the loss of control over the nation’s destiny and,
by extension, an individual’s own future. Japanese are slowly opening up
to the possibility that multiculturalism may add an important dynamic to
the search for solutions. Carlos Ghosn, the Frenchman who is president
of Nissan, was a national hero before becoming head of the entire Nissan
group on 31 May 2002. Given the yearning for economic leadership in
Japan today, there is a vacuum that a more dynamic labor movement
could fill with its own vision. However, unions will not be seen as having
leadership material as long as they simply argue that management should
be forking out for wage increases and carrying underutilized employees.
6 Segmentation of the labor market
6.1 Employment status, firm size, and labor

market segmentation
The efforts to deregulate the labor market shifted some portions of the
labor force from the market for full-time regular employees to other mar-
kets. Data from the Shugyo Kozo Chosa (Survey of Employment Struc-
ture) indicates that the percentage of male workers casually employed as
non-regular employees (hiseiki koyosha) rose from 9.0 percent in 1992 to
10.1 percent in 1997. For women the figures rose from 37.3 to 42.2
percent (table 6.1). Using a different categorization, the 2000 Labor
White Paper (Kosei Rodo Sho 2000: 110 and p. 63 of the appendix)
informs us that the number of hiseishain (those not considered to be
company employees) was 27.5 percent in 1999. The Labor Force Survey
(Rodoryoku Chosa) yields yet another figure: the percentage of employees
who are ordinary operatives (joyo koyosha), indicating that the number of
rinjiko and hiyatoi, who are on daily wage rates or on contracts of less than
one year, rose from 5.4 percent of all employees in 1990 to 7.1 percent
in 2001 (Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu 2002a: 35). (This
data includes nearly all part-timers as ordinary employees because they
are on one-year contracts.) Whichever data is used, however, the evidence
is that casualization is advancing, and surveys of management indicate
that it is occurring in order to contain labor costs and to enhance the
discretion of management in the use of labor (see the results of a survey
taken by the Sanwa Research Institute in 2000 in Kosei Rodo Sho 2001a:
167–70, and in the appendix on pp. 68–9).
A recent White Paper on small and medium-sized businesses (Chusho
Kigyo Cho 2001: 26–8) argues that these changes open up opportunities
for smaller entrepreneurs. It states that the employment of non-regular
employees, for example, is disproportionately large in smaller firms, but
shows that the increase is occurring across all sizes of enterprise (see
table 6.2). The figures on the composition of the labor force by firm size
and the number of firms in each size grouping (table 6.3) underline the
117
Table 6.1 The percentage distribution of private sector employees by employment status, 1992 and 1997
Non-regular employees
Employees in Regular employees Dispatched

Year Gender managerial positions (seiki no shokuin/ jugyoin) Part-timer Arubaito workers Shokutaku Other
1992 Male 9.6 81.4 1.0 4.0 0.2 1.8 1.9

1997 Male 9.0 80.9 1.3 5.0 0.2 1.8 1.8
1992 Female 4.4 58.3 27.5 6.0 0.6 1.5 1.9
1997 Female 4.0 53.8 30.0 7.7 0.6 1.7 1.9
Source: Data is from the Shugyo Kozo Kihon Chosa (The Survey of the Employment Structure) which is conducted every five years. Kosei Rodo
Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2002a), p. 47.
Segmentation of the labor market 119
Table 6.2 Growth in the number of non-regular employees in the

non-agricultural private sector by firm size, 1996 and 2000
The percentage of all employees who are

non-regular employees
Firm size February 1996 August 2000
1–29 30.0 34.7

39–99 23.8 34.8
100–499 19.5 24.8
500+ 14.6 19.1
Note: The term “non-regular employee” used here is a translation of “hiseiki

jugyoin.”
Source: Chusho Kigyo Cho (2001), p. 26.
Table 6.3 The distribution of establishments and the number of employees by

firm size, 1978, 1986, and 1999
The percentage distribution The percentage distribution

of firms of employees
Firm size by number
of employees 1978 1986 1999 1978 1986 1999
1–4 64.2 60.3 57.2 13.0 7.7 7.8

5–29 32.0 33.9 36.5 34.1 38.1 39.3
30–99 4.5 4.6 5.1 33.3 24.0 24.7
100–499 1.0 1.0 1.1 18.5 19.5 19.3
500+ 0.1 0.1 0.1 12.0 10.8 8.9
Source: Rodo Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (1982), pp. 28–31.

Rodo Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (1992), pp. 34–6.
Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2002a), pp. 50–2.
importance of including employees in Japan’s small firms in any discus-

sion of work organization. At the turn of the century 71.8 percent of
Japan’s labor force worked for firms with less than 100 employees. Less
than 10 percent of Japan’s entire labor force is employed by firms with
more than 500 workers. Given the vastly different working conditions in
large and small firms, firm size differentials continue to define the most
important way in which the labor market is segmented in Japan. The
downsizing of employment in Japan’s largest firms can only mean that
Koshiro’s scarce jobs are becoming scarcer.
Japan’s large-scale sector is delineated by a number of characteris-
tics. The most readily apparent signifier is found in working conditions.
Table 6.4 shows that remuneration is vastly superior in the large firms, and
Table 6.4 Variation in working conditions by firm size in 2001
Firm size A B C D E F G
Monthly Bonuses Hours of Percentage of firms Days of annual Percentage of firms Percentage of firms
take-home pay received work with a two-day leave actually used giving over 120 days guaranteeing
weekend every week off a year employment until age 65
2001 2001 2001 2001 2001 2001 2000
5,000+ 3.7
1,000–4,999 379.8 131.3 156.9 79.3 10.6 50.6 5.0
500–999 8.7 39.5 6.2
300–499 62.2
100–299 315.7 93.1 153.3 40.2 7.7 23.2 13.8
50–99
30–49 276.0 66.9 153.5 31.2 7.3 14.7 27.9
5–29 245.2 44.4 151.6
Source H-136 H-136 H-113 H-121 H-122 H-123 M-85
Sources: The following letters were used in the last row to indicate the sources, with the page number following the hyphen:
H Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2002a).
M Miura (2001).
that monthly hours of work do not vary much by firm size. While social
norms tend to regulate notions of the normal workday (as opposed to
the normal workweek), the organization of time varies by firm size. More
large firms have implemented the two-day weekend and allow more paid
annual leave. Large firms are much less likely to guarantee employment to
age 65, but more likely to have secondment (shukko) and other schemes in
place for the redeployment of employees who become redundant. Large
firms have a complex network of subcontractors and affiliated firms into
which their employees can be channeled, and a higher proportion of
large firms have early retirement schemes (column A in table 6.5). Larger
firms offer more fringe benefits and a much smaller risk of injury at
work. The firm-size segmentation of the labor market is reflected in three
other institutionalized differences: the extent to which large firms have
a first claim on graduates, unionization rates, and the level of benefits
flowing from health plans and pension schemes. The discussion on firm-
size segmentation is extended here because these dualities color all other
forms of segmentation in one way or another.
The market for non-regular employees continues to grow. One
submarket is for “part-timers.” This nomenclature can be misleading
in that many part-timers actually work a full week. While part-time work
used to be associated with women, it should be noted that 24.6 percent
of male graduates became employed on a part-time basis in 1998 (as
opposed to 30.3 percent for women) (Kosei Rodo Sho 2000: 182 and
p. 90 of the appendix). A 2001 White Paper (Kosei Rodo Sho 2001a:
44) indicated that part-timers (paatotaimu rodosha) earned an average of
¥95,226 per month as compared with ¥421,195 for ordinary employ-
ees (ippan rodosha). However, the difference in the average number of
hours worked was much smaller. The overall differential of 1.0 to 4.423
contrasted to a differential of only 1.0 to 1.73 per monthly hour actu-
ally worked (97.3 hours for part-timers and 168.8 hours for ordinary
workers) (Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu 2002c: 238). On
an hourly basis this means ordinary workers earned over 2.5 times the
remuneration paid to part-timers.
Most statistical presentations distinguish the part-timers’ market from
that for arubaito. Whereas part-timers usually work under contract
and have traditionally been housewives earning secondary income and
having the freedom to look after some of the household’s daily busi-
ness, arubaito are still enrolled in school or university and work for
pocket money without a formal contract. Without the practice of work
sharing or fractional appointments, women (like men) have a choice
between (i) regular employment (with the expectation of long hours
and secondments away from home for those wishing for a career in
Table 6.5 Variation in working environment by firm size in 2000
Firm size A B C D E F G
Percentage of Percentage of Index indicating Index indicating Percentage of firms Unionization Percentage of firms
firms with firms with frequency of severity of with special safety rate reaching early
scheme for early retirement age work-related work-related practices for workers agreement to employ
retirement for executives accidents accidents aged over 50 university graduates
2000 2000 2000 2000 2001 2000 2000
5,000+ 58.2 35.8 92.1
1,000–4,999 43.0 34.6 .47 0.07 61 54.2 81.4
500–999 .89 0.10 57
300–499 24.3 26.3 1.94 0.15 43 18.8 63.7
100–299 10.1 19.1 2.52 0.25 33.8
50–99 34
30–49 3.0 10.1 3.52 0.23 1.4 8.8
5–29 30
Source M-83 M-83 Y-257 Y-257 H-200 K-486 Y-55
Sources: The following letters were used in the last row to indicate the sources, with the page number following the hyphen:
H Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2002a).
M Miura (2001).
Y Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2002c).
K Kosei Rodo Sho Roshi Kankei Tanto Sanjinkan Shitsu (2002).
the internal labor market) and (ii) part-time work with greatly reduced
pay.
Obi (1980) noted some time ago that decisions concerning the labor-
force participation of secondary earners in Japan (and elsewhere, based on
the research of Douglas and Long) depend not just on the wage rate, but
also on the opportunity cost (the value) attached to the time that is shifted
from other activities important to the overall wellbeing of the family. This
has meant that part-time work for women has been an attractive and
rational economic option for many households. Part-time work allows
someone to concentrate on concretely defined work tasks without the
responsibilities and hassle that go with being a regular employee. In this
sense, part-time work is not necessarily exploitation.
Since Obi was writing, several longer-term changes have reinforced the
increase in part-time work. They include the decline of three-generational
households from 19.7 percent in 1968 to 10.6 percent in 1999, the
increase in the number of single-person households from 19.8 to
23.6 percent, and the decline in the proportion of all families with chil-
dren under the age of 15 from 41.2 to 34.4 percent over the same period.
The percentage of single-parent households has remained fairly constant
at 5.3 percent (Tominaga 2001: 246).
Graduates who go into part-time work in large numbers and then stay
in that kind of employment are known as furiitaa (meaning freelance
workers). The term is used for both male and female dropouts from high
school and university and for secondary and tertiary graduates who have
not taken on a full-time permanent job. Those who decide to make a
career or lifestyle of arubaito-type employment often work just enough to
save money for overseas travel or some other recreational activity (some-
times related to a serous interest in surfing, photography, painting, music,
etc.). Working-holiday arrangements between governments allow some to
continue their furiitaa-type lifestyle abroad.
The furiitaa are not a new phenomenon. The Special Labor Force
survey indicates that there were 500,000 furiitaa in 1982, and 790,000
in 1987. With one million in 1992 and 1.5 million in 1997, the figure
continued to rise to 1.93 million by 2000. The government’s data in
table 6.6 excludes people over 34 years of age and married women from
the furiitaa category, but may include married men. There seems to be
a presumption that at 35 individuals will marry or become part-timers,
although it is unlikely that a lifestyle and its associated values and outlook
subscribed to for ten or fifteen years by males or females in their thirties
will easily be scuttled.
There is not much research on the furiitaa, but one study in 2001
by a group at the Japan Institute of Labor concluded from its survey of
Table 6.6 The number of furiitaa in August 2000
Women (who are

Age Men not married) Total (in 10,000s)
15–24 45 53 98
25–34 38 57 95
Total 83 110 193
Source: Nihon Rodo Kenkyu Kiko (2001b), p. 2.
furiitaa that 39.2 percent were the moratoriamu types (social dropouts),
first identified as a substratum of the population by Okonogi (1978) in
the late 1970s. Another 33.0 percent claimed they were furiitaa because
they could not find permanent work, and 27.8 percent claimed they were
pursuing a dream. Although many were anxious about their future, few
had plans to acquire skills that would lead to a stable career in a field of
interest to them (Nihon Rodo Kenkyu Kiko 2001b). A survey of firms
by the Ministry of Welfare, Labor and Health in 2001 indicated that
about one-third of firms saw the furiitaa experience as negative for job
applicants, while only a few saw it as positive (Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin
Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu 2002a: 80).
Yamada (1999) has recently identified another group as “parasite
singles” – those who are able to maintain a comfortable lifestyle even
on relatively poor wages because they depend on their parents to sub-
sidize their freedom. Here some interesting parallels might be drawn
between the lifestyle of many furiitaa and that of several anti-heroes.
Tora-san was the very likable but restless character who could not set-
tle down to full-time employment and tramped around Japan unable
to settle down through a well-known series of forty-four movies pro-
duced by Yamada Yoji, and starring Atsumi Kiyoshi and Baisho Chieko,
from the late 1960s until the mid-1990s. Over the years many Japanese
have identified with this sort of character. Two other examples from
the samurai past might be Zato Ichi, the blind mendicant ronin samu-
rai, and another ronin, the famous swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. Enka
(a genre of melancholy music reminiscent of early country and western
music in North America) also serves to make this lifestyle attractive but
attaches opprobrium to those who seem unable to fit in with the changes
imposed by the increased materialism which has spread with rapid eco-
nomic development, modernization, and internationalization.
The economic prospects of those choosing the furiitaa lifestyle appear
bleak as they age. Few have the medical and pension benefits associated
with stable patterns of employment. Many will feel pinched once they
begin to think about having a family and about the responsibilities that
implies, or to experience the ailments associated with advanced middle
age or the onset of old age. Even if the male furiitaa later decides to seek
steady employment on “settling down” to the responsibilities of family
life, opportunities outside the peripheral labor market are limited. At the
same time, there still seems to be prejudice against unmarried middle-
aged males in the dominant labor market, especially regarding promotion.
While this results partially from a perception that married men are more
willing to take group/corporate responsibility, there may also be a general
aversion to homosexuality in the masculine culture found in Japan’s large
firms. However, growing recognition of its acceptance in other industrial-
ized societies, more “coming out” in Japan, and the entry of women into
the male preserve will tend to soften attitudes toward the furiitaa. The
fact that some furiitaa do acquire a highly marketable skill by pursuing
a serious interest, and are able to advance themselves significantly in the
secondary labor market, is already evidence of a certain openness. One
key to the future of work in Japan will be the extent to which management
in major firms will see work-related value in the skills acquired through
such a lifestyle.
Just as the employment practices in Japan’s large-scale firms serve as a
model whose relevance extends far beyond that sector, so too the lifestyle
of the furiitaa strikes a chord with many who would normally have been
channeled into traditional employment. Unlike the part-timer who is
perceived as someone supporting the family system, the furiitaa chal-
lenges what has always been seen as the stable pattern of employment
for both males and females. Here the gradual long-term decline in male
labor-force participation should not be overlooked. The shifts are small,
but are reinforced by a growing appreciation of the need to have fathers
more involved in child rearing and providing some relief to spouses (e.g.
Masataka 2002). Fewer males will want to sacrifice family life to the
extent demanded by Japan’s large employers in the past, and employers
will respond flexibly to this change in values. The shift has already taken
place abroad (Phillimore 2002), and it is likely that these trends will, with
a time lag, also appear in Japan. It is also likely that the opportunity cost
of some women not working in the labor force as regular employees will
be greater than that of their husbands, and that the same household logic
that once made it profitable for women to enter part-time work will in
the future see some husbands turn over to their wives the role of being
the main breadwinner.
Although still episodic at this stage, Hanami, Mitsuhashi, and Tachigi
(2002) report on three new developments in the labor market. One is
the use of traditional franchising arrangements (known as noren wake,
literally, the dividing of the shop’s front curtain) to allow outstanding

employees to set up independently their own place of work. (To be sure,
some large manufacturers in the past assisted skilled workers to estab-
lish their own firms, but such employees formally became retirees and
almost always remained in a subcontracting power relationship with their
previous employer and very much tied to that employer’s technology.)
Second is the rapid expansion of teleworking. The Japan Association
of Teleworkers estimates that the number of teleworkers has grown from
810,000 in 1996 to 2.46 million in 2000, and projects that there will be
4.45 million such workers (about 7–8 percent of the labor force) by 2005
(Hanami et al. 2002: 31). The estimates of the Japan Institute of Labor’s
researchers (as reported in Kosei Rodo Sho 2001b: 443) are much more
modest. They suggested that the figure in 1997 was 174,000 (of which
70 percent were women with children) and that nearly 8 percent were
aged over 60. However, the establishment of the privately funded SOHO
Think Tank serves to indicate that the trend to teleworking will continue
(SOHO Shinku Tanku 2001; ASC, 7 May 2002: 12). Many work on a
freelance basis. These developments fit in with the push of management to
introduce task-based pay (sairyo rodo seido) which was mentioned above.
The percentage of firms allowing employees to do work outside their
premises increased from 6.1 percent in 1996 to 9.2 percent in 2000,
when nearly 20 percent of the firms with over 1,000 employees were
doing so compared with 6 percent of firms with 30–99 employees (Kosei
Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu 2002: 124).
Third is the increasing number of people giving up pressured employ-
ment in profit-driven businesses for more meaningful engagement with
a non-profit organization (NPO). With the change in legislation allow-
ing for donations to many NPOs to be tax deductible, the number of
registered NPOs has increased from less than 20,000 organizations in
1998 to over 90,000 by 2000, with the number of Japanese involved
growing from less than two million to about seven million over the same
period (Keizai Kikaku Cho 2001: 14). In 2001 the Economic Planning
Agency (Keizai Kikaku Cho 2001: 15–19) noted that Japanese lagged
far behind other nationalities in this regard, with only 25 percent of
Japanese (mostly women aged over 35) engaged in such activity, some-
what below the 55.5 percent recorded in America and the 48 percent
recorded in the UK. This finding was confirmed in a survey by the
Nomura Research Institute (Nomura Sogo Kenkyu Jo 1999: 79–82).
The findings indicate that male patterns of full-time regular employ-
ment prevent men from being as involved during their working years. The
White Paper further noted that for housewives the level of interest varied
directly with their level of education and with household income (p. 51),
reflecting the realities of the Douglas–Long–Arisawa effect mentioned

above.
On the employment front, a survey of NPOs by the Keizai Sangyo
Kenkyu Jo (Institute for Economic and Industrial Research) revealed
that NPOs themselves predicted an increase in the numbers they employ
from 176,000 in 2000 (only 0.3 percent of the labor force, of which
80,000 were full-time professionals in regular employment) to 418,000
(0.6 percent) by 2010. Although differing estimates and assessments have
been reported by various parties, all are consistent in documenting a con-
certed move away from the more regimented approaches to work orga-
nization associated with the kaisha shakai (the enterprise-based society)
which has dominated thinking about work choices in postwar Japan. The
coverage given these issues in the media has increased exponentially over
the past ten or fifteen years (Keizai Kikaku Cho 2001: 6–9 and 237–8),
and Japanese have come to accept these changes as a normal part of civil
society (Nomura Sogo Kenkyu Jo 1999: 71–8). At the same time, there
is a spreading perception that government cannot meet all the needs of
the community and that the quality of life is immensely improved by the
work of volunteers (Keizai Kikaku Cho 2001: 9). If Japanese industry is
to regain its international competitiveness, employers will have to nurture
a highly motivated and creative labor force by responding to the spread
of this consciousness among Japanese youth.
Technically counted as ordinary employees, with the dispatching firm
paying their wages, these employees have more than doubled in number
during the 1990s, reaching 1.068 million in 1999. Most observers see
this as a growth sector. The December 1999 legislation was designed to
promote the transfer of temporary workers into permanent employment
after a year. Firms wishing to retain the services of a dispatched temporary
worker beyond one year to do the same work are expected to take them
on as regular employees. Some critics argue that the same work clause
may be abused, but it is too early to discern its effects on the relative
bargaining power of individuals and firms in the labor market.
Labor unions are ambivalent regarding deregulation. The use of dis-
patched workers undermines the job security of regular employees. How-
ever, the wages of their members are maintained by reducing costs.
Unions generally serve Japan’s privileged employees in the large-scale
sector. A recent study in 2000 showed that 43 percent of unions sur-
veyed wanted even further relaxation of the restrictions on dispatching,
while 27 percent wanted the present arrangements to stay (SRN, 23 April
2001). Another finding from that survey was that union leaders tended to
see dispatching as a device mainly for wives, mothers and “career women”
aged over 30. Japan’s enterprise-based union movement is democratic in
Table 6.7 Percentage of students who become employed upon

graduation, 1996–2000
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
Senior high school 24.3 23.5 22.7 20.2 18.6

Technical college 71.8 69.6 66.2 63.0 59.7
Junior college 65.7 67.9 65.7 59.1 56.0
University 65.9 66.6 65.6 60.1 55.8
Graduate school 66.7 67.7 79.3 64.9 62.9
Source: Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2002c), p. 47.
responding to the demands of its members from Japan’s aristocracy of

labor. However, as it continues to serve that membership it is also alien-
ating workers positioned elsewhere in the labor market. The shrinking
size of that aristocracy and its privileged treatment will further isolate the
union movement from mainstream Japanese, thereby reducing the likeli-
hood that it will produce the economic leadership seen as being in short
supply in present-day Japan.
6.2 The market for new graduates

A quite distinct market has traditionally existed for new graduates. Firms
competed for the best graduates, and then encouraged them to work as
hard as possible for wages below their productivity. In theory, the new
employees would later be rewarded above their productivity as they pro-
gressed up a seniority-driven earnings curve. Firms that could somehow
siphon off older employees when their productivity fell below the rate
of remuneration did better. The more able graduates generated larger
surpluses early in their employment and it was less likely that their pro-
ductivity would ever fall below their remuneration as they gained seniority
in their firm.
Today there is a very real shortage of graduates. Data from the Basic
Survey of Schools (Gakko Kihon Chosa) shows that the percentage of
graduates employed upon graduation has fallen (Table 6.7). The drop
for senior high school and technical college graduates reflects the fact
that more of the better graduates are going on for further education as
their cohort shrinks in size and more places remain vacant at Japan’s
tertiary institutions. However, for graduates of junior colleges, the rate
of continuation to further education has not changed over this period of
time, while there has been a real decline in their labor-force participation.
Table 6.8 Percentage of firms reaching informal agreements to hire March

2001 graduates before they graduated
Firm size High Technical Other training Junior University and

(number of school college schools college graduate school
employees) graduates graduates graduates graduates graduates
5,000+ 57.9 31.5 30.3 50.9 92.1

1,000–4,999 42.3 19.6 25.9 40.5 81.4
300–999 38.8 11.5 19.1 25.1 63.7
100–299 28.4 5.6 7.8 11.3 33.8
30–99 11.2 2.5 5.1 2.2 8.8
The figures from the same survey also show a considerable dropout rate
from Japan’s senior high schools. Whereas in March 1996, 96.8 percent of
1,545,270 middle school graduates entered senior high school that April,
only 1,362,682 (91.1 percent) graduated from high school in 1999. For
the 1997 cohort the figures were 96.8 and 90.9 percent, respectively
(Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu 2002c: 47). A large pro-
portion of dropouts became professional arubaitaa.
The figures for university students are harder to assess, as there are
numerous paths of entry and progression, but one estimate would be
that the dropout rate is roughly similar or slightly higher. In 2000, 45.1
percent of Japan’s senior high school graduates reported they would con-
tinue into further education, up from 39.0 percent in 1996. However, only
95.6 percent of the 605,619 high school graduates reporting an inten-
tion to go on to further education in April 1996 actually enrolled, and
only 93.01 percent of that cohort graduated (Mombu Kagaku Sho 2002:
30–3). These figures represent a tightening up of the market for grad-
uates, and there is concern that firms will not have a sufficient number
of skilled employees to generate the surplus on which they depended in
the past. The dropout problem is exacerbated by the fact that only 55.8
percent of university graduates and 18.6 percent of high school gradu-
ates entered the labor force in 2002, down from 81.0 and 41.1 percent
in 1990. At the same time, the demand for new graduates has shifted to
those with work experience. Thus unemployment rates for workers aged
35–55 were lower than for any other age group under 65 (Kosei Rodo Sho
2002a: 18).
The market for graduates is dominated by Japan’s large firms. Table 6.8
shows that university students are a much-sought-after commodity. In
order to protect university students in this tight market from excessively
aggressive recruitment practices, in 1996 representatives from Japan’s

universities, business, and government tried for the third time to ham-
mer out an accord. The agreement was that firms would not give stu-
dents informal commitments that they would hire them upon graduation
(naitei) before the 1 October preceding their graduation in March. How-
ever, firms would not keep to the agreement, and once one firm broke
ranks, other firms had to follow suit. Since the collapse of the third accord,
the market has opened earlier and earlier for Japan’s university students,
who now begin their discussions with employees in October of their third
year at university. In many cases the market closes in May of the student’s
fourth year.
One result of this early activity in the labor market for graduates is that
students end their serious study some time toward the end of their third
year. Another is that many students who are committed to their studies
and not ready to commit themselves to an employer miss out. A third is
that the market remains very volatile; firms or industries seen as attractive
by potential graduates (i.e. third- or fourth-year students) one year often
lose favor in subsequent years. For graduates in the social sciences and
humanities, only one company in the top ten of sought-after employers in
the 1990s was still there in 2000. For engineers and science students, only
four of the top ten preferred employers remained there over the decade
(H. Suzuki 2002: 10). While the change in part reflects the ongoing cri-
sis in the financial sector, with banks, insurance companies, and various
other financial service providers losing favor in the 1990s, there is also
a feeling that students are signing up with firms based on images gener-
ated in the media rather than a careful assessment of the work they are
likely to be assigned and its match with their own abilities, aptitudes, and
interests.
Many newly graduated employees now change jobs within the first
three years of being employed. The cajoling, bluffing, bargaining, and
other pressures that are associated with shushoku katsudo (job hunting)
probably work to compromise the judgment of students when they com-
mit themselves to informal agreements with employers. Moreover, the
pressurized examination system, the demands of extracurricular activity
(such as sports clubs), and expectations that students will complete their
university education within the standard four years, limit the time that
students have to engage in meaningful employment before they agree on
their first firm. Summer internships are not common in Japan. One study
of university students in twelve countries revealed that 96.8 percent of
male and 98.3 percent of female university students in Japan had never
taken time off from their studies to experience a full-time work environ-
ment, whereas just over half of their counterparts in Europe had done
so (Nihon Rodo Kenkyu Kiko 2001a: 10). The study suggested that the
European students were much more active in looking for and creating
employment-linked opportunities, and much more likely to see casual
employment as having a value far beyond the cash it brought in. The
same study also revealed that about half the graduates in Europe found
what they had learned at their university useful in their work, whereas only
about a quarter of Japanese graduates did so. In this regard, a gradual shift
seems to be occurring among university administrators in Japan, who are
now beginning to see the value of complementing the strongly conceptual
and theoretical orientation traditionally emphasized in Japanese univer-
sities with a more practical emphasis (SRN, 27 November 2000: 3; and
18 December 2000: 3).
One further development among university graduates is the interest in
venture businesses, and in recent years some observers have talked about
the “venture business boom” (kigyoka buumu). However, the require-
ments of Japanese banks make it difficult for new graduates to raise the
necessary capital. A recent study by the OECD of IT strategies in its
thirty member countries found that Japan ranked twenty-fifth in the
league table when it came to investing in venture capital (ASC, 6 May
2002: 5). Many graduates do not want to work in what they believe are
stifling conditions in Japan’s corporate world. Rather, they want to chal-
lenge their own abilities, even if it means failing, and to engage in work
that will hold and further ignite their interests. The pressure for change
exists on both the supply and the demand side, as economic leaders real-
ize Japan will not be able to satisfactorily restructure (e.g. find new prof-
itable niches) in the context of globalization unless the country’s capacity
to develop venture businesses is rapidly expanded.
6.3 The market among foreign firms

During the 1990s foreign firms came to be seen as attractive employ-
ers. This perhaps reflected media coverage given to globalization and the
prolonged recession in Japan over the last decade. A survey by Recruit
Research of 13,000 fourth-year university students in 1997 and 1998
revealed that the popularity of such firms rose rapidly in the late 1990s
(ASC, 6 June 1998: 14). Graduates used to prefer Japanese employers
because they provided more security and because foreign firms often
required additional language skills. However, restructuring over the last
decade and increased international competition has weakened the con-
fidence of graduates in the ability of Japanese firms to supply the same
security in the future. Moreover, the number of students studying and
traveling abroad increased significantly in the 1990s.
In March 2002 the Ministry of Welfare, Labor and Health released

findings from a survey of 529 foreign-owned companies operating in Japan
(SRN, 9 April 2001: 4). The findings revealed that foreign firms hired
mainly people with work experience whose productivity could be utilized
immediately. The firms had a fairly high labor turnover, but often pro-
vided shorter working hours and better leave. Foreign-owned firms had a
unionization rate above the national average for Japan (though below that
for Japan’s large firms) and more disputes than local firms (not surpris-
ing, perhaps, given the opportunity for cross-cultural misunderstandings
to occur). Two-thirds had workweeks under 38 hours, whereas only one-
fifth of Japanese firms did so. Similar proportions hold for the number of
firms giving employees sick leave and more than 120 days off per year.
These comparisons are difficult to make and to assess. The foreign-
owned company is usually part of a large multinational operation, and
tends to adopt the parent organization’s approach to international stan-
dards. This makes comparisons with Japan’s large-scale sector appropri-
ate, and it is often with this sector that foreign firms compete for Japan’s
good labor. At the same time, most operate as independent units having
their own bottom line in Japan. They usually employ a small number of
locals, and for this reason the comparison with overall averages is appro-
priate. In any case, they often lead Japanese firms in introducing progres-
sive practices and, as English becomes less of a barrier and more graduates
have experience abroad, more university graduates seem willing to work
for foreign firms. Many appreciate the shorter hours and the responsibil-
ity they are given without waiting until they are older, as would normally
occur in most Japanese firms. These changes suggest that thinking about
choices in the labor market is evolving. As the lines around this market
blur, prejudices faced by Japanese students raised abroad (kaigai kikoku
shijo) or those who work abroad for foreign firms are being replaced by
respect for the skills and perspectives gained through such experience.
Increasingly those attributes will be put to good use by Japanese firms as
they accommodate the globalizing environment.
6.4 The labor market for women

As they have moved from being unpaid family workers into the ranks of
the employed, the proportion of women among Japan’s employees has
steadily risen from 31.7 percent in 1965 to 40.0 percent in 2000. Sizable
numbers became employed as part-timers; in 1999 the number of women
employed part-time surpassed the number in regular employment. One
outcome of the restructuring process is that firms seeking to contain labor
costs prefer to hire women on a part-time basis (ASC, 2 April 2001: 20).
At the same time, the government’s White Paper on Working Women
recorded that the average tenure of women working for the same firm
has risen from 7.2 years in 1989 to 8.8 years in 2000. This compares
with 12.4 years in 1989 and 13.3 years in 2000 for men (Kosei Rodo Sho
Koyo Kinto-Jido Katei Kyoku 2001: appendix, p. 37). The same source
(p. 38) indicates that women still accounted for less than 10 percent of
those in managerial positions at the end of the century, although that per-
centage is slowly rising. The percentage of divisional managers who were
women was up from 1.0 percent in 1980 to 2.2 percent in 2000; section
chiefs were up from 1.3 to 4.0 percent; and supervisors were up from
3.1 percent to 8.1 percent. In a system that still emphasizes experience
and on-the-job training for managers, the shorter tenure of women and
their part-time status must be seen as keeping many from advancing into
management.
The M-shaped labor-force participation curve is gradually becoming
a mound-shaped curve which fails to reach the same height as the male
curve and tapers off more quickly with aging. The labor-force participa-
tion behavior of female high school graduates still follows the M-shaped
curve, peaking at around 20, dropping for marriage, childbirth and child
rearing, and then swinging up for a second peak when those women reach
their mid-forties. For female university graduates, however, the peak asso-
ciated with their highest labor-force participation rate comes some years
later, and tapers off more gradually as they postpone marriage and child-
birth in order to follow a career. These women no longer have a second
peak; the curve continues to slope downwards, revealing that, as they
enter their forties, this cohort of women seems to “give up” on their
chances of a meaningful career in the labor force and seeks other outlets
for their creative urges. The reasons for their apparent despondency have
to do with the limited prospects for promotion (Wakisaka and Tomita
1999: 3). While women’s take-home pay was only 65 percent of men’s
pay in 2000 – low among developed economies – the differential has
slowly narrowed from 59 percent in 1980 (Kosei Rodo Sho Koyo Kinto-
Jido Katei Kyoku 2001: 26–7), and much of it can be explained by the
different distributions of men and women in terms of employment status,
job content, firm size, and industry. If and when women move into pre-
dominantly male domains, the differential will likely narrow dramatically.
In this context the Male-Female Equal Employment Opportunity Law
of 1985 should be mentioned. Implemented from April 1986, the law was
seen as a Japanese response to international pressure that was brought to
bear on domestic politics by various women’s groups. The law forbade
gender-based discrimination in recruiting, hiring, pay, and promotion,
but was immediately criticized by feminists for not imposing penalties on
firms that did not comply. Although the law was not designed to force
change in such a heavy-handed manner, its advocates felt it was a means
of increasing public awareness of the issue and promoting a gradual, but

more lasting, cultural change, and the more modest goal of putting gender
on the corporate agenda was achieved.
The effectiveness of the legislation is difficult to assess. Some (e.g.
Owaki, Nakano and Hayashi 1996; Asakura and Konno 1997) conclude
that the changes fostered by the legislation would have occurred any-
way, owing in part to continuing internationalization and the increased
awareness of changes abroad. Such change is also consistent with the
view of those participating in the Asian values debate who see the way to
a more civil and egalitarian society as requiring a progression to higher
levels of affluence and the concomitant stages of economic development
rather than a change in Asian values per se (Mouer and Sugimoto: 2003).
The legislation seems to have opened doors for more articulate women
in the professions, with less impact on the world of work in factories,
the distribution system, and much of the traditional service sector where
part-time work is prevalent. While shifts in public consciousness are hard
to assess in an area dominated by political correctness, today there is less
bandying about of hackneyed phrases which referred to women as “office
wallflowers” (shokubano hana) or as “leftover Christmas cakes” (suggest-
ing that a woman’s use-by date was passed if she had not married by the
age of 25). The use of the term “OL” (office lady) also seems to have
declined.
The labor-force behavior of women is clearly different from that of men;
and women are treated differently in the work force. Do those differences
constitute a different labor market? If one sees the treatment as preceding
the behavior, the answer could be “yes.” If behavioral choice precedes
the treatment, the answer could be “no.” Those who follow a line of
thinking similar to that of Obi (1980) would tend to say “no.” The “yes”
camp would probably focus more on the process whereby firms create
surplus by “exploiting” a good source of quality labor and maintaining
their ability to do so through their power relations with women in the
labor market. The institutionalization of practices for treating men and
women differently would tend to suggest that their markets and certainly
their career chances are different. However, the choice of whether to enter
the “girls’ market” as part-timers (where men can also be employed) or
the open market still exists, and there is little gender difference in the
growing market for the furiitaa.
Women are choosing to marry later, to have their first child later, and
to have fewer children. The data in Ninomiya (2001: 40) shows that
the percentage of women not yet married aged 30–34 increased from
7.2 percent in 1970 to 19.7 percent in 1995; the figures are 5.8 and 10.0
percent for women aged 35–39. For men the corresponding increases
have been even more dramatic: up from 11.7 to 37.3 percent and from
4.7 to 22.6 percent. Isa (2002) presents data showing that the percentage
of women aged 30–34 having their first child doubled from 16.8 percent
in 1975 to 35.3 percent in 2000; those aged 35–39 doing so has tripled
from 3.3 to 10.6 percent over the same period. Isa attributes this to a
conscious decision by women to balance carefully the risks of raising
children before they have had some experience of life and the biological
risks of waiting too late.
A recent White Paper (Kosei Rodo Sho 2001b: 50–100) reports not
only that women still do the bulk of the housework and the child rearing,
but also that Japanese males are much less likely to perform those tasks
than their counterparts abroad. However, the same report shows clearly
that thinking about the division of labor at home is quickly changing.
Surveys by the Office of the Cabinet reveal that those who do not agree
with the proposition that the primary responsibility of men is to work
and that of women is to look after the home and children increased from
27 percent in 1987 to 48 percent in 2000 (p. 59). The White Paper sug-
gests that a growing number of women aspire to a life combining work
and family, and that fewer women now want or plan for a family-centered
existence. This varies from the position taken by Ninomiya (2001:
41–2), who argues that women want to have children but find it increas-
ingly difficult to do so because of the realities of household finances that
cause them to stay in a labor market which discriminates against them.
On the demand side, globalization will push firms to change to maintain
their competitiveness in product markets. Firms are likely to be increas-
ingly driven by the rather universalistic logic of global capitalism, and sen-
sitivity to international standards will further weaken the notion that there
should be two gender-based markets. As firms move to build clever teams
of highly motivated individuals, these changes will be further supported.
Firms that continue to conceive of their competitive edge in a mechani-
cal manner focused on hours of work and on the strict surveillance and
command of the salaried employee’s time will slow the dissolution of the
two markets.
6.5 The market for foreign workers

The changing power relationship between more fussy Japanese suppli-
ers and cost-conscious buyers is reflected in the evolution of the labor
market for foreign workers. It is estimated that the combined total of
legal and illegal entrants working in Japan number in the vicinity of
700,000. While the term “foreign worker” used to connote prostitutes,
dancers, and other female entertainers brought in from the Philippines
and other Southeast Asian countries to service the lower end of the recre-
ation industry, from the mid-1980s foreign workers came increasingly to
be employed in menial work characterized by the “three Ks.” In the
early years the majority of these workers came by different routes from
China, Korea, Southeast Asia, and Iran. Many Chinese nominally came
as students but worked illegally in order to send money home to their
families. Others, particularly those from Southeast Asia, came as on-the-
job trainees on schemes organized through foreign aid programs. In this
regard, some Japanese firms have been criticized for being more inter-
ested in the cheap labor supplied by the interns than in their training
per se.
The Japanese government was caught between concerns about a per-
ceived threat to social stability (in terms of the disruptiveness caused
by migrant labor in many European countries) and the economic real-
ity that migrant labor was underpinning the Japanese economy in ways
that removed bottlenecks in areas where Japanese would no longer work.
During the bubble years the Japanese government let the dual (legal
and illegal) markets for foreign workers coexist. Government figures
showed a sudden growth in legal immigrants in the 1980s. Their number
tripled from 106,000 to nearly 300,000 between July 1989 and May 1993
(Kuwahara 2001: 8). However, the recession and rising unemployment
in the early 1990s stimulated a backlash against foreign workers. The
media seemed to highlight the most prominent tensions in terms of those
who were most different visually and culturally (e.g. those from Islamic
nations such as Iran, Pakistan, and Bangladesh). The government sought
to tighten its control over immigration, and the number of legal migrant
workers began to drop slightly; the proportion from the Islamic nations
dropped from 20–25 percent to about 10 percent. While the overall effect
of the recession was to close the door to more foreign workers, it did not
result in a large exodus, and economic recovery is likely to be accompa-
nied by further increases.
Kuwahara’s (2001) study of small employers in the Hamamatsu area
suggests that employers completely accept the inevitability of having for-
eign workers. This is also a stance described in a volume by Miyajima
and Kajita (2000), which reports on field research in Toyohashi and
Kawasaki. Komai (2001), even more optimistically, suggests that Japan’s
new migrant population is reaching a critical mass whereby multicultur-
alism will flourish. He predicts that the ideas of people with a different
cultural background will add an important dynamic to Japanese soci-
ety. Y. Suzuki (2002: 135–79) argues that the changes currently occur-
ring in the Japanese language (as a result of this foreign element, among
other influences) are relevant to Japan’s ongoing multiculturalization and
its interface with the increasingly globalized world. An advisory panel
E A
G J
I I F
C
F D D G J
I I
I I F G
M H, K, L M
A Managers
B Middle management (including union members and non-unionists)
C Regular male employees (union members)
D Regular female employees (union members)
E Retirees and those on secondment
F Subcontracted employees
G Workers from labor dispatching firms
H Female part-timers
I Workers in small suppliers
J Entrepreneurs in independent firms
K Seasonal workers
L Student arubaito
M Foreign workers
Figure 6.1 The segmented labor force in Japan’s large firms.

Source: Kumazawa (1989), p. 224.
commissioned by the prime minister to develop a vision for Japan in the

twenty-first century even recommended that consideration be given to
according English some status as Japan’s second official language (Ono,
Morimoto, and Suzuki 2001: 165–96; Suzuki 2002: 167–64).
6.6 The future of Japan’s segmented labor markets

The above discussion highlights important ways in which the organiza-
tion of work is beginning to change in Japan. A comparison between
figures 6.1 and 6.2 provides some idea as to how Japan’s labor market
The new nexus between labor and management
Individuals Management
Selling what value one Seeking to implement a kind

has acquired in an of universal bottom-line
economic sense philosophy
Working part-time or in Seeking to limit fixed

a work-sharing scheme labor costs
Working without commitment Providing a variety of ways

to long-term employment and statuses by which
workers can be employed
The increasing Increasing The search for Increasing ability

advancement of competition to get self-actualization to telework with
women into a good employees IT technology
non-gendered labor who will offer high
market value added
The increased desire The shortened The interest in The increasing

of older Japanese to response time of NPOs, family, and ability to individ-
remain in the labor firms to product community ualize HR evalua-
force change involvement tions and manage-
ment systems
The aging of The collapse of The increasing Technological

the population the mass level of affluence change
and the drop in production/
the fertility rate mass
consumption
model
Changes occurring in the socioeconomic base
Figure 6.2 The emerging labor market in Japan (circa 2000).

Source: Adapted from a diagram in Hanami, Mitsuhashi, and Tachigi
(2002), p. 39.
is being transformed. Figure 6.1 was developed some time ago by

Kumazawa (1989) and shows how the segments depicted in figure 5.1
related to the way work was organized around the large firm. This chapter
and chapter 5 suggest that Japan may be moving away from a situa-
tion in which a number of very segmented labor markets structure work
around the large firms that command both the core market for Japan’s
elite employees and a large number of subcontractors (as shown in fig-
ure 6.1). A more fluid market seems to be emerging whereby the core
market will remain a market for elite employees who will increasingly
have to compete with workers in other rising markets (as shown in fig-
ure 6.2). Although the eventual outcome is difficult to predict, the new
markets will accommodate the growing multiculturalization of Japanese
society and the individualization of needs and wants on the supply side.
Firms will increasingly be forced to search for new ways to utilize labor
in order to rationalize their operations and keep the national economy
internationally competitive.
The shortage of those with professional skills for the new economy will
enhance the position of persons with those skills. Any decisive move to
enhance the position of IT in the economy, to export more services, or
to design and engineer products to be manufactured elsewhere will fur-
ther improve the hand of Japan’s most educated, creative, and dynamic
individuals. Such people are likely to demand a loosening of corporate
control over when and how they work. The consciousness of Japan’s
employees will continue to be influenced by Japan’s relative level of afflu-
ence and by the household as a socioeconomic unit.
The dissemination by the media of information about life abroad is
another factor. Another effect results from the growing amount of direct
contact Japanese are having with people from overseas. This occurs
through student exchanges, work-holiday programs and other work expe-
rience overseas, and through interaction with the growing number of
migrants now living and working in Japan.
The second major change can be seen in a blurring of the lines of
segmentation that have characterized Japan’s labor market in the past.
The distinctiveness of gender-specific markets is lessening. The market
for graduates is becoming more diffuse, and Japanese firms are shift-
ing to employ skilled workers who have already gained experience in
the labor force. Spreading multiculturalism and the change in linguistic
abilities and preferences in the broader community have been accompa-
nied by a greater acceptance of foreign employers and foreign workers
into the mainstream of many work organizations in Japan. The push for
international competitiveness seems to be driving employers to extend
their search for good workers far beyond the confines of the traditionally
segmented labor markets upon which they have depended in the

past.
What will remain most prominent are the firm size dualities and the
distinction between regular and non-regular employment. While some
practices first adopted in the large-scale sector will be diffused and come
to characterize the world of work more generally in Japan, as long as
the large firms remain dominant in the economy they will continue to
reinvent difference. They will maintain a different, albeit elitist, culture
for the employees of the corporate world. The distinction between regular
and non-regular employment will also continue, partly because this dis-
tinction overlaps with, and is reinforced by, firm-size dualities, but also
because the counterculture of the small independent entrepreneur will
remain attractive to many Japanese and be economically feasible as long
as the material standard of living at the bottom end of society is above
a certain civil minimum. However, the most important reason these two
types of segmentation will remain is that they are congruent with the
major differentiations that constitute the social stratification matrix in
Japan at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
When speculating about how the Japanese stratification mosaic will
look in the future, two possible changes come to mind. Work sharing
is one development that could considerably alter thinking about gender
roles at home and at work. It would likely release many men from the long
hours and the psychological pressures currently imposed upon them as
regular employees and as main breadwinners. It would also allow them to
reflect on the advantages of the furiitaa lifestyle, and to be more involved
in family and community life (including participation in NPOs). While
large employers may be slow to warm to the idea, the new economy will
place an emphasis on the ability of firms to develop and maintain a good
measure of multicultural sensitivity in terms of Japan’s own subcultures.
A second critical change might result from the move away from the
unilinear conception of life that has been institutionalized in Japan. Man-
agement, unions, and bureaucrats have tended in the past to conceive of
life following a single path from the womb to the tomb. This approach
is structured around a course taking each person through a fairly uni-
form childhood socialization process, a standardized schooling with fur-
ther education where possible, and then employment in the best firm
possible. Once employed, it was assumed that Japanese would work dili-
gently for advancement and for the success of their firm while getting
married and raising children (with or without continuing employment
in the case of women). Post-career employment and then retirement
on an appropriate pension ended the lifecycle. This discourse on life-
cycle developed around the norms of the successful sarariman in the elite
sector of the labor market. It rested on an assumption that was conve-

nient for employers used to thinking of their surpluses or profit margins as
being generated from economies of scale, where workers are to a consid-
erable extent interchangeable with no unusual or unpredictable demands
on them from outside the firm. In many other countries school leavers are
able to work, get married and have children, and then return to the class-
room in order to launch themselves in new careers and in new directions.
Although a good deal of rhetoric in Japan is about lifelong learning, the
institutions and the mechanisms to facilitate that kind of rotation into and
out of the labor force are not in place for that to occur in any meaningful
way. If, with Kelly (1998), one sees the new economy as a networked
activity in which firms need to give considerably more of themselves to
the social good in order to prosper, another clue to Japan’s future will be
found in the extent to which deregulation of the labor market is accom-
panied by the deregulation of the employee in Japan’s large corporate
sector.
Part IV
The broader social policy context for

understanding choice at work in Japan
7 From labor policy to social policy: a
framework for understanding labor process
in Japan at the national level
All the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimi-
nation in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed,
sex, social status or family origin
(Article 14 of the Japanese Constitution).
Every person shall have freedom to choose . . . his occupation to the
extent that it does not interfere with the public welfare
(Article 22 of the Constitution).
All people shall have the right to maintain the minimum standards of
wholesome and cultured living
All people shall have the right to receive an equal education correspon-
dent to their ability, as provided by law
All people shall have the right and the obligation to work
The right to own or to hold property is inviolable
7.1 Approaching labor policy in Japan

The labor markets described in the preceding two chapters are embedded
within a larger sociopolitical context. These passages from the Japanese
Constitution provide a broad framework for work-related legislation in
postwar Japan. Government policy continues to influence in numerous
ways the social context in which Japan’s labor markets function. In some
areas, however, the policy framework has been characterized by con-
spicuous non-involvement. The government’s indifference to horrendous
pollution in the late 1960s and the early 1970s is one example. Others
might be its reluctance to address various issues related to karoshi and
illness from overwork. In other areas the government has been criticized
for being over-zealous. Its control of textbooks and its battles with the
145
146 The social policy context and choices at work
Japan Teachers’ Union and other forms of left-wing unionism are well
documented; so too is its active support for strategically selected indus-
tries through a system of administrative guidance. In still other cases the
government has responded only after considerable international pressure
has been generated; it began to deal seriously with issues concerning the
right to strike in public enterprises only after the International Labor
Organization (ILO) became involved.
In most areas, the government has been careful to deliberate at length
and to sponsor careful comparative research on the situation in other
advanced economies before coming up with its own policies. A wait-and-
see approach was taken before adopting equal opportunity legislation
in the mid-1980s and then tightening it at the end of the 1990s. The
government’s staunch resistance to radical unionism and its reluctance to
concede managerial prerogatives have probably resulted in social change
at the workplace lagging behind that in society as a whole. This in turn
may have resulted in the initiative of many employees being restrained at
work, with serious mismatching in many labor markets slowing down the
restructuring processes that must occur if Japan is to successfully grapple
with the new economic realities that accompany globalization.
The interest in the superior competitiveness of Japan’s economy in
the early 1970s shifted attention from Japan’s high savings rate and cap-
ital inputs to the country’s high labor productivity. This shift resulted
in a focus on (i) Japanese social values, (ii) skill formation within the
firm and other practices associated with internal labor markets in Japan’s
largest firms, and (iii) the institutions which were labeled “the three pil-
lars” by the OECD (1977) and the “Three Sacred Emblems” by Yakabe
(1977). The three pillars were lifetime or career employment (shushin
koyo or shogai koyo), seniority wages (nenko joretsu chingin), and enter-
prise unions (kigyobetsu kumiai). Although these three practices had been
noted earlier by Abegglen (1958) and Hazama (1959 and 1962), refer-
ence to the “three sacred treasures” (sanshu no jingi) became common in
the academic literature on Japan’s industrial relations in the early 1970s.
Accepting them as widespread practices and the norm, many authors
sought to systematize their understanding of those practices in terms of
a unique set of Japanese cultural values that were seen as underpinning
these institutions (e.g. Hazama 1971; Tsuda 1977 and 1980; Iwata 1974
and 1975).
These company-level practices have not been mentioned or regulated,
let alone enshrined, in any legislation. Rather they have evolved out of
understandings at the plant level, and labor process at the micro level has
resulted in a good deal of creativity and variety among Japan’s firms. To
some extent the government’s policy with regard to work has been one
From labor policy to social policy 147
of minimal involvement. Firms (and enterprise unions) in the large-scale

private sector have been allowed to develop internal personnel practices
most suited to their own economic circumstances, an approach that has
resulted in the institutionalization of the inequalities and inefficiencies
associated with labor market segmentation.
Although more sophisticated discussions mention some of the varia-
tions in practice that have arisen from dualities in the labor market, most
discussions have overlooked or downplayed the role of the government in
shaping the broader context in which labor markets and work practices
exist. The general absence of comprehensive legislation in the early post-
war years in the domain commonly referred to in Japan as “social policy”
(shakai seisaku) may have contributed to this oversight. So too might the
tendency of outside observers to dismiss what social policy there was as
not being sufficiently significant compared to the comprehensive social
welfare systems found in many Western countries. In any case, the interest
in policy and legislation related to work (i.e. minimal working conditions)
came to be circumscribed within “labor policy” (rodo seisaku), a construct
which incorporated a much narrower range of concerns related to work
itself and the collective bargaining relationship. These were the traditional
concerns of the discipline of industrial relations (or labor–management
relations) and industrial sociology as they had developed in the United
States.1 Another reason for this narrow focus might also have been the
general reluctance of policymakers in Japan to become involved in the
affairs of companies at the private level.
In the early postwar years legislation was enacted to stop some of the
prewar exploitative practices and this can be seen as having provided
important regulatory guidelines. Until the 1970s the concern with labor
law was focused primarily on three laws (known as the “rodo sanpo”): the
Labor Standards Law (1947), the Trade Union Law (1945 and 1949),
and the Labor Relations Adjustment Law (1946 and 1948). Until the
early 1970s labor law was debated primarily in terms of how those laws
should be interpreted and how changes to those laws might affect the
overall functioning of the labor economy in terms of Japan’s high rates of
economic growth. In the early years there was a concern that an enhanced
1 It should be noted that the United States government actively funded the establishment
of a program designed to bring a large number of promising young Japanese scholars
to American universities in the 1960s to study industrial relations and labor economics
as an alternative to the Marxist approach to work organization. The program was part
of the cold-war strategy developed by the United States, and reflected the concern of
American policymakers with the influence of Marxist and other left-wing scholars in
Japan on public debate and on the setting of agendas for the union movement and other
grassroots organizations in postwar Japan. This was an important factor shaping how
industrial relations research and industrial sociology developed in postwar Japan.
Trade Union Law should ensure a democratic balance between the forces
for distributive justice and those for firm-based economic efficiency. The
OECD reports on Japan’s manpower arrangements and many other writ-
ings in the 1970s praised Japanese-style management practices for their
contribution to maintaining a highly motivated labor force committed to
serving the firms that employed them.
The emergence of mass society served to legitimate the Japanese model.
The outcomes of these changes seemed to obviate the need for more
legislation either to regulate work or to alter the distribution of income.
Those were the years of the Japanese economic miracle and the moretsu
shain who was later to receive international acclaim in the management
literature of the late 1970s and the 1980s. A belief that rapid growth
would result in across-the-board improvements in everyone’s standard of
living had taken root.
Following the successive oil shocks in the mid-1970s, Japan faced con-
siderable unemployment for the first time in nearly three decades. Over
the preceding decade Japanese had come to enjoy a lifestyle with vari-
ous new conveniences that included time-activated rice cookers, wash-
ing machines, vacuum cleaners, cars, a range of high-quality audio-visual
goods and various leisure-oriented services. Many Japanese wanted more
than pollution and long hours of overtime. Anti-war movements, the anti-
pollution movements, and consumer movements were active. Women
were becoming more independent and wanted more at work. The family
was changing, and the need for in-home care for the aged was beginning
to be felt. Soon there would be foreign workers, the homeless, and the
furiitaa who were not following the normal paths into the labor force.
7.2 Notions of labor law

With these changes in the 1970s the concept of labor law began to
broaden. During the 1980s and 1990s labor law came to embrace an
expanding range of concerns. This development is reflected in the list
of Japan’s postwar labor legislation (table 7.1). The common basis for
all legislation is the Civil Code and the Constitution (table 7.2). Japan’s
labor laws need to be understood in relation to other legislation, espe-
cially with regard to social welfare, as this chapter and the next argue.
The ILO conventions provide points of reference in the background.
Basic textbooks on labor law, including those recently reviewed by
Obata (2000), map the changing terrain. Older textbooks emphasize how
employment is defined and what constitutes a union. The delineation of
legal rights and obligations in setting working conditions or in collective
bargaining was an important issue involved with the introduction of more
Table 7.1 Japan’s postwar labor legislation
Date Japanese English
22.12.1945 (Kyu) Rodo Kumiai Ho (First) Trade Union Law

27.09.1946 Rodo Kankei Chosei Ho Labor Relations Adjustment Law
7.04.1947 Rodo Kijun Ho Labor Standards Law
30.11.1947 Shokugyo Antei Ho Employment Security Law
21.12.47 Shitsugyo Hoken Ho Unemployment Insurance Law
7.04.1948 Rodosha Saigai Hosho Hoken Workmen’s Accident
Ho Compensation Insurance Law
20.12.1948 Kokyo Kigyotaito Rodo Kankei Public Corporation and National
Ho Enterprise Labor Relations Law
31.05.1949 Rodo Sho Setchi Ho Ministry of Labor Establishment
Law
1.06.1949 Rodo Kumiai Ho (Second) Trade Union Law
28.12.1949 Koyo Hoken Ho Employment Insurance Law
7.08.1953 Denki Jigyo Oyobi Sekitan Law Concerning the Control of

Kogyo ni Okeru Sogi Koi no Disputes in the Electric Power
Hoko no Kisei ni Kansuru and Coal Mining Industries
Horitsu
2.05.1958 Nihon Rodo Kyokai Ho Japan Institute of Labor Law
15.04.1959 Saitei Chingin Ho Minimum Wage Law
9.05.1959 Chusho Kigyo Taishokukin Law Concerning Mutual Aid
Kyosai Ho Among Smaller Enterprises for
Retirement Allowance
25.07.1960 Shintai Shogaisha Koyo Physically Handicapped Persons’

Sokushin Ho Employment Promotion Law
29.06.1964 Rodo Saigai Boshi Dantai Ho Industrial Injury Prevention
Organization Law
21.07.1966 Koyo Taisaku Ho Law on Measures to Maintain
Employment
18.07.1969 Shokugyo Kunren Ho Vocational Training Law
16.05.1970 Kanai Rodo Ho Law Concerning Persons

Employed at Home
1.06.1971 Kinrosha Zaisan Keisei Law for the Promotion of
Sokushin Ho Workers’ Property Accumulation
8.06.1972 Rodo Anzen Eisei Ho Industrial Safety and Health Law
1.07.1972 Kinro Fujin Fukushi Ho Working Women’s Welfare Law
28.12.1974 Koyo Hoken Ho Employment Insurance Law
1.05.1975 Sagyo Kankyo Sokutei Ho Working Environment
Measurement Law
27.05.1976 Chingin no Shiharai no Security of Wage Payment Law
Kakuho Nado ni Kansuru
Horitsu
(cont.)
Table 7.1 (cont.)
15.05.1983 Tokutei Fukyo Gyoshu Nado Law for Employment Security for
Kankei Rodosha No Koyo Ni Workers in Specified Depressed
Kansuru Tokubetsu Sochi Ho Industries
17.05.1985 Danjo Koyo Kikai Kinto Ho Law Concerning the Promotion
of Equal Opportunity and
Treatment Between Men and
Women and Other Welfare
Measures for Women Workers
5.07.1985 Rodo Haken Ho Law for the Worker Dispatching
Industry
31.03.1987 Chiiki Koyo Kaihatsu Sokushin Ho Law to Promote Employment in
Local Areas
2.07.1992 Rodo Jikan Tanshuku Sokushin Ho Law for Temporary Measures to

Promote Shorter Working Hours
1.04.1992 Ikuji Kyugyo Ho Law on Maternity Leave
18.06.1993 Paato Rodo Ho Law Concerning Part-Time
Workers
9.06.1995 Ikuji Kyugyo Ho Law for Workers with Family
Care Responsibilities (revised)
1.04.1999 Danjo Koyo Kikai Kinto Ho Law Concerning the Promotion
of Equal Opportunity and
Treatment Between Men and
Women and Other Welfare
Measures for Women Workers
(revised)
1.04.1999 Rodo Kijun Ho Labor Standards Law (revised)
1.12.1999 Rodosha Haken Ho Law for the Worker Dispatching
Industry (revised)
1.12.1999 Shokugyo Antei Ho Employment Security Law
(revised)
Notes: (1) There is a slight inconsistency in the dates given. Some are for enactment, while
others are for promulgation or enforcement.
(2) The laws listed here may be consulted in Japanese in Kosei Rodo Daijin Kanbo
Somuka (2001). An English version of most items may be found in Ministry of
Labor (1995).
democratic work practices and the move of Japan away from fascist struc-
tures and socially “feudal” relationships which were seen as defining
work in the prewar era. This narrow focus on legal interpretations of
Japan’s new postwar labor laws characterizes many textbooks produced
in the 1960s (e.g. Hokao 1965 and successive editions into the 1990s).
Introductory textbooks in the 1980s (e.g. Yasueda and Nishimura 1986)
Table 7.2 Legislation and conventions affecting the formulation of labor law
in Japan
Prewar
27.04.1896 Mimpo Civil Code
24.04.1910 Keiho Criminal Code
10.04.1926 Boryoku Koi To Law Concerning Violence and
Shobatsu ni Kansuru its Control
Hoitsu
Postwar
3.05.1947 Nihonkoku Kempo Constitution of Japan
International 1919 to 1940 Kokusai Rodo Joyaku Conventions of the
and 1951 to International Labor
present Organization. Japan has ratified
thirty-three conventions: nos.
2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 18, 19,
21, 22, 26, 27, 29, 45, 49, 58,
69, 73, 81, 87, 88, 96, 98, 100,
102, 115, 119, 121, 131, 134,
and 139.
began to reflect sociopolitical changes that started in the 1970s. In addi-

tion to providing an interpretative overview covering “the basics” in
a traditional sense, these textbooks had chapters dealing with issues
being addressed in a raft of new legislation: employment security,
unemployment and retrenchment, equal employment opportunity (for
women), outsourcing through employment dispatching agencies, and
aged workers.
By the late 1990s the shift to a broader conceptualization of labor law
was firmly established. Shimoi (2000), Suwa (1999), Yasueda (1998),
and the first volume in a new series edited by the Japan Association for
Labor Law (Nihon Rodo Ho Gakkai: 2000) all placed labor law in the
broader social context. They incorporated an understanding of how glob-
alization and the spread of international standards were affecting labor
law in Japan. They also referred to some of the unresolved sociopolitical
tensions within contemporary Japan to highlight how a careful review of
past legislation may provide some useful lessons in responding to social
change. Tanaka’s (2000) textbook combines the approach of the late
1980s and early 1990s (which was to add new chapters to the basic
framework of the 1960s), with an introduction to the real issues con-
fronting policymakers. In giving special attention to the legal situation
of foreign workers in Japan (a loose group of individuals whose status is
not defined by any specific piece of work-related legislation), the book

recognizes that the circumstances arising out of globalization have pre-
sented the country with the need to redefine the domain associated with
labor law. Tanaka’s volume also discusses the legal issues posed by the
recent increase in work-related suicides from the point of view of Japan’s
Accident Compensation Insurance Law of 1947 (and revised nearly every
year thereafter).
Changes in labor policy can easily be discovered by surveying the
annual issues of the Labor White Paper, major journals in this area,
and various annual reviews which summarize longer-term trends. Discus-
sions in the late 1950s and early 1960s focused on urban/rural dualities,
occupational wage differentials, regional income inequalities, the dekasegi
(migrant laborers), and poverty. In the early postwar years there was a
distinct difference between (i) conservative academics, management rep-
resentatives, and bureaucrats and (ii) left-leaning scholars, labor lead-
ers, and human rights or civil rights advocates and activists. The former
group tended to argue that growth would result in a broadly spread afflu-
ence that would result in the importance attached to various inequalities
diminishing over time, and that business needed a free hand to “get on
with the job.” That view was consistent with the widely held perception
that 90 percent of Japanese were part of a broadly based middle class.
The latter group tended to emphasize how entrenched social inequalities
defined reality for most working-class Japanese. They argued that such
inequalities supported an approach to work organization in Japan that
provided for the systematic generation of surplus for Japan’s large firms.
They tended to believe that more active state involvement was needed to
achieve more equal power relations at work and a more egalitarian distri-
bution of Japan’s newly created wealth. Here the socialist-inspired union-
ists faced a fundamental contradiction: the majority of unionists were
employed in Japan’s large-scale sector; as Japan’s aristocracy of labor,
they enjoyed privilege at the expense of many workers in Japan’s smaller
firms and those who labored as casuals.
Japan’s new affluence seemed to vindicate the view that workers would
achieve even higher standards of living by continuing to work long hours
for their firm. The metaphor of the 1960s and 1970s was the “economic
pie.” Debate revolved around the relationship between policies designed
to enhance the size of the pie in absolute terms and policies that would
redistribute the pie. Those involved in developing labor and social policy
during this period invariably gave priority to enhancing size, often believ-
ing the affluence produced by growth would flow down to everyone, that
income inequality would “automatically” diminish over time, and that
efforts to alter the distribution of social rewards would undermine the

growth process.
As the pie grew, the focus of labor and social policy shifted away from
issues of inequality and social justice. From the early 1970s the main
issues for labor policy became Japan’s labor shortage, human resource
development, and labor mobility through internal labor markets: areas
linked to Japan’s international competitiveness. By the mid-1970s there
was a widespread belief that the Japanese approach had created the most
egalitarian society in the industrialized world.
At the same time the mercantilist mentality continued to dominate the
minds of many policymakers. It was common in the 1970s for policy-
makers to call upon another of Japan’s postwar metaphors which likened
the Japanese economy to a small rowing boat in danger of being sunk
by larger boats in hostile international waters. In the early 1970s the
European discourse on incomes policy was introduced in the context of
the “task in hand”: maintaining Japan’s international competitiveness.
Wage inflation and militant unionism were portrayed as symptoms of the
dreaded “British disease” which had ravaged a country that once headed
a great empire and later came to embrace too much social welfare. The
Japanese approach was framed in terms of self-restraint on the part of
unions. It was presented as a uniquely Japanese approach arising out of a
national ethos that placed a value on conciliatory industrial relations, on
the loyalty of employees to their firm, and on employees having a strong
sense of national identity and purpose.
Following the “Nixon shocks” and the oil crises in the 1970s, conser-
vative policymakers focused on training, responsible unionism, and the
need to adjust employment levels. Leftists were still demanding social
welfare and better safety nets. In 1974 Sohyo, the left-leaning national
center for organized labor, fought its annual Spring Offensive as “the
People’s Offensive.” Its slogans demanded social welfare that would
serve the interests of many in the non-unionized peripheral labor force.
Sohyo’s demands were deflected by (i) its continuing commitment to
obtaining the right to strike in the public sector, (ii) the lack of interest
among unionists in the large-scale private sector (who tended to iden-
tify more with the conservative national center Domei), and (iii) the
fact that the conservative government suddenly took the initiative to intro-
duce bills that were plugged as opening a new era of social welfare (fukushi
gannen). The capacity of the government to fund welfare was presented by
conservatives as having been made possible only by ongoing rapid growth.
The perception that growth was threatened by the oil shocks reinforced
the view that everyone would benefit from (i) sensible wage restraint,
(ii) a certain leniency when it came to implementing the new welfare

policies, and (iii) the constraining of irresponsible left-wing unionism that
pushed for social justice at the expense of the economy’s competitiveness.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s concern shifted to other issues such
as the role of working women and hours of work. Sizable balance-of-
payments surpluses brought international pressure on Japan to share
some of its largesse abroad. Continued growth into the 1980s contributed
to a tighter labor market and rising labor costs. Japan’s larger firms began
to develop global production and marketing strategies, and an increas-
ing number of Japanese began to travel, study, and live overseas. The
conditions for Japanese society to internationalize were further improved
by legislation related to the position of women – one law altering the
basis for citizenship in 1984 and another in 1985 raising public aware-
ness of the various forms of gender-based discrimination at work. As
immigration increased, international marriages became more common,
and Japan became more connected to the world through the spread of
international culture and other phenomena such as AIDS. The Japanese
adopted a more multicultural outlook and became more informed about
the world beyond Japan. Domestically, proportional representation was
introduced for the Diet’s Upper House electoral districts in 1983; Japan
National Railways was disaggregated and privatized in 1987; the tunnel
connecting Hokkaido and Honshu was completed in 1988; and the gen-
eral consumption tax (shohizei) was introduced from April 1989. These
developments further consolidated the national economy and prepared
it for being more globally competitive.
In the 1990s initiatives were taken to deregulate the labor market and
to improve the interface between work and family life. While some of
those changes were motivated by a desire to improve the competitiveness
of firms, they were also facilitated by a greater awareness of social change
abroad and by the absorption of “international standards” into the work
culture of Japan.
7.3 From labor policy to social policy as a framework for

understanding the organization of work in Japan
Despite the long concern with “labor policy” (rodo seisaku), the term is still
difficult to define. Although it usually includes various aspects of man-
power planning, it is generally not used in a manner so comprehensive
as to include issues related to compulsory education or to social welfare
per se. However, an understanding of the choices which the Japanese
make in choosing to engage with one or more of Japan’s labor mar-
kets, and to work for a given employer, requires a full appreciation of
how policy (or its absence) serves to reinforce social arrangements that
delimit the options available to ordinary Japanese when they think about
work. Here we are talking about their “conditions of possibility,” to use
a term employed by Derrida, the “discourse” which in Foucault’s vocab-
ulary defines their options, or simply the “superstructures” in Marxist
terminology. Accordingly, when thinking about the legislative framework
shaping choices at work it is useful to consider the wider setting that is
the concern of social policy (shakai seisaku). The domain of social policy
is more inclusive than that of labor policy, and it too is being transformed
owing to the changes in Japanese society.
Three general approaches to social policy are relevant to understand-
ing the organization of work in contemporary Japan. One focuses on the
objects of social policy, identifying those for whom and by whom the poli-
cies are enacted. Central to this approach is the delineation of various
interest groups and underprivileged social strata. With the shift in public
consciousness the existence of new strata has been acknowledged: work-
ing women who still bear a disproportionately large share of the respon-
sibility for children, housework, and the care of other family members;
the handicapped; those who suffer from various forms of harassment
and/or intimidation; foreign workers; part-timers and other casuals; aged
workers; and workers who find themselves homeless.
These new strata exist only at the margins of public consciousness.
When the economy was growing rapidly, isolated cases of extreme poverty
could be covered by some sort of monetary consideration. Today, how-
ever, many who require attention are not poor in absolute terms; rather,
they are citizens concerned about social recognition and discrimination
arising from social attitudes that diminish their dignity. They are asking
for a fundamental renegotiation of their social status. They are critical of
the way status is inherited through a process that was markedly shaped
by their parents’ differential access to societal rewards and the relatively
small number of good jobs.
These issues are essentially linked to the provision of social security,
safety nets, and civil minimums. One concerns what the minimal stan-
dards might be; another concerns the locus of responsibility for ensuring
that agreed standards are maintained. For a long time successive con-
servative governments have taken the view that firms and individuals
(i.e. families) should take the major responsibility for looking after these
matters. This has given way over time to a piecemeal approach in for-
mulating social welfare legislation, and the percentage of Japan’s GNP
generated for health, pensions, and other welfare is lower than in most
other similarly industrialized nations (table 7.3). This is consistent with
the policy objectives of many conservatives who believe that the potential
Table 7.3 Percentage of national income spent on social welfare in six nations (circa the mid-1990s)
Country Year A B C D E F
Medical care Pensions Other welfare Total Percentage of the population Per capita income (US$)
aged over 70 in 2002 at ¥132/US$1
Sweden 1993 10.0 20.1 23.3 53.4 17.43 24,632

France 1994 9.0 18.3 10.1 37.4 15.97 23,217
Germany 1993 8.7 14.3 10.3 33.3 16.40 24,655
United Kingdom 1993 7.3 10.8 9.1 27.2 15.75 17,814
USA 1992 7.1 8.7 3.6 19.4 12.30 25,775
Japan 1993 5.9 7.8 1.6 15.2 28,146
1998 6.7 10.1 2.2 18.9 17.34 28,043
1999 6.9 10.4 2.3 19.6 29,043
Source: The data were compiled by the Kokuritsu Shakai Hosho Jinko Mondai Kenkyujo (The National Research Center for the Study of Social
Security and Population), and appeared in Ichi-en (2002), p. 658 and Hamada and Okuma (2002), p. 474. The data for 1998 and 1999 and in
column E are from Kosei Rodo Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2002b), pp. 24 and 313.
for economic growth is seriously compromised by expenditure on social

welfare. Hirakawa (2002: 18–22) writes about this at some length, argu-
ing, perhaps optimistically, that policymakers may be changing their views
in this regard. The tendency to leave the responsibility for social welfare
to the private sector has meant that workers have had to rely to a consid-
erable extent on the willingness of their employers to develop corporate
welfare programs. In this regard table 7.4 suggests that welfare bene-
fits provided by employers have slowly risen from 13.6 percent of total
labor costs in 1975 to 18.4 percent in 1998. However, considerable dif-
ferences exist between large and small firms. In 1998 take-home pay was
1.62 times greater for workers in firms with over 5,000 employees than
in firms having 30–99 employees; when company welfare benefits were
added to take-home wages, the figure grew to 1.75 (Kosei Rodo Sho
Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu 2002a: 187–8).
A second approach to social policy is concerned with the publicly stated
goals of social policy. To some extent motives – as understood in the goals
they set – may be detected from the legislation itself. However, to under-
stand fully the dynamics of policy formation one needs to look further
for patterns that reveal longer-term commitments to given ideological
positions. To some extent policy has been shaped by subtle shifts in the
complicated balance of power. Unification of the labor movement at the
end of the 1980s had a political impact in the early 1990s, even though
the major labor organization (Rengo) embraced fewer than one-fourth of
all employees. Rengo has struggled to develop policy recommendations
over a wide range of areas of concern to working Japanese. With con-
servatives floundering through a succession of coalition governments in
the 1990s, the process of formulating welfare policy has been marked by
uncertainty. The extended recession in the 1990s, a general concern with
rationalizing public expenditure, and political inertia delayed fundamen-
tal reform.
Kume (2000) notes, nevertheless, that a fundamental change has been
occurring. Reasons to replace disparate schemes with a single unified
system are now receiving greater recognition. Questions have also been
raised about transparency and the strong commitment to a corporatist
approach. The segmented approach has served to create and maintain
inequalities that came to be more entrenched and socially reproduced
over time. In the 1980s public attention was diverted from these issues
by the frequent media coverage given to those proclaiming that Japan
was the ultimate middle-class society. Without a strong mandate, political
leaders lacked the confidence necessary to initiate open public discussion
of many social policy issues that impinge directly on aspects of Japan’s
stratification matrix.
Table 7.4 Percentage breakdown for labor costs and the amounts spent on non-wage welfare benefits by private firms in
Japan, 1975–98
1998
For firms with For firms with

1975 1985 For all firms 5,000+ employees 30–99 employees
TOTAL LABOR COSTS 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

A. Wages 86.4 84.6 81.6 78.5 84.6
B. Non-wage costs 13.6 15.4 18.4 21.5 15.4
1. Retirement pay 3.1 3.9 5.4 7.7 2.7
2. Payment in kind 0.5 0.0 0.3 0.4 0.3
3. Legally stipulated welfare 6.1 7.7 9.3 8.7 10.3
4. Welfare benefits not required by law 3.1 2.8 2.7 4.1 1.8
5. Education and training 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.2
6. Recruitment 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.1
7. Other costs 0.2 0.6 0.2 0.2 0.1
Source: Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2002a), pp. 187–8.
The concern with inequality connects to a third emphasis: the social

or structural origins of social policy. There seems to be agreement about
many of the greater changes driving recent shifts in social policy. They
include feminism and its impact on how women think about work, child
rearing, and their own sense of fulfillment. The increasing emphasis in
Japanese society on human rights is another (Ogawa et al. 2002). These
shifts are reflected in the term “barrier-free society,” which has become
a key Japanese term in recent years. Changes are also occurring in the
structure of the family (including a greater acceptance of various types of
family structures) and in the age profile of the population. The hollowing
out of key industries as major firms move production overseas has been
accompanied by the diversification of the labor force in terms of the needs,
wants, or aspirations of those who labor. Few want to follow a standard-
ized life-course. The opening of the Japanese market to cheaper goods of
considerable quality, and to greater flows of information about choices
elsewhere, further promotes the individuation of lifestyles in Japan.
Behind these changes looms globalization. Based on his comparison
between the ways in which social welfare has been evolving in Japan and
China during the 1990s, Nakae (1998: 319–31) provides an interesting
overview of how capitalism and the capitalist welfare state have evolved.
He argues that three major conditions have sustained the welfare state
over the past century: continuing economic growth, the ideological cleav-
ages between socialist and capitalist regimes, and the absolute sovereignty
of the nation state. Financial crises, the rising cost of oil, and the hollow-
ing out of industries as production is moved abroad are seen as major
threats to future growth and prosperity. Since the cold war the need
to compete ideologically in terms of social justice issues has declined.
The new movements of finance, capital, goods, people, and information
compromise the integrity of the nation state and its ability to control or
regiment its citizens. In the new global era the future of social policy will
increasingly be influenced by the development of international standards
that are shaped by the pushing and shoving of national governments in
the international arena, and in largely closed meetings organized by the
Group of Eight, the WTO, certain NGOs, the ILO, and various other
world economic forums sponsored by the private sector.
In this regard, the debate that was begun in the 1930s by Kazahaya
Yasoji (1973) and Okochi Kazuo (1970) is of considerable interest. The
former argued that social policy can best be understood as an instrument
of the establishment to appease and to control members of the working
class; the latter argued that progressive social legislation was in the inter-
ests of capitalists narrowly defined and in the interests of management
groups more broadly defined.
Kazahaya’s position was that governmental action, supported by a

strong working-class political movement, was necessary for the economic
interests of workers to be realized. Studies of Japan’s anti-pollution poli-
cies and the move to deregulate the labor market, for example, have
involved close consultation and tacit agreement between government and
business without much input from union leaders and others of a socialist
bent.
Okochi believed that enlightened policy would be the inevitable out-
come when firms strove to be competitive in a healthy capitalist economy.
He attached importance to having an integrated social policy sensitive
(a) to the tradeoff between participation and efficiency, and (b) to the
requirement that successful management strategies must take account of
existing social customs and cultural values. These views would later be
articulated by Nakayama (1974), who called for a balance between the
emphasis on efficiency and the weight attached to having socially just
outcomes. The writings of Tsuda (1977 and 1980), Iwata (1974 and
1975), and many others associated with this stream of thinking in the
late 1970s and early 1980s argued that the uniqueness of Japanese-style
management and Japan’s approach to industrial relations lies in the very
fact that such a balance had indeed been achieved.
Given the emphasis on the importance attached to the continuity of
cultural values in much of the literature on Japan’s work practices and
industrial relations which emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, it is important
to note that many practices, such as seniority wages, enterprise unions,
and long-term employment, were institutionalized only during the Pacific
War and in the immediate postwar years. In the past, nihonteki (typically
Japanese) values were seldom treated as being connected to desired out-
comes in the discussions of labor policy theorists. “Culturalists” and even
many “institutionalists” highlighted such values as the central link sup-
porting the “three pillars.” However, to the extent that the existence of
such values has been acknowledged, they have as often as not been seen
as constraints retarding efforts to rationalize work practices.
In discussions of nihonteki keiei (Japanese-style management practices)
scholars such as Nakayama and Tsuda emphasized ways in which the
importance attached to the related set of Japanese values bound manage-
ment to a vocabulary or rhetoric impelling them to implement certain
democratic values and civil minimums. In their view, by paying atten-
tion to the egalitarian concerns of ordinary workers, management was
able to heighten significantly the motivation of employees to work. How-
ever, while spouting a group-oriented ideology, the socialist implications
of groupist values have consistently been downplayed by conservatives,
and labor market segmentation has resulted in a sizable proportion of
the labor force not enjoying permanent long-term employment or the

benefits associated with seniority in Japan’s large-scale sector. References
to “groupism” and related values were translated into appeals calling for
the maintenance of national economic independence at all costs. Cen-
tral to achieving economic goals was the maintenance of social stability
(e.g. not engaging in disruptive labor disputes) and a strong work ethic
(e.g. the willingness to work long hours at the discretion of management).
At the same time, the diversification of the labor force in the 1990s led
management to search for new ways to legitimate its push for further
rationalization as notions of “the good life” and the nature of social jus-
tice evolved.
7.4 Social class, labor market segmentation and inequality

In many advanced and newly industrializing economies the amount of
social inequality increased during the 1990s. Japan’s widening income
and wealth differentials have been accentuated by a drop in intra- and
intergenerational mobility. Only infrequently does one now encounter in
the media the rhetoric so popular in the 1970s and 1980s that Japan was
one large homogeneous middle-class society. The discussion of inequal-
ity in contemporary Japan revolves around at least four issues: declining
levels of social (mainly occupational) mobility, the distribution of income
and wealth, the way the system of education reproduces social class, and
the significance of Japan’s newcomers on the stratification matrix. Com-
peting views on these issues have been compiled by the editors at Bungei
Shunju (2000) and Chuo Koron Henshu Bu (2001). Views on income
distribution appeared in a special issue of the Nihon Rodo Kenkyu Zasshi
(no. 480: July 2000) and a recent publication of the Japanese Association
of Labor Sociology (Nihon Rodo Shakai Gakkai) (2002).
The wartime experience and subsequent Occupation radically altered
Japanese society. Japanese debate in the 1950s and early 1960s revolved
around the extent to which Japan had democratized. Although a sizable
literature about poverty and the working class was produced during those
years, the spread of Japan’s rapid economic growth led many to believe
by the late 1970s and early 1980s that Japan had become a mass soci-
ety. Surveys seemed to show that 90 percent of Japanese were middle
class, and that serious pockets of poverty or wealth did not exist. It was
commonly assumed that the distribution of income in Japan was more
egalitarian than in other similarly developed economies, an outcome par-
tially attributed to the leveling effect of the seniority wage system.
Assumptions concerning equality in Japan continued to be widely
accepted well into the 1990s, even as restructuring and redundancies
further highlighted the stratified nature of Japanese society. They held

despite a good deal of research documenting (a) the extent to which
Japan’s labor market was segmented, (b) the extent to which wages and
income were distributed according to criteria fairly similar to those oper-
ating elsewhere, (c) the increasing diversification of consumer markets
from the late 1970s onwards, and (d) the high cost of private educa-
tion. However, during the 1990s several global developments may have
contributed to Japanese recognition of these inequalities. The end of the
cold war reduced pressure on conservatives to proffer the view that Japan
was more egalitarian than other societies. Greater flows of information
and people contributed to a growing awareness that most other advanced
economies are similarly stratified. Managers in many Japanese firms and a
growing Japanese diaspora often found it advantageous to associate them-
selves with views that integrated their interests with those of similarly
positioned people abroad by emphasizing the similarities Japan shared
with other societies.
7.4.1 Economic inequality

In the 1990s a new generation of scholars began to rearticulate concerns
about social justice. Their careful analyses of objective Japanese govern-
ment data showed that income differentials had widened significantly
over time. The early work of Ishikawa and Kawasaki (1991) was built
on, and in 1998 Tachibanaki published his well-documented claims that
income differentials had expanded considerably in the 1980s and early
1990s. He argued that in the 1990s the distribution of income in Japan
was no more equal than it was in the United States. The arguments in
Ishikawa and Kawasaki (1991) had focused not just on income. They also
drew attention to the accumulation of wealth. Earlier Mouer (1975) had
used disaggregated data from the Family Income and Expenditure Sur-
vey (FIES) to reveal structures and mechanisms reinforcing patterns of
income inequality over time. The stability of occupationally based differ-
entials was conspicuous. Those findings pointed to eight major variables
determining income distribution in Japan which formed the basis for a
comparison with the US in table 7.5.
A later study of the FIES data by Mouer (1991) established that
“income mobility” among households had declined over time, indicating
that household income at one point in time had become a more reliable
predictor of income at a later point in time. Although wage differentials
did not widen much over the same period, it is likely that the cumulative
effect of having stable differentials over extended periods of time con-
tributed to wealth inequality. The argument resulting from such research
Table 7.5 A comparison of the effect of eight variables on the distribution of

income in Japan and the United States circa the mid-1980s
The nature of variation: rank Comparison of the amount of

order correlation of average inequality owing to the
Stratification income for system categories in particular subsystem in Japan
subsystem Japan and the United States and in the United States
City-size groupings High Lower in Japan

Geographical regions n.a. Lower in Japan
Industries Low Lower in Japan
Occupation High Similar
Firm size High Higher in Japan
Age High Similar
Level of education High Slightly lower in Japan
Gender High Similar
Source: Mouer and Sugimoto (1986), p. 127.
is not that Japan has particularly high levels of income or wealth inequal-
ity. Rather, it was (i) that the distribution in Japan is much less egalitarian
than previously believed, and (ii) that levels of inequality were similar in
type and extent to those found in most other similarly developed societies.
Two facets of the debate are particularly important. One was high-
lighted by the observations of Ota (2000), Otake (2000), and Shirahase
(2002), who have suggested that part of the increase in levels of inequal-
ity resulted from a growth in the aged population. The distribution of
income is more unequally spread among those in that age group than for
any other in the population. This points to the importance of thinking
about lifetime earnings when evaluating remuneration and working con-
ditions for younger generations. In terms of one’s working life and the
living provided to workers as a result of their years in the labor force,
a pension is, like bonuses and retirement allowances, a kind of delayed
payment for work done earlier. For this reason pensions are considered in
the next chapter, together with other types of socialized returns to work.
The other window opened by the debate on income distribution is on
Japan’s poor. Blue tarpaulin tent communities in parks and river basins
are conspicuous and point to pockets of hardcore unemployment. The
appalling living conditions of many foreign workers have also attracted
the media’s attention. The conditions of many impoverished Japanese are
a result of the casualness with which they are employed. In construction,
for example, Fowler (1996) and Gill (2001) have provided a fairly up-
to-date and reliable description of Japan’s day laborers, and Gill argues
that they continue to form an invisible underclass supporting Japan’s
construction industry. This underbelly of the Japanese labor force shifts

attention to the safety net stretched beneath not only those who labor at
the bottom of the Japanese labor market, but also those higher up the
ladder who have further to fall when made redundant and forced to take
“early retirement.” Hence, Japan’s safety nets are also considered in the
next chapter.
7.4.2 Social mobility

Accepting that income inequalities in objective terms have widened, the
more challenging questions now concern the subjective side and the
impact of objective inequality on the consciousness of those who work in
Japan. By the end of the 1990s several studies squarely challenged pre-
vailing perceptions about the homogeneity of Japanese society in terms
of its middle-class consciousness. Sato (2000), for example, argued that
Japanese society was no longer the mass society that underpinned social
organization throughout most of the postwar era. The issues raised by
Sato are fundamental to our understanding of Japan as a civil society,
and to how we assess the conditions now shaping that society’s condi-
tions of possibility as it becomes increasingly exposed to globalization.
Sato’s analysis was based primarily on a small amount of data taken from
the Survey of Social Stratification and Mobility (known as the “SSM
Survey”), conducted every ten years since 1955. The survey has grown
over time and now provides a huge range of data related to social inequal-
ity in Japan from over 5,000 respondents. A full report on the 1985 survey
can be found in four volumes (Naoi et al. 1990); and on the 1995 sur-
vey, in six volumes (Kyujugonen SSM Chosa Kenkyukai 2000). These
provide considerably more analysis than was allowed by the 1975 SSM
survey (cf. Tominaga 1979).
Sato argued that Japan has become a society in which elites are increas-
ingly rewarded for qualifications acquired through inherited access to
higher education. The relatively secure, long-term employment for male
householders has been eroded as male employment becomes more casu-
alized and able women increasingly compete in the shrinking labor mar-
kets associated with the secure employment that was previously the pre-
serve of male householders. Sato’s analysis begins with the finding that
many Japanese wish that effort (doryoku) were the criterion determin-
ing socioeconomic status, while also pointing out that performance (jis-
seki) has become the actual criterion. His analysis reveals further that
those in higher-status occupations attach more weight than others to
ability as a norm – an ideological stance which, not surprisingly, legit-
imates their being in positions of relative privilege. He concluded that
the composition of Japan’s intellectual elites has increasingly come to be

determined through a process of class reproduction.
This has been accompanied by a decline in relatively high levels of
intergenerational and intragenerational mobility (a) between blue-collar
and white-collar categories – a view consistent with the ideas of Koike
and Inoki (1987 and 1990) about skill formation – and (b) from skilled
blue-collar work to self-employment. Sato argued that this mobility was
facilitated by Japan’s rapid economic growth – development that pro-
vided everyone with opportunities for upward mobility and created the
basis for Japan’s widespread middle-class consciousness. His major con-
cern is that a marked decline in mobility will undermine the work ethic
for many Japanese. It is a view that assumes there is, or should be, a
monocultural focus on “getting ahead” in occupational terms. However,
although motivation has been shaped by a sense of national identity in
much of the postwar era, embourgeoisement, multiculturalization and
globalization/internationalization have contributed to the articulation of
other concerns about family life, community service (voluntary work),
further enjoyment of material goods already acquired, and opportunities
in the world beyond Japan. Sato also lamented the way in which Japan’s
present elites have come to associate their positions with the rights of their
firms and with their own personal success rather than a deep and abiding
sense of social responsibility. Although he does not write about the moti-
vation of those who constitute this “aristocracy of labor,” perhaps there
is an assumption that a greater upward mobility into those positions will
bolster a sense of responsibility among Japan’s elites.
A major issue related to work organization in Japan concerns the design
of occupational systems that will motivate employers to develop fully the
skills of their employees. The casualization of work and dualities in the
labor market lower the motivation to do so. Here the organization of work
impinges upon the role of the family, the acquisition of knowledge and
cultural literacy in society at large, the room for being creative and tak-
ing on responsibility at work, the nature of each individual’s motivation
to be socially active, and the distribution of rewards in contemporary
Japan. Sato worries that just below the surface lurks alienation on a mas-
sive scale and its social consequences. He does not claim that this is
unique to Japan, and one might note that similar tensions are coming to
the fore in Australia as its egalitarian ethos has come to accommodate
greater inequality and the increasing restriction of opportunity over the
1990s (see the editorial in The Sunday Age [Melbourne], 18 August 2002,
p. 16).
Cynical catchphrases in Japan reflecting the awareness of inequality
in grassroots discourses have been noted for some time. Although the
collapse of left-wing unionism may have resulted in the perception that

disgruntled labor no longer has a coherent discourse, disenfranchised
workers continue to exist. As Hashimoto (2001) and others suggest, the
real questions concern the processes through which the subjective sense
of Klasse fur sich (class for itself) emerges from the objective inequali-
ties associated with Klasse an sich (class in itself). It is in that domain
that the dynamics for change in Japan and the nature of Japan as a civil
multicultural society are likely to be more fruitfully understood.
The effects of education-linked career paths on the age-wage earning
profile of white-collar and blue-collar occupational groupings have been
known for some time. Although scholars such as Koike and Watanabe
(1979) argued that the importance attached to one’s place of educa-
tion had diminished in Japan and that demonstrated ability at work
had become a more important consideration determining promotion in
Japan’s corporate world, others wrote that such change was occurring only
at the lower levels of management. In the early 1980s it still made sense
for Kitagawa and Kainuma (1985) to write about the continuing influ-
ence of Japan’s prewar elites as a potential force sitting on top of Japanese
society. As indicated above, regional differentials have been marginal and
gender-based differentials have been narrowing, while occupational dif-
ferentials have remained fixed and have reinforced the cumulative class
effect. That effect is apparent not only in the creation of wealth but also
in the acquisition of education.
7.4.3 Education as a conduit for inheritance

A growing number of studies have pointed to education as the main
area in which social class is being reproduced in Japan. Kariya (2001)
has found that school outcomes for middle-class children have come to
depend more and more on the educational backgrounds of their moth-
ers and less on competition in the classroom. Related to Sato’s concerns
about alienation and the loss of motivation to work hard is Kariya’s argu-
ment that many students now see little point in studying hard because
they feel their ability to achieve academically is determined largely by the
socioeconomic status of their parents. Ishida’s (1999) report on a com-
parative study of Japan, the US and the UK also lends further support
to the notion that social class in Japan is reproduced through the system
of education in a manner similar to that found in the other two societies.
Sons from families with higher socioeconomic status have more access
to a better education. The quantitative study further reveals that educa-
tional attainment then determines the son’s own socioeconomic status.
Positive correlations for both linkages were found in the data from each of
the three countries, although this correlation does not seem as strong in
Japan as it is in the US and Britain. Using roughly the same data to com-
pare Japan, the US and Germany, Ishida and Yoshikawa (2003) report
that educational credentials determine occupational status and income to
a similar extent in each country, although the income differentials seem
to be greater in the US. In other words, the belief that educational cre-
dentials carry more weight in Japan is not supported by their data. One
further observation based on this data is that the economic return from
postgraduate education is considerably above that from an undergraduate
degree. This finding would seem to dislodge the warnings of Dore (1976)
and others (see Iwauchi 1980: 17–21), who coined the term obaadokatora
(literally, over-doctored) to describe Japan and other countries in danger
of having an overeducated labor force.
Another factor is the place of education. It has commonly been
accepted that Japan’s elite bureaucrats and businessmen had fairly con-
sistently graduated from a very small number of public and private
universities. In 1979, however, Koike and Watanabe analyzed the edu-
cational background of middle-level managers (kacho) in Japan’s estab-
lished firms, and argued strongly that the importance of graduating from
a famous university had declined considerably. Others commented that
such changes were limited to the lower levels of management where the
competition for promotion had increased. The argument was that grad-
uation from a prestigious university was still a necessary, although no
longer sufficient, condition for promotion to higher levels of manage-
ment (e.g. to the position of bucho). Authors such as Nakamura (2002)
argued that the fierce competition to enroll at Japan’s best universities
would continue because it was seen as being the best way to join Japan’s
corporate elite. Nakamura pays particular attention to the great diver-
gence between schools in terms of their success in getting graduates into
top universities.
The effects of education are not just in occupational terms. Gender
differences in the courses of study chosen by female and male students
have often been noted at the secondary and the tertiary level. Although
Okano and Tsuchiya (1999) and others have noted that education is one
of the domains in Japanese society where gender-based discrimination
is least institutionalized, at least in terms of the choice of study paths in
a formal sense, Blackwood (2003) and Murao (2003) argue that sexist
cultural norms work informally to encourage female students to take
“female subjects” and take part in female extra-curricular activities.
Another important mechanism is the employment placement service.
While some seem to evaluate favorably the role of school placement ser-
vices in facilitating the transition into the labor force, others have noted
Table 7.6 The percentage of students receiving

private education
1980 2001
Primary schools (grades 1–6) .38 .92

Middle schools (grades 7–9) 2.30 5.96
Secondary schools (grades 10–12) 25.85 41.47
Universities 74.90 73.42
Sources: Sori Fu Tokei Kyoku (1981), p. 291.

Somu Sho Tokei Kyoku (2002), p. 297.
that students are often shunted directly from an educational institution

into the labor force before they are fully aware of all the opportunities
available. Another type of channeling occurs in terms of the private–
public school divide. As table 7.6 shows, private education is particularly
important at the tertiary level, with 75 percent of university students
attending a private institution. Between 1980 and 2001 the preference
for private education strengthened at all other levels. The shift was most
noticeable at the secondary level where the critical steps are taken to
prepare for university entrance. This is in line with the view that pub-
lic education has deteriorated, especially in terms of discipline. In both
private and public sectors a considerable gap exists between the top insti-
tutions and those considered to be third or fourth rate, and it is likely to
increase as the privatization of national universities moves ahead and the
lesser private universities face stiffer competition in attracting academi-
cally solid and financially viable students.
The quality of education is also pertinent. Writers on one of Japan’s
more conservative economic and financial dailies (Sankei Shimbun
Shakai Bu 2002) pointed in particular to the decline both in the quality
and the quantity of what is taught in Japan’s schools. A team of writers
on Japan’s largest daily (Yomiuri Shimbun Osaka Honsha 2002) recently
raised similar questions about the ability of Japanese universities to pro-
vide quality education. Again, the “sorting out” that is likely to accom-
pany privatization and greater competition in an open market will result
in greater distance between the best universities and those further down
the ladder. In the future Japan’s labor markets will only become more
sensitive to these kinds of educational inequalities. In this regard, it is
interesting to note that a number of the more established universities
are moving to entrench further their status as world-class institutions
through an active program of internationalization. This is likely to rein-
force any tendency for a bilingual elite competent in Japanese and one
other language (mainly English) to be set off from the rest of the largely
monolingual population.
7.4.4 Multiculturalism
Japan’s “foreign” population has always been small. Including natural-
ized Koreans and Chinese, it has traditionally been below 1–2 percent
of Japan’s total population. However, the number of foreigners living in
Japan began to increase markedly from the late 1980s, owing in part to
labor shortages. Komai (2001) hints that Japan’s newcomers are now
reaching a critical mass that could fundamentally change Japanese soci-
ety. While much has been written about Japan’s globalization in terms of
economic restructuring and its highly publicized attempts to internation-
alize, Komai’s (2001) discussion of Japan’s migrant population focuses
on some of the softer cultural changes now occurring in Japanese society.
While the significance of those changes was not readily apparent when
his earlier volume on migrant workers in Japan was published (1995), the
more recent volume points to at least three ways that multiculturalization
will affect the way work is conceived and organized. First is in terms of
national identity. A greater appreciation of Japan’s increased ethnic diver-
sity and the richness of such diversity around the world will weaken the
commitment to older notions of working for the Japanese state. It will
also affect aspects of the work ethic tied to an ideological insistence on
the need for the national economy to be internationally competitive.
Second, many of the challenges posed by newcomers at work have been
presented to the Japanese public largely in terms of human rights in the
broadest sense. Such rights are conceived in terms of certain standards
of living, access to minimal medical care and other benefits associated
with safety-net legislation. The publicity given these matters has struck
a chord with Japanese sympathetic to more universal notions of work-
ers’ rights. In arguing that Japan’s legal and illegal migrants ought to be
treated better by the government, Komai (2001) does not appeal to hard
legalistic interpretations of Japan’s commitment to UN declarations or
ILO conventions. Rather, he focuses on optimistic assessments of social
and cultural change at the grassroots.
The third impact of multiculturalization is in the initiatives of local
governments and NPOs. Yabuno (1995) describes the period after the
oil shocks of the 1970s as a time during which peripheralized local com-
munities experienced depopulation, rapid aging, feminization, unem-
ployment, and various other changes. Yabuno argues that many local
communities established their own international relations, thereby cir-
cumventing the national government in activities traditionally seen to
be within the exclusive domain of the government. This grassroots

diplomacy expanded the horizons of many Japanese. Both Komai and
Yabuno conclude optimistically that the Japanese have generally been
positive concerning newcomers and the multicultural directions in which
their society is heading. These conclusions are consistent with those in
Kuwahara (2001) which were introduced in chapter 6. Although Komai’s
(2001) review of the literature on Japan’s newcomers reveals that the
public discourse has evolved in an ad hoc manner in both political and
academic spheres, his volume reveals that some form of critical mass has
been achieved which will fundamentally alter Japanese society, and, ipso
facto, the way it is stratified and the way work is organized.
These changes are reflected in notions of Japanese identity. Both Mouer
and Sugimoto (1995) and Fukuoka (1996) observed in the mid-1990s
that citizenship, blood, language, and ethnicity no longer went together
in defining Japaneseness. The country’s new wealth attracted a growing
number of foreign workers to Japan who were single temporary residents.
By the 1990s, however, families started to arrive and longer-term settle-
ment began. While this influx was first felt in factories, several rural areas
sought to overcome shortages of household labor by “importing” brides
from overseas. Burgess (2003) reports that about one out of every twenty
Japanese entering matrimony today marries a non-Japanese, up from one
in every 200 only thirty years ago. He also notes that in about 80 percent
of those marriages the Japanese partner is male, a reversal of the situation
in the early 1970s. Most significant perhaps are his findings that foreign-
born wives in Japan are not simply assimilating into Japanese society in
an official sense. Rather, he found them to be actively participating in
civil society and shaping the way officially recognized social institutions
were evolving around them. One result is a greater openness to a diverse
range of lifestyles and career choices.
7.5 Employment creation and employment policy

Employment security has been a particularly sensitive issue in postwar
Japan. The highlights of that history, which are set out in this section,
have been amply recorded and discussed by Koshiro (1995). Follow-
ing the war large numbers of soldiers and civilians were repatriated to
Japan. With Japan’s infrastructure seriously damaged, the prewar jobs of
many returnees no longer existed. Women and young people mobilized
during the war were also released from paid employment. Reforms were
pushed through for industrial relations, and the Labor Standards Law was
enacted in July 1947. The legislation was designed to burden employers
with as few disincentives to employ others as possible. The Employment
Table 7.7 Percentage of employees by industrial sector, 1960–2000
Year Primary industry Secondary industry Tertiary industry
1950 48.3 21.9 29.7

1960 32.6 29.2 38.2
1970 19.3 34.0 46.6
1975 13.8 34.0 51.8
1980 10.9 33.5 55.4
1985 9.3 33.2 57.3
1990 7.1 33.3 59.0
1995 6.0 31.5 61.9
1999 5.1 31.2 63.4
Source: Rodo Sho (1999), p. 56; Kosei Rodo Sho (2002a), p. 303; and Yano
Tsuneta Ki-nenkai (2001), pp. 80–1.
Security Law was passed the following November to establish Japan’s

first unemployment insurance system. At the same time, the Yoshida
government moved to lower the number of government employees from
1.65 to 1.41 million. This led to a reduction of 95,000 employees in the
National Railways, 26,500 in the postal and telephone services, 25,845
in the national civil service, and 27,000 in local governments (Kawanishi
1986: 30). The unions vigorously opposed these moves, whereupon the
government obtained GHQ support to withdraw the right to strike from
unions in the public sector.
The economy rebounded quickly during the Korean War, owing largely
to US military procurements and other associated expenditure. Soon
Japan had embarked upon two decades of high economic growth (1955–
73). The Basic Agricultural Law (Nogyo Kihon Ho) was introduced in
1961 to promote the amalgamation of inefficient small-scale plots in rural
Japan, forcing small farmers to leave the land and seek employment in the
cities. The rural labor surplus was steadily absorbed as cities clamored
for more permanent employees and dekasegi for their factories and large
construction projects. During the 1960s regional industrial kombinaato
were established to create employment nearer to those who had remained
behind to farm (and perhaps to disperse the negative diseconomies
associated with growing amounts of pollution). New technologies were
introduced, the exchange rate remained at ¥360 to the US dollar, and
Japan began to develop sizable export markets. Throughout this period
the proportion of the labor force in primary industry declined rapidly
(table 7.7).
The period of high growth came to an end with the first oil shock
in 1973. Production in manufacturing dropped about 20 percent over
a fifteen-month period. From 1974 to 1979 the number of regular

employees in Japan’s large firms declined by nearly 12 percent. While the
reduction in employment during this period was particularly noticeable
in Japan’s large firms, employment increased in the service sector, pre-
dominantly in small and medium-sized firms and particularly for female
part-timers. In December 1974 the Employment Insurance Law replaced
the 1947 legislation. It brought in some innovative features, starting in
April 1975. One was the provision of incentives for employment creation,
training, and welfare. Another was the benefits available for up to 50 days
for seasonal workers and young women who had previously not qualified
for them. A third was the period for which benefits could be received:
90 days for those aged under 30; 180 days for those aged 30–45; 240
days for those aged 45–55; and 300 days for those aged over 55 (Koshiro
1995: 104). This partially recognized age as a factor determining the
chances for reemployment. The most notable change, however, was the
mechanism allowing employers in designated recession-hit industries to
receive for up to 75 days a subsidy of up to two-thirds (in small firms with
fewer than 300 employees) of the wages of each employee who would
otherwise have been made redundant (Nishikawa and Shimada 1980:
137–41).
During the interval between the two oil shocks, the percentage of the
labor force in the tertiary sector topped 50 percent for the first time
(table 7.7). It continued to increase as manufacturing became more auto-
mated, the distribution system was overhauled, and services continued
to expand. This restructuring was facilitated by the willingness of private
sector unions, especially those affiliated with the IMF-JC and Domei, to
see wisdom in wage restraint (Kawanishi 1992a: 374–7). Having moved
quickly “to get its house in order,” Japan was one of the few economies to
come through the second oil shock without serious disruptions. Between
1975 and 1980 economic growth averaged 4.7 percent; from 1980 to
1985 the figure was 3.7 percent. It was during this period that the Japanese
model of industrial relations started to receive acclaim. Despite growing
trade friction with the United States, the economy continued to expand.
Japan’s huge balance-of-payments surpluses generated large outflows of
capital. While direct foreign investment alleviated pressures generated by
trade friction with Europe and North America, it was also stimulated
by high labor costs in Japan, symbolized during the bubble years by the
reluctance of Japanese workers to engage in work characterized by the
three Ks. One response was to import labor from abroad, both legally
and illegally. Another was to raise the retirement age. Concerns began to
surface about the need to consider employment policy in terms of rising
life expectancy, the aging of the population, and the restructuring of the
pension scheme in 1986.
The 1990s saw major companies in financial trouble, and unemploy-
ment rose from under 3 percent in the 1980s to over 5 percent by 2002.
Initially firms sought to cope with the Heisei recession in the 1990s by
reducing overtime, a strategy in line with successive government initia-
tives to reduce annual hours of work following the Maekawa Report in
September 1987. The government revised the Labor Standards Law to
lower the standard workweek and encourage firms to adopt the two-
day weekend and other measures to move Japan toward the target of
1,880 hours of work annually by 1997, as laid out in the Five Year Eco-
nomic Plan adopted by the Miyazawa cabinet in 1992. Employment poli-
cies designed to deregulate the labor market for casual and dispatched
workers were described above in chapter 5. Policies for older workers
revolved around efforts to raise the compulsory retirement age to at least
60 in all firms. Changes to the pension system are discussed in chapter 8.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Law of 1986 (revised in 1997) and
the maternity leave legislation of 1992 (replaced in 1999 by the Carers’
Leave Law) are important for understanding the changing role of women
in the labor force and changes in how the family conceives of itself as an
economic unit.
7.6 The legal framework at the meso level

The Labor Standards Law (LSL) of 1947 has provided a legal under-
pinning for work organization at the national level over the past half-
century (for a history of the LSL see Mori 1999). The Labor Stan-
dards Law Research Group (Rodo Kijun Ho Kenkyukai) and the Central
Labor Standards Consultative Council (Chuo Rodo Kijun Shingikai) has
advised on amendments to the legislation roughly every two years. Sub-
stantial revisions were made in 1987, 1993, and 1997, as new legislation
was introduced to replace sections of the LSL, and the labor market came
to be more deregulated.
Araki (2002: 48) notes that the LSL is based on four overriding prin-
ciples. One is that minimum guidelines are necessary. Second is that the
employment relationship is to be based on individual contracts. Third is
that work rules are to be established by employers and reflect the needs of
the business. Finally, as far as possible collective agreements should form
the basis for defining working conditions in firms where workers can be
collectively represented. There has also been general recognition of the
fact that firm size (and the ability to pay) should guide the way the LSL
is implemented. Some recognition is also given to the very special needs

of a few occupations and industries.
Collective agreements (either with union leaders or with employee rep-
resentatives) are sanctioned by law, provided that they do not call for
working conditions below those set in the LSL. Minimum standards set
by law (e.g. regarding wage payments, the use of dispatched labor, vari-
ous health and safety matters, hours of work, and the treatment of minors
and women) are overseen by inspectors from Labor Standards Inspection
Offices established around the country by the Ministry of Labor (now the
Ministry of Welfare and Labor). Enforcement has depended on inspec-
tion and gazetting, small fines, civil opprobrium, and criminal provisions.
Although the law sets parameters for employment contracts, most regular
long-term workers do not have written contracts and depend on an oral
agreement. Instead, they and their employers are commonly bound by
work rules (shugyo kisoku). These are usually spelled out in some detail
in a written document covering nine or ten areas of concern, and must
be given to all employees by management in all firms with ten or more
employees.
The LSL is generally seen as giving employers the right to discriminate
freely in hiring (subject to restrictions related to union membership or
gender as stipulated in other legislation), and the courts often treat as legal
a firm’s decision to cancel a promise of employment based on a reem-
ployment agreement (saiyo naitei). It does, however, limit the ability of an
employer to discriminate among those who are its employees. Neverthe-
less, it is easy to differentiate among employees for many valid reasons,
and much alleged discrimination has been difficult to substantiate in the
courts as discrimination per se. The right to dismiss an employee is even
more restricted, and this is fairly clearly laid out in case law. In general,
the LSL does not prescribe how remuneration is determined. Although
it is generally accepted that younger employees are paid below their pro-
ductivity (earnings which they may later recoup through seniority-linked
wage payments, lighter work loads, and retirement allowances), they have
no legally recognized claim on that surplus.
Particularly relevant to the discussion of hours of work in chapter 4
are provisions for annual leave. Article 39 of the LSL provides for annual
leave to increase according to the number of years in the job, as shown in
table 7.8, and workers who have been with the same employer for 10.5
years are entitled to a minimum of 20 days. Overall, the legislation has
provided employees with a comprehensive package of minimal standards.
Though many have questioned the ability of employees to enforce all
their rights, this approach to setting labor standards has led to long-
term compliance. Women are moving more freely in the labor market,
Table 7.8 Minimum days of annual leave set by Article 39 of the Labor
Standards Law
Length of employment 0.5 1.5 2.5 3.5 6.5 7.5 8.5 9.5 10.5
(in years)
Annual paid leave entitlement 10 11 12 13 16 17 18 19 20
(number of days)
Source: Article 39 of the Labor Standards Law as published in Ministry of Labor (Rodo
Sho) 1995, pp. 84–5.
and serious industrial accidents have steadily declined over the postwar
period, as have hours of work.
The Trade Union Law (TUL) of 1945 was the first work-related law
to be enacted immediately after the war. It gives concrete meaning to
guarantees provided in Article 28 of the Constitution, providing for
employees to have the right to organize, to bargain, and to act collec-
tively. The law does not prescribe any form of organization for unions.
Nor does it require them to register. Although the enterprise union is
the most common type of union, there are industrial unions, trade or
occupationally based unions, regional unions, position-tied unions, and
gender-based unions. Most enterprise unions embrace all employees at
a given place of business, but Araki (2002: 162) reports for 1995 that
13 percent of enterprises had two or more unions competing for mem-
bers amongst the same pool of employees (a figure similar to that recorded
by Kawanishi [1992a: 37] for the mid-1970s). Any two or more individ-
uals are allowed to constitute a union (Kawanishi 1981b). The TUL
excludes directors, executives, and others representing the employer’s
interests from joining a union and generally requires that unions receive
no financial support from the employer (except the provision of a small
room for a union office, contributions to union-run welfare funds, and
the payment of wages for those engaged in union activities on the shop
floor during working hours).
The right to bargain is less clearly spelled out. Management is legally
bound to bargain in good faith about working conditions and personnel
practices, and is subject to penalties for failing to do so. However, man-
agement is not required to negotiate concerning matters related to the
political system. The law does not impose an obligation on either party
to come to an agreement. What constitutes “bargaining in good faith”
is not defined. Collective agreements may be made for periods of up to
three years. To be effective, collective agreements must be set down in a
written document signed by both parties.
In 1996 nearly 90 percent of Japan’s unions had concluded collective

agreements and 57 percent of those called for union shops (Seisho and
Kikuchi 2002: 240). Collective agreements may provide for a check-off
system. Most agreements call for full-time union leaders to be paid by
the union, but guarantee that union officials may return to their previous
positions after serving their union. Unions may engage in various shop-
floor activities (including the organization of meetings, recruitment activ-
ities, and the display of slogans and posters) that do not interfere directly
with the running of the business. Case law suggests that the legality of
such activity has to be judged on a case-by-case basis (Seisho and Kikuchi
2002: 225). The wearing of arm bands and badges is a gray area. Although
management is prohibited from behavior designed to undermine union
activity, enforcement is difficult. There are many stories of extended dis-
putes involving various forms of harassment (see the accounts given in
Hanami 1973). The law protects unionists from criminal prosecution and
civil liability when they are engaged in appropriate (seito na) disputative
activity. “Appropriate” has been defined in the context of the objectives
and behavioral choices available to unions (Seisho and Kikuchi 2002:
250). The Public Corporations and National Enterprise Labor Relations
Law of 1948 withdrew the right to strike from public sector unions. In the
1960s and 1970s a number of disputes were waged unsuccessfully in an
effort to restore that right. The right-to-strike issue was partially resolved
with the privatization of public enterprises such as the Japan National
Railways.
When disputes cannot be settled, they may be referred to one of a
number of Labor Relations Commissions under provisions in the Labor
Relations Adjustment Law. Seisho and Kikuchi (2002: 261–2) report that
only 3 percent of all disputes are referred to the Labor Relations Com-
mission. Of those that go to the commission, 93 percent are resolved
through conciliation, 5.4 percent through mediation, and only 1.6 per-
cent through arbitration. The current legal framework provides quite a
protective environment for unions and unionists. Even with that protec-
tion, however, unions are in decline. With that decline has come a pro-
found shift in the power relations between management and its workforce.
The legal framework also leaves a good deal to be resolved between labor
and management through direct negotiation, and contrasts with systems
that build in compulsory arbitration. Given that employees have become
increasingly independent of the need to join unions (as well as the need
to toe the line for management), unions are challenged to locate and
to articulate whatever collective interests remain. Whether another legal
framework would assist unions in that regard is today a moot point. How-
ever, it is a central consideration in any assessment of the potential of the
union movements in advanced economies to resurrect themselves within

the confines of civil society. Management, on the other hand, does not
require individuated employees to have such a collective set of interests
in order to weld them into a highly productive unit. If in the past labor
unions were allowed to exist so that some of the excessive power accruing
to employers during the industrial revolution could be offset, then some
thought needs to be given to the type of collective representation needed
by Japanese workers in the coming years as income differentials widen,
employment is casualized, and workers are further differentiated.
8 Social security and safety nets
8.1 Social security (shakai hoken): income protection

for workers
Although Japan first provided medical insurance to some workers in the
1920s, in line with Okochi’s view that capitalists would support such
moves to protect their own interests, the idea of providing basic mini-
mum guarantees to all citizens in a number of livelihood areas did not take
root in Japan until the postwar period. As indicated at the beginning of
chapter 7, the Constitution of 1947 built in the compulsion to do so. Influ-
enced by America’s Social Security Act (1935), by the wartime Beveridge
Report in the UK, by the ILO, and by the recommendations of WHO,
Article 25 of the Constitution committed the government to providing
social security in a number of areas. With a very limited base from which
to start after the war, the government systematized and oversaw a range of
private schemes that were already in place. One outcome of that approach
was low portability and considerable variation in terms of the benefits
offered by each system. By the early 1960s a framework was in place to
ensure that all Japanese would have some measure of security in terms
of general medical care, accidental injury, unemployment, and special
needs in old age.
The government strengthened its commitment to social security and
welfare in the 1970s. Tamai (2000) writes that promises made at the
time resulted from political opportunism rather than a firm commitment
to redistribute economic surplus or far-sighted planning. Nevertheless,
today the system provides for medical care, pensions, employment, acci-
dent and disaster relief, child welfare, home care, subsistence payments
to the indigent, public hygiene, and a range of social services.
With the further aging of the population and growing unemployment
in the 1990s, welfare systems came under severe fiscal pressure. The
number of persons relying on benefits from the schemes increased, while
those paying premiums into the system declined. In 2001 alone the over-
all cost of pensions and other welfare services was ¥17.55 trillion, up
178
Social security and safety nets 179
4.7 percent from 2000. About 80 percent of that outlay was to cover
shortfalls in the social insurance systems. Changes sought by the Obuchi
government in its push for administrative reform included the merger of
the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Health and Welfare early in
2001. At the same time it disbanded the Social Security System Deliber-
ative Council (Shakai Hosho Seido Shingikai) which had been affiliated
to the Prime Minister’s Office for fifty years. A Social Security Advisory
Council (Shakai Hosho Shingikai) was established to advise the new min-
istry. It will take some years for concrete changes to be implemented and
for social security and social welfare to be put back on a stable financial
footing.
Japan’s first serious threat of postwar unemployment followed the
floating of the US dollar and the first oil shock in the early 1970s. A
novel approach subsidized employers in critically affected industries who
retained redundant employees on their payrolls. That strategy was gener-
ally applauded both at home and abroad as the Japanese model came to
attract growing attention. However, the message to employees was clear:
employers would retrench workers in large numbers if pressed far enough
and left to the wiles of markets, which are in turn subject to unpredictable
forces of the many interconnected business cycles.
Looking back a quarter of a century later, there may be reason to
reevaluate that strategy. Rather than solving the unemployment problem,
it served to disguise it. The 1970s was a delicate time politically, and the
ruling Liberal Democratic Party bought time by announcing its commit-
ment to welfare. In that environment, policymakers satisfied themselves
with total employment rather than full employment. Rather than training
for the jobs just being created by the IT revolution, many workers con-
tinued to stay in old jobs. This reflected the preference of conservative
policymakers for social stability, having nearly lost control of the Diet’s
Lower House in the December 1972 elections owing to considerable
popular unhappiness with high inflation, severe pollution, and other dis-
tortions accompanying unbridled growth in the 1960s and early 1970s,
and left-wing unionism which was still a force (although the ideologi-
cally more conservative movement associated with Domei was making
headway with its emphasis on productivity).
The systems that emerged for dealing with unemployment, minimum
wages, and pensions were unnecessarily complex and difficult for the aver-
age worker to understand. To administer them, a private bureaucracy of
certified private agents was created. Known as shakai hoken romushi, these
agents were needed to advise firms and individuals on the complex array
of systems and concomitant paperwork, a service supplied at no small cost
for many individuals wishing to qualify for the benefits. The overall effect
of minimal income support and difficult access placed many individuals

under tremendous pressure either to hang onto whatever employment
they currently had or to return to useful employment as soon as possi-
ble. As Abe (2002), a former president of Hitotsubashi University, has
recently noted, Japanese society is organized in ways that stigmatize peo-
ple who are not gainfully employed. Such questioning extends to the
nature of work and to the way Japan functions as a civil society.
If deregulation is to have its intended effect, attention must be given
to the disincentives to labor mobility that are built into the way social
security is administered in contemporary Japan. The risk of changing
jobs is considerable. A good deal has been made of voluntarism and the
work ethic in explaining Japan’s growth over nearly half a century fol-
lowing Japan’s defeat in the Pacific War. This volume has argued that for
many Japanese the decision to work has not simply been a reflection of
the workers’ commitment to their firms. It identifies how various mech-
anisms, including the segmentation of the labor market, have functioned
first to move workers out of non-productive employment and then to force
them quickly back into the labor force in different, often less rewarding,
positions. Other strategies may now be required to motivate employees
to work smartly in an economy trying to regain its competitive edge.
Here three aspects of the social safety net are discussed: minimal income
guarantees for those without income, pensions, and medical services.
8.2 Income support schemes
8.2.1 The minimum wage system

A minimum wage system was introduced in 1959 with the Minimum
Wage Law (MWL). Although the legislation has been amended several
times, it has continued to operate without substantive change for nearly
half a century. The minimum wage rate is set each year by the Ministry
of Labor based on recommendations from a Central Minimum Wage
Deliberative Council and forty-seven such councils at the prefectural
level. Each of the councils consists of an equal number of members rep-
resenting workers, employers, and the public interest (Articles 26–32).
Article 3 of the MWL stipulates that minimum wages should be based
on three considerations: the cost of living, comparisons with the wages
of those doing similar work, and the capacity of employers to pay. The
result has been a complex system involving forty-eight separate delib-
erative councils and the attached administrative support. The result is
marginally different rates for each major industrial category in each pre-
fecture. It is a system that reflects the times in which it was established,
when the concern with meeting the livelihood needs of families took
precedence over the productivity concerns of management. In the late
1950s the Densangata wage system (cf. Kawanishi 2001; 1992b; 1992a:
pp. 102–4 and 141–4) still formed the basis of the wage packet in most
Japanese firms. Socialist-inspired unionists and sympathetic intellectuals
were concerned with poverty in absolute terms, and small differences
were still important to most union members.
The minimum wage system has been criticized on several grounds. One
is that minimum wage levels have been set too low to achieve the social
justice aims set down in Article 1 of the MWL. Apologists would argue
that the low levels at which minimum wages are set serve to promote
employment when coupled with restrictions on unemployment benefits.
The minimum wages set for Tokyo at the beginning of 2001 are given
in table 8.1. The amounts are only slightly over two-thirds of the aver-
age starting salary for male and female high school graduates. They were
about a third of the average salary earned by household heads aged 25–9,
hardly a wage that would stabilize the household finances of a normal
family. One view is that the minimum wage today exists largely for part-
time female workers, an outlook that points to the pressure on married
males to compete to stay in good full-time regular employment in order
to be a household head. It also highlights how dim the prospects are for
Japan’s furiitaa as they age. A further concern has been for the many for-
eign workers who are more easily subjugated to exploitative working con-
ditions (Matsubara 2002) without the literacy necessary to expose their
situation. A final feature of this legislation is the light penalties imposed
for failing to pay the minimum wage (a fine of up to ¥10,000).
8.2.2 Unemployment insurance

What happens to Japanese who become unemployed? In augmenting
the Unemployment Insurance Law of 1947, the Employment Insurance
Law of 1974 shifted emphasis from the provision of individual benefits
to the provision of incentives to firms that continued to employ people
they would otherwise feel compelled to retrench. The law also provides
unemployed individuals with several types of benefit: (i) a basic livelihood
allowance (Articles 13–35), (ii) skill acquisition and lodgings allowances
(Article 36), and (iii) a sickness and injury allowance (Article 37).
The most important of these is the basic livelihood allowance. Unem-
ployed workers receive a benefit equal to 60–80 percent of the employ-
ment income received immediately prior to becoming unemployed,
the percentage varying according to the individual’s income prior to
becoming unemployed. The daily minimum payment is ¥2,580, and the
Table 8.1 Minimum wage rates set for Tokyo (at 1 January 2001)
A B
The hourly wage The daily wage rate
Industry rate (in ¥) (in ¥)
Publishing 776 6,157

Steel industry 789 6,192
Machinery manufacturing 779 6,139
Manufacturing electrical 774 6,240
equipment
Automotive industries 778 6,248
Retailing 756 6,053
All other non-designated 703 5,559
industries
C The monthly minimum wage for workers from all industries as 68.45%
a percentage of the starting salary for newly employed male
graduates from senior high schools in Tokyo (¥168,100)
D The monthly minimum wage for workers from all industries as 70.17%
a percentage of the starting salary for newly employed female
graduates from senior high school in Tokyo (¥164,000)
E The monthly minimum wage for workers from all industries as a 34.02%
percentage of the average income of all household heads aged
25–29 in the Kanto Region (¥338,200)
F The monthly minimum wage for workers from all industries as a 23.28%
percentage of the average income of all household heads in the
Kanto Region (¥494,200)
Notes: (1) The calculations converting the daily minimum wage to a monthly figure com-
parable to the salary data for other employees were based on the assumption that
they worked the same number of days per month (i.e. 20.7 days).
(2) The percentages for C, D, E, and F were calculated as (100B × 20.7)/(income
provided for each type of person as given in parentheses for C–F).
Sources: Columns A and B: Fuse (2001), p. 101.
Rows C and D: Chingin Kozo Kihon Tokei Chosa (The Basic Survey of the Wage
Structure) as reported in Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei
Joho Bu (2002c), p. 195.
Rows E and F: Kakei Chosa (The Family Income and Expenditure Survey)
as reported in Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu
(2002c), pp. 275 and 277.
maximum is ¥17,790. Payment, however, is restricted to a period of

time determined by the person’s age upon becoming unemployed and
the length of tenure with their previous employer. The length of time for
which payment may be received is shown in table 8.2. To receive the ben-
efit one must have been previously employed (and thereby a member of
the insurance scheme) and be actively searching for work (as determined
Table 8.2 Number of days for which benefits are available for the unemployed
(at 1 January 2001)
Length of time employed by previous employer

Age at the time of
leaving one’s 6–12 1–5 5–10 10–20 Over 20
Employability previous employer months years years years years
Persons who are −30 90 120 150 n.a.

considered to (180)
be employable
30–45 90 90 120 150 180
(180) (210) (240)
45–60 90 120 150 180
(180) (240) (270) (330)
60–65 90 120 150 180
(150) (180) (210) (240)
Persons who are −45 150 300

considered to be
unemployable
45–65 360
Source: Fuse (2001), pp. 310–11. Figures in parentheses are for regular employees.
by the Ministry of Welfare and Labor). This contrasts with the situation
in countries like Australia where someone merely needs to show that they
are currently looking for work and are therefore unemployed. Those in
Japan who have worked for less than six months receive no benefit.
The benefit is now officially designated as a benefit for those actively
looking for work (kyushokusha kyufu) and is no longer seen simply as
an unemployment benefit (shitsugyo teate). The employment insurance
system is run by the government, and the insurance premium is set at
1.01 percent of each individual’s wages, with 0.06 percent paid out of
the individual’s wages and 0.95 percent paid by the employer. Coverage
is compulsory for all employees and must be taken out by employers.
The data in table 8.3 suggests, however, that only about two-thirds of all
employees are covered, and that ratio has been fairly constant over the
last thirty years. Those who come to be employed after the age of 65 are
not eligible for the insurance; nor are full-time students or certain types
of casual employees.
8.2.3 Ongoing indigence

What happens to Japanese for whom the basic unemployment benefit
lapses or for whom illness or other circumstances make it impossible to
Table 8.3 The number and percentage of employees covered by

unemployment insurance and the percentage of insured employees who receive
benefits, 1970–2000
Year 1970 1980 1990 2000
A Total number of all employees (1000s) 33,060 39,710 48,350 53,560

B Number of employees insured (1000s) 21,118 25,339 31,569 33,905
C Percentage of employees covered 63.9 63.8 65.3 63.3
(100B/A)
D Percentage of insured employees who 2.3 2.6 1.6 3.1
received the basic livelihood benefit
E The overall unemployment rate for the 1.1 2.0 2.1 4.7
entire labor force
F The ratio of the percentage of benefit 209.1 130.0 76.2 66.0
recipients to official unemployment
rate (100D/E)
Source: Columns B and D Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2002a), p. 237.
Column A and E Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2002a), p. 32.
find work? In 1950 the Livelihood Protection Law (Seikatsu Hogo Ho)
proclaimed the right of Japanese to receive assistance when they could not
look after themselves financially. While debate continues internationally
on how best to define that inability and what the poverty line might be,
it is generally accepted that the mark has been fixed at a very low level in
Japan compared to the levels set in other similarly developed countries.
This is not so much the case in absolute terms, but in terms of the relative
needs of individuals to participate at a meaningful level in the cultural and
social life of the community.
Reflecting Japan’s economic growth, the figures in table 8.4 show that
the number of people receiving this kind of assistance declined from
1970 to the mid-1990s. The gradual increase in unemployment and in
homelessness is reflected in the figures for the late 1990s. The figures in
table 8.4 also suggest that the average size of households receiving aid
declined in the early 1990s, perhaps owing to the exodus of persons from
assisted households. This would be in line with the idea that many of the
homeless are males who lost permanent employment in the privileged sec-
tor as a result of restructuring and left their matrimonial home because
they were unable to face that reality in the context of their own house-
holds. The abandoned households would be smaller and would require
the basic livelihood allowance. Yoshimura (2000: 151) cites research
by Hoshino in 1995 that suggested that only 40 percent of households
and only 25 percent of individuals qualifying for this form of assistance
Table 8.4 Changes in the number of households and individuals receiving

basic livelihood assistance, 1970–2000
Year A B C D
Number of households Number of individuals Percentage of individuals Average number of
receiving livelihood receiving livelihood receiving livelihood persons in recipient
maintenance benefits maintenance benefits maintenance benefits as households receiving
(1000s) (1000s) a percentage of the benefits (B/A)
Japanese population
1970 658 1,344 1.30 2.04

1980 747 1,427 1.22 1.91
1990 624 1,015 0.82 1.63
1995 601 882 0.48 1.47
1997 631 906 0.72 1.44
1998 662 947 0.76 1.43
1999 708 1,004 0.79 1.42
2000 750 1,072 0.84 1.42
Source: Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2001b), pp. 17 and 215–17.
actually receive it. Many simply fall through this safety net. One difficulty
to be addressed is the large number of foreign workers (including long-
term Korean residents) who do not qualify for such assistance. To qualify
they need a permanent address, a medical certificate, evidence that they
are searching for work, and evidence that they meet a very strict means
test. For most Japanese there is also a certain stigma attached to receiv-
ing such assistance from the public purse, and many forgo the benefits to
avoid that stigma. A law enacted on 31 July 2002 provides for self-help
measures to encourage the homeless to integrate themselves back into
society.
The system provides for eight types of allowance for basic living, edu-
cation, housing, medical care, childbirth, unemployment, funerals, and
nursing care. The amount received for each varies according to the recip-
ient’s location. There are six geographical categories that reflect differ-
ences in the consumer price index (CPI) and the local lifestyle. The gen-
eral basic living allowance was ¥163,970 per month in 2000 and 2001,
about 40 percent of the average wage earned in enterprises of thirty or
more employees (down from 47.15 percent in 1990).
In 2000 the annual education allowance for a primary schoolchild was
¥2,150; ¥4,160 for a middle school student. As senior high school is
not compulsory in Japan, upper secondary students do not receive an
allowance. Although Japan is largely in line with the minimums called
for in the WHO guidelines, which have since the early 1990s called
for states to provide not only for basic physical needs but also for the
literacy necessary to participate culturally, economically, and politically

in social life, Yoshimura (2000: 164–6) argues that the contribution to
social participation in Japan falls short in a number of ways. In particular
he comments that the digital divide will become increasingly pronounced
in Japan. The problems facing the system of social security in Japan have
less to do with guaranteeing subsistence in physiological terms and more
to do on the cultural and psychological side with questions concerning
society’s continuing openness to social mobility and the reproduction of
social class.
8.3 Pensions
The Japanese system of pensions is extremely complex. Although sever-
ance pay is usually considered as a working condition and participation
in pension funds, superannuation schemes, and retirement plans is often
compulsory for employees in many societies, pensions are often associ-
ated with retirement from the labor force and therefore not discussed in
many accounts of work organization. This gap also exists in many of the
self-help books in Japan that advise young people on how to change jobs.
Most focus on the skills and attributes one needs to satisfy employers
who command the scarce supply of good jobs. A recent volume encour-
aging those in their twenties to change jobs mentions three risks which
accompany a change in employers: a drop in pay, difficulties settling into
a new set of human relationships, and the loss of skills already acquired
with the current employer (Sato 2003: 102–4). The book does not men-
tion the consequences in terms of pension benefits, the waiting period
for unemployment benefits or other aspects related to company welfare
benefits. Nevertheless, that this is a topic of interest to many is evident
in the many pension advice columns in Japan’s newspapers and weekly
magazines. Many are written by shakai romushi, the welfare and labor
issue specialists mentioned above (e.g. see the series in Shukan Asahi
in 2002 by the S-WAVE group of sharoshi). Clearly, some knowledge of
the pension system is fundamental to understanding how Japanese think
about their motivation to work.
The linkage between work and the pension system is often not direct.
It is felt in terms of the premiums paid, the age at which the main bread-
winner can retire from the labor force, the need to earn supplementary
income to augment one’s pension, and the way a household plans to use
or invest its savings. In 2000 the compulsory retirement age was set at 60
in 91.6 percent of firms with over thirty employees. Many who officially
retired from those firms continued to work at the same firm or elsewhere
for a much reduced wage. The complexity of the system and the constant
changes to the system have made it difficult for many individuals to plan
accurately or with certainty.
A voluntary pension scheme existed for employees in Japan’s larger
firms and for public servants in the early 1950s. The government moved
in 1960 to put in place a scheme which in principle would cover every
citizen. Since then policy has been conceived in terms of three major
groupings: the self-employed, the unemployed, and other dependants of
the self-employed (Insured Group I), employees of private firms (Insured
Group II – section A), public servants (Insured Group II – section B),
and the full-time housewives of those in Group II (Insured Group III).
Those in Group III are insured via their spouse’s employment but do not
pay premiums. The result was a pension system that was a combination
of numerous schemes, some based wholly on contributions and others
partially based on fiscal allocations from national or local governments.
The amalgamated system was put together in an ad hoc manner. The
financial bases on which most of the schemes rest were not carefully
vetted actuarially and had to be re-jigged in major ways in 1985, 1989,
1994, and 2001. A recent study by the Nomura Research Institute (1999)
argues that further changes must occur in 2004 if the system is to remain
solvent.
One debate concerns the extent to which these schemes should be
self-funded. Tamai (2000: 104) mentions the unfairness felt by many
families of women who are fully employed. Both the woman and her
spouse pay premiums into a fund for Group II persons, whereas the full-
time housewife gets her coverage from her husband’s single payment. This
unfairness is also there for single persons. Their premium results only in
coverage for themselves, while the same premium covers a colleague’s
spouse and under-age children.
In 1985 parts of several independent pension schemes were pooled
to form a compulsory fund to which all Japanese in Insured Groups I
and II contribute so that deficits in the poorer funds would be offset by
the wealthier funds. That fund was called the “National Pensions Basic
Fund” (Kokumin Kiso Nenkin). From the beginning those in the second
group were allowed to have a second tier of pension funds (known as the
“Welfare Pension Fund” [Kosei Nenkin]). In 1989 provisions were made
for those in the first insured group to have second-tier pension funds over
and above those in the compulsory fund, although less than 5 percent of
the self-employed in Insured Group I have established funds under those
provisions (the exceptions being doctors and similar professionals). The
result was that seventy-two additional funds were created for this scheme –
forty-seven for local governments to administer and twenty-five more for
distinct occupational groups to manage.
Table 8.5 The ratio of subscribers to beneficiaries for the National

Pensions Basic Fund, 1993–9
Year A B C
Number of persons Number of persons Support
receiving benefits paying contributions ratio (B/A)
1993 28,981 69,276 2.39

1994 30,417 69,548 2.29
1995 32,363 69,953 2.16
1996 33,940 70,195 2.07
1997 35,765 70,344 1.98
1998 37,404 70,502 1.88
1999 39,062 70,626 1.81
Sources: The data in columns A, B, and C were taken from Kosei Rodo Sho
Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2002b), pp. 300–6.
In theory every Japanese aged between 20 and 60 is covered; those

aged under 20 and not working are excluded from paying premiums,
as are those aged over 60–65 (depending upon their date of birth) who
are no longer employed and already receiving their benefits. The num-
bers of those receiving pensions out of the National Pensions Basic Fund
increased much more rapidly in the 1990s than did those paying premi-
ums (see table 8.5). Accordingly, in 2001 even more dramatic changes
were introduced. The formula determining the sliding scale for benefits
was shifted from the average increase in wages to increases in the CPI.
The age for drawing a pension was to be gradually increased from 60
to 65. Those born after April 1949 (April 1954 for women) will be the
first cohort to wait until 65 before receiving their pensions. Those aged
over 65 had previously been able to work and keep their full pension
benefit. Now they will have their benefits discounted according to the
amount earned. Those on a pension who are employed will now pay pre-
miums, whereas before they did not. Changes were also made to the way
second-tier funds would be run for employees in the private sector, and
the current premium rate for the Welfare Pension Fund will be increased
every five years so that the current rate of 13.58 percent of salaries will
rise to 24.8 percent by 2025 (YSC, 25 June 2002: 27).
Tamai (2000) has been particularly critical of the reforms. He argues
that publicity surrounding them has been designed to cover up the true
financial situation of the fund by portraying them as novel and progres-
sive. To the extent that the system is funded through the public purse,
it involves a redistribution of income. Many workers have strong feelings
about changes that might benefit or undercut their financial position by

even small amounts, especially when they have planned for retirement
for a long time on a certain amount of income. While not overlooking
the political maneuvering and the element of national pride involved in
having a national pension system, such systems become vulnerable when
dramatic demographic change occurs owing to improved life expectancy
and falling birth rates. From the mid-1980s advanced nations in Western
Europe began to have serious fiscal difficulties as a result of earlier com-
mitments to a welfare state. Japan’s experience simply confirms further
what industrial relations experts abroad have reiterated for many years:
in any society institutions are extremely difficult to change fundamen-
tally even when they are seen to be in crisis. Such change often requires
a massive build-up of contradictions and the kind of sea change in the
socio-political landscape that occurs only once every fifty to a hundred
years. The fact thus remains that the Japanese system continues to be
two-tiered for some and not for others, with funds in the second tier
varying considerably from one scheme to another.
Table 8.6 provides figures on the number of subscribers, the number of
beneficiaries, and the total annual and average monthly amounts paid out
in benefits by each major first-tier (Kokumin Kiso Nenkin) fund and by
the second-tier (Kosei Nenkin) funds for employees (in Insured Group
II). From the National Pensions Basic Fund public servants (in Insured
Group II-B) on the average received three and a half times what those in
Insured Groups I and III receive from their funds. Ordinary employees in
the private sector (in Insured Group II-A) received 70 percent more than
those in the other two groups. Here it should be noted that the “unified”
National Pensions Basic Fund consists of various accounts which keep
separate the affairs of those in each of the three insured groups. Accord-
ingly, their benefits are different when they reach the qualifying age. If
we add benefits from the second-tier funds to those from the Basic Fund,
the disparities become even more pronounced (as shown in columns G
and H). These disparities can be fathomed by calculating a Gini coeffi-
cient using the data in columns B and G in table 8.6. The coefficient is
0.3455, above what it is for the data for ordinary employees taken from
the Family Income and Expenditure Survey. Using income-ranked cat-
egories from that data (which will in statistical terms always produce a
higher value for the Gini coefficient than when it is calculated from other
types of averaged groups), Otake (2000) found the Gini coefficient to be
just over 0.28 (up from around 0.25 in the early 1970s). In this regard,
the inclusion of accumulated wealth in retirement funds for roughly the
same period results in an even less equal distribution of income. Those
with the highest retirement benefits are also in many cases those who
Table 8.6 The benefits paid from the National Pension’s Basic Fund to those in Insured Groups I, II, and III, 1999
Type of fund Category of A B C D E F G H

insured Number of Number of Amount paid in Average annual Monthly Ratio based on Monthly average Ratio for monthly
subscribers paying beneficiaries benefits (in amount received average the monthly benefit with average of total
contributions (1000s) ¥100 million) in benefits (C/B) (D/12) average from the second-tier benefit pension benefits
(1000s) first-tier fund for included (from the from first and
groups I and III bottom of column second tiers
E)
The National I and III 32,861 18,233 108,075 588,580 49,048 1.000 49,048 1.000
Pensions Self-employed
Basic Fund and housewives
(the first-tier
fund)
II-A Employees 32,481 17,233 204,634 1,187,454 98,955 2.074 195,893 3.994
in the private
sector
II-B Public 5,273 3,296a 66,411 2,014,896 167,908 3.423 340,781 6.048
servants
Welfare pension 171 705 412,281 34,357 0.696 34,357 0.696
Totals 70,615 39,062
Welfare II-A 37,754 18,571 216,024 1,163,255 96,938

Pension
Scheme
II-B 835a 17,331 2,074,478 172,873
Note: (a) The figures for the Welfare Pension System (Kosei Nenkin) for those in group II-B are only for those who had been working for the National Public Service. That accounts
for the difference between the 3,296,000 receiving benefits from the National Pensions Basic Fund and the 835,000 receiving benefits from the Welfare Pension Scheme. The vast
majority of those in this category had been working for the public service at the local level, and received even larger benefits on a per capita basis. In other words, the pension benefit
estimates used here for all public servants are on the conservative side. In this regard, it is also important to remember that many of the higher paid and better positioned civil servants
(at the national level in particular but also at the local level to some extent) retire early through a practice known as amakudari (whereby they obtain employment in sinecures in
the private sector and some quasi-public enterprises through connections they made as bureaucrats). This lowers their pensions from the system, but in fact probably results in their
after-retirement resources being even larger than they would have been had they remained in the public service.
Sources: The data in columns A, B, and C were taken from Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2002b), pp. 300–6. The other columns were all calculated by the authors
from the first three columns.
have been able to accumulate savings and other assets quite apart from
the public pension scheme.
The second-tier funds in table 8.6 actually consist of 1,737 separate
funds for private sector employees, some quite adequately endowed and
some with more humble endowments. The figures in table 8.6 average
out variations for each fund. Moreover, some of the wealthier funds have
used their surpluses to establish ski lodges, hot spring lodges, and other
recreational facilities for the use of their members. If these variations were
taken into account, the spread of the benefits would be much greater than
is shown in table 8.6. The discomfort felt by many in Groups I and II
should be obvious. As Tamai (2000: 13) notes, the minimal full benefit
available to those who work the full forty years to obtain their maximum
monthly entitlement was still only ¥67,000 per month in 2000, a figure
which is below the amount paid to those receiving the basic livelihood
benefit. It is considerably below the minimum wage mentioned above in
section 4.4.1.
8.4 The national health system for workers

The medical insurance system is also complex. As table 8.7 shows, med-
ical insurance has been provided through a series of funds amalgamated
into four major insurance schemes: (i) the health insurance schemes
for employees in the private sector which cover them and their non-
employed family members (schemes A–D), (ii) schemes for public sector
employees (but including teachers in private institutions) (schemes E-G),
(iii) the catch-all schemes for others including entrepreneurs and workers
not covered by the schemes in (i) or (ii) above (schemes H–I), and (iv)
special arrangements put in place to provide additional benefits for per-
sons aged 70 or over (scheme J). The funding and management arrange-
ments vary from scheme to scheme (column 2) as do the levels of benefits
received (as shown in the two columns to the right of the table). Employ-
ees in the private sector are subscribed to over 1,700 insurance union
plans. As with pensions, it is likely that the actual variation among funds
in some categories is considerable. Comparing the figures for 1991 and
1999, the differentials seem to be increasing over time. Data on benefits
provided under the national health scheme (schemes H and I) is not given
in the table, but would be lower than for schemes A–G.
The payment of medical benefits is fairly straightforward: 70 percent
(for outpatients) or 80 percent (for hospitalized patients) of medical costs
are covered for all citizens regardless of the fund. Additional coverage for
those aged over 70 provided by scheme J means that they are not out of
pocket for medical treatment. However, there is considerable variation
Table 8.7 An overview of the major medical insurance schemes in Japan, March 2000
Average ¥ value of benefits

Number covered (000s) received by each member
Subscribers Family members 1991 1999

Insurance scheme Insurer also covered
A Government-Managed Health Insurance Scheme State

(Seifu Kansho Kenko Hoken) 19,528 17,794 263,696 (1.00) 290,719 (1.00)
B Union Managed Health Insurance Scheme 1,780 health insurance 15,394 16,721 326,079 (1.24) 369,209 (1.27)
(Kumiai Kansho Kenko Hoken) unions
C Health Insurance Scheme for Special Groups State 34 17 11,385 13,563
under Article 69 for the Kenko Hoken
D Seamen’s Health Insurance Scheme (Sen-in State 89 155 339,888 (1.29) 374,737 (1.29)
Hoken)
E National Public Service Health Insurance 24 health insurance 346,749 (1.32) 410,578 (1.41)
Scheme (Kyosai Kumiai Hoken) cooperatives
F Local Public Service Health Insurance Scheme 54 health insurance 4522 5570 305,765 (1.16) 366,889 (1.26)
(Kyosai Kumiai Hoken) cooperatives
G National Private School Teachers’ Health 1 health insurance 315,351 (1.20) 376,110 (1.29)
Insurance Scheme (Kyosai Kumiai Hoken) organization
H National Health Scheme for farmers, 3,245 local authorities n.a. n.a.
entrepreneurs, etc. (Kokumin Kenko Hoken) and 166 national health
insurance unions
I National Health Scheme for the Unemployed 3,245 local authorities 46,581 n.a. n.a.
(Kokumin Kenko Hoken)
J National Health Scheme for the Aged (Rojin As established by local 14,502 n.a. n.a.
Hoken) authorities
Note: The figures in the parentheses in the last two columns show the ratio of benefits received by scheme subscribers to those received by persons who are covered
by the government-managed fund for private sector employees (in scheme A).
Source: Hamada and Okuma (2002), p. 471; and Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2001b), p. 283.
for other kinds of benefits, reflecting variations in the relative “health”

of the different funds. The government-run fund for private employees
concentrated in Japan’s smaller firms (scheme A) reimburses those who
are off work for health-related reasons with a benefit equivalent to
8.5 percent of their regular salary, plus 1.0 percent of their bonuses. The
health insurance unions covering employees in Japan’s more established
and larger firms cover 3.0–9.5 percent of their already much higher salary.
In principle, employers and employees contribute to the funds on a 50–50
basis, but employers may contribute a larger proportion (Tsuchida 2002:
967).
It is generally agreed by those in the field that the health insurance sys-
tem is financially shaky. Hamada and Okuma (2002: 468) report that the
collective funds were in the red by ¥199.2 billion in 1999 and ¥127.3 bil-
lion in 2000, with a deficit of ¥500 billion anticipated in 2001. They also
note that 90 percent of Japan’s 1,780 health insurance unions for private
sector employees are in the red. Table 8.8 shows a rise in health insurance
payouts as a percentage of national income over the past half-century. The
population aged 70 and over rose from 5.3 percent of the total population
in 1955 to 16.7 percent in 1999. Outlays for the aged population from the
special old age fund (scheme J in table 8.7) accounted for about a third
of the medical costs covered by health insurance schemes. Thirty per-
cent of those costs incurred by scheme J are covered by allocations from
national and local governments, but the remaining 70 percent are cov-
ered by transfers out of schemes A–I to which they previously belonged.
Because coverage varies from scheme to scheme, benefits are determined
by place of employment (i.e. working conditions). The government has
moved over the past few years to tighten its controls on “over-doctoring”
and on other practices which unnecessarily inflate costs and to limit the
liability of funds by shifting from a system accepting “open claims” to
one based on a fixed, predetermined and capped fee. Many fear that
this will ultimately mean the creeping privatization of medical services,
greater variation in what health insurance schemes provide, and gaps
between actual fees and the standard maximums. It is our unsubstanti-
ated hypothesis that workers will have strong views about how well their
health will be cared for after forty to fifty years in the labor force, and that
those views will influence their motivation to work and their evaluation
of the choices they have at work.
8.5 Social security, working conditions, and civil society

The discussion above has centered on pensions and healthcare as “hidden
returns” to the Japanese worker. It is common to think of national systems
Table 8.8 Percentage of national income paid out by medical

insurance funds as benefits and the percentage of the population aged
over 65, 1955–99
Percentage of national income Percentage of the population

Year paid as health insurance benefits aged over 65
1955 3.42 5.3

1965 4.18 6.3
1975 5.22 7.9
1985 6.15 10.3
1995 7.10 14.5
1999 8.08 16.7
Note: Table 7.3 gave slightly different figures.

Source: Hamada and Okuma (2002), p. 468; and Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo
Tokei Joho Bu (2001b), p. 19.
of welfare as serving in some way to ameliorate inequalities arising from

the initial distribution of wage/salary incomes. While a good deal is written
about social welfare (shakai fukushi) and social security (shakai hoken) in
Japan, most accounts tend to describe the complex way in which benefits
are dispersed to abstractly defined beneficiaries without linking benefits
to each person’s position in the labor market. Employees try to do this
in a piecemeal fashion, and their choices at work cannot be understood
apart from that.
The realities discussed in this chapter are buttressed by a moral pre-
sumption that individuals should not receive benefits from the public
purse unless they have paid for them or have fully exhausted their own
privately held assets (as noted by Abe 2002). The stigma this perspective
attaches to those looking to the public purse for assistance causes many
citizens to simply forgo applying for welfare benefits. Coupled with the
very low income individuals are given even when they decide to exercise
their right to receive benefits, the consequences are considerable in terms
of wealth accumulation and the reproduction of social class. Once over-
all income falls below a certain level, the financial position of a family
becomes quite shaky. With life expectancy at about 80, and working life
extending roughly from about the age of 20 to 65, the pension system
magnifies through the last quarter of adult life the inequalities experi-
enced during the working years. Given these realities, one can better
appreciate the despondency of those who have lost out in restructuring,
the resignation of the furiitaa who look for other meanings and oppor-
tunities, and the high suicide rate among the aged in Japan. The argu-
ment here is that one cannot begin to fathom how good the good jobs
described by Koshiro some twenty years ago (see section 6.1 above) really
are without having a full understanding of the post-retirement income
differentials. The competition for those scarce good jobs starts in middle
school and underscores much of the stress felt by Japan’s permanently
employed when they cogitate on the consequences of losing the security
of their present position and having to move to the peripheral labor force.
Policy in these areas affects not only the ways in which the systems
redistribute income and wealth. The debates accompanying the prepa-
ration, passage, and implementation of legislation also shape the way
individual Japanese think about society and the ability of work organi-
zations to accommodate a wider range of lifestyles and lifestyle needs
within the community. While part of this may be seen in how workers
think about their basic rights at work, the more important changes may
be in terms of how gender-linked and age-linked roles are conceived in
the context of changes in family life and in the nature of Japan’s civil soci-
ety. The broader connection to civil society is seen, for example, in the
rise of voluntary work over the past decade. About 60 percent of Japan’s
8,000 NPOs are concerned with the provision of medical care and other
social welfare services. The changes brought by the expansion of the wel-
fare/social security sector seem to further open the way for a shift in the
meaning attached to work, as some Japanese begin to reorient themselves
away from work that focuses attention on their individual career success
to work that allows them to be socially significant.
Part V
The power relations shaping the organization

of work in Japan
9 The state of the union movement in Japan
9.1 Labor and management as a power relationship

Life at work in postwar Japan has been shaped to a considerable extent
by shifts in the balance of power between labor and management. Imme-
diately after the war, the unionization rate surpassed 50 percent. The
movement was organized around strong industrial unions with a socialist-
inspired leadership. A few unions took over the management of some
firms as part of the “production control movement” (seisan kanri undo).
Densan (the Electric Power Union) fought to establish the Densangata
wage system which tied wages to the lifecycle needs of each employee.
These efforts to “democratize” the organization of work were in line with
the American-led Occupation policy to democratize Japan, but bore fruit
only because the collective force of workers could be brought to bear on
management through mechanisms sanctioned by the state.
Management groups vehemently resisted, and ultimately the gains of
labor were undermined following the reversal of US policy. The cold war
brought a sharper distinction between communist and socialist regimes
with controlled markets and the liberal democracies with free markets.
Moore (1983) accurately conveys an assessment commonly made by
Japan’s liberal intellectuals in the 1950s and 1960s that Japan was in
the late 1940s on the verge of becoming a socialist society. Kawanishi
(1992a: chapter 4) described the next twenty years in Japan as a massive
struggle between organized labor and organized management for the soul
of Japan’s workers. It was a struggle waged at the national level and at the
enterprise level.
The key determinant was power. Leftists would argue that man-
agement was unfairly bolstered by a conservative state determined to
destroy assertive unionism. Conservatives would point to the limitations
of formula-driven demands based on egalitarian principles in a society
increasingly characterized by differentiated lifestyles, a heterogeneous
labor force, and a desire for a higher standard of living (i.e. higher pro-
ductivity). At the national level the ideological conflict often appeared
199
200 Power relations and the organization of work
to be between the forces for national competitiveness (which required

wage restraint and the deferral of social welfare benefits) and those for
across-the-board safety nets. The tensions often revolved around man-
agement initiatives to replace the Densangata wage system with schemes
more attuned to individual productivity. The outcomes were determined
by power relations between labor and management and defined the larger
setting for organizing work. Since the mid-1970s the resultant shift in
power has been symbolized by declining unionization rates.
9.2 Declining unionization rates and the Japanese labor

movement within the global setting
After remaining at about 35 percent over the twenty years prior to 1975,
the unionization rate in Japan declined to just 20.7 percent in 2001
(table 9.1). Unionization rates have similarly fallen in the UK, the US
and Germany (table 9.2). A report by the ILO in the late 1990s suggests
that this reflects a worldwide trend and identifies a number of factors
contributing to that: legislation affecting unionism, new technologies,
changing labor-force participation among particular groups, casualiza-
tion, downsizing, and growing unemployment. Labor has also been frag-
mented by the ongoing conflict between more action-oriented left-wing
unionists intent on confronting management and the state at the meso
level and more conservative unionists committed to working with man-
agement at the micro level. As the micro-level unionists became more
influential, the firm-level branches of industrial unions gave way to inde-
pendent enterprise unions, and the union movement’s indifference to
workers in the peripheral labor force became institutionalized.
Japanese unions have had to respond to the new logic of global capi-
talism, with parts of the Japanese model (e.g. just-in-time arrangements,
subcontracting and the extensive use of casualized labor) integrating well
into capitalism’s new mode of production. Industrial restructuring has
been accompanied by the growing importance of tertiary industry and
the “hollowing out” of manufacturing. Given these challenges to their
competitiveness, many firms have committed themselves to reorganizing
work so that they can adjust overall employment levels quickly as the
short-term financial fortunes of the firm fluctuate and as the concomi-
tant need to move quickly into new product markets emerges. In the
past, mechanisms such as the “convoy system” (the collective bailing-out
of firms having difficulty in a particular industry by other firms in the
industry and in keiretsu groupings) and the involvement of sokaiya (rack-
eteers used to control annual meetings of stockholders) supported a com-
plex maze of “hidden subsidies” that covered up unprofitable initiatives
The state of the union movement in Japan 201
Table 9.1 Long-term trends in the unionization rates in Japan, 1946–2001
Year A B C D E
Number of Number of Number of Unionization Average number of
unions unionists employees rate members per union
(in millions) (in millions) (100B/C) organization (B/A)
1946 12,006 3.680 40.0 306.5

1947 23,323 5.692 12.56 45.3 244.1
1948 33,926 6.677 12.59 53.0 196.8
1949 34,688 6.655 11.93 55.8 191.9
1950 29,144 5.774 12.51 46.2 192.1
1951 27,644 5.680 13.36 42.6 205.5

1952 27,851 5.720 14.21 40.3 205.4
1953 30,129 5.927 14.47 41.0 196.7
1954 31,456 6.076 15.34 39.6 193.2
1955 32,012 6.286 15.78 39.8 196.4
1956 34,073 6.463 17.42 37.1 189.7

1957 36,084 6.763 18.25 37.1 187.4
1958 37,823 6.984 19.54 35.7 184.6
1959 39,303 7.211 21.68 33.3 183.5
1960 41,561 7.662 23.16 33.1 184.4
1961 45,096 8.360 23.61 35.4 185.4

1962 47,812 8.971 24.77 36.2 187.6
1963 49,796 9.357 25.94 36.1 187.9
1964 51,457 9.800 27.01 36.3 190.5
1965 52,879 10.147 28.10 36.1 191.9
1966 53,983 10.404 29.39 35.1 192.7

1967 55,351 10.476 29.99 35.2 189.3
1968 56,535 10.863 31.59 34.4 192.1
1969 58,812 11.249 31.96 35.2 191.3
1970 60,954 11.605 32.77 35.4 190.4
1971 62,428 11.798 33.88 34.8 189.0

1972 63,718 11.889 34.69 34.3 186.6
1973 66,448 12.098 36.59 33.1 182.1
1974 67,829 12.464 36.76 33.9 183.8
1975 69,333 12.590 36.62 34.4 181.6
1976 70,039 12.509 37.10 33.7 178.6

1977 70,625 12.437 37.46 33.2 176.1
1978 70,868 12.383 37.96 32.6 174.7
1979 71,780 12.309 38.99 31.6 171.5
1980 72,693 12.369 40.12 30.8 170.2
1981 73,694 12.471 40.55 30.8 169.2
1982 74,091 12.526 41.02 30.5 169.1
1983 74,486 12.520 42.09 29.7 168.1
(cont.)
Table 9.1 (cont.)
Year A B C D E
Number of Number of Number of Unionization Average number of
unions unionists employees rate members per union
(in millions) (in millions) (100B/C) organization (B/A)
1984 74,579 12.464 42.82 29.1 167.1

1985 74,499 12.418 43.01 28.9 166.7
1986 74,183 12.343 43.83 28.2 166.4

1987 73,138 12.272 44.48 27.6 167.8
1988 72,792 12.227 45.65 26.8 168.0
1989 72,605 12.227 47.21 25.9 168.4
1990 72,202 12.264 48.75 25.2 169.9
1991 71,685 12.397 50.62 24.2 172.9

1992 71,881 12.541 51.39 24.4 174.5
1993 71,501 12.663 52.33 24.2 177.1
1994 71,674 12.698 52.79 24.1 177.2
1995 70,839 12.613 53.09 23.8 178.1
1996 70,699 12,451 53.67 23.2 176.1

1997 70,821 12.285 54.36 22.6 173.5
1998 70,084 12.093 53.99 22.4 172.6
1999 69,387 11.825 53.25 22.2 170.4
2000 68,737 11.539 53.67 21.5 167.9
2001 67,706 11.212 54.16 20.7 165.6
Note: The figures in column A represent the number of independent union organizations
(including the federations and all of their subordinates). At a firm with four enterprise
unions and one company federation to which all four enterprise unions belong, the latter
would be counted as unit unions, but not the federation. However, the figures in column
B include all members in the four enterprise unions plus the officials in the federation, as
well as officials in industrial federations, other confederations, and the national centers.
Source: Various editions of the Rodo Tokei Nenpo (Yearbook of Labor Statistics) which is
updated and published annually by the Romu Gyosei Kenkyujo for the Ministry of Labor,
and now for the Kosei Rodo Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu. These figures can also be gleaned
from the annually released Rodo Undo Hakusho (White Paper on the Labor Movement)
prepared by the Ministry of Labor and then the Ministry of Welfare and Labor.
by management and even the channeling of “slush funds” to cronies by

a small number of corrupt managers. The surpluses required for these
practices have ultimately been generated through some form of social
dumping, often made possible by the careful orchestration of tightly
knit keiretsu arrangements and by tacit understandings among those who
form the business–bureaucratic–political elite. Critical to this shifting
of resources have been understandings concerning the segmented labor
Table 9.2 A comparison of unionization rates in four

countries, 1985–2000
Country 1985 2000
Japan 28.9 21.5

United States 18.8 (1984) 13.5
United Kingdom 53.1 (1983) 29.9
West Germany/Germany 41.5 (1983) 32.2 (1998)
Sources: For 1985: Rodo Sho Rosei Kyoku (1986), p. 523.

For 2000: Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu
(2002a), p. 250.
market and entrenched inequalities between a privileged aristocracy of

unionized employees and a large peripheral labor force.
Many writing about industrial relations and work organization in Japan
have emphasized the importance of allegedly unique features: long-term
employment, seniority wages, and the enterprise union. Although the
research by Koike (1989) and others has helped to put the first two into
comparative perspective, showing that neither is peculiar to Japan, only
a few writers such as Kawanishi (1989 and 1992a) have examined in
detail the way the enterprise union functions. From the outside it has
been assumed by many observers that the enterprise union and the con-
sultative practices associated with it have facilitated the attainment of
high levels of productivity with social justice. In the 1970s the OECD
(1972), Taira (1977), Yakabe (1977), and many others praised Japan’s
internal labor markets as a major factor accounting for the highly moti-
vated and committed labor force that contributed greatly to Japan’s rapid
economic growth. Such writers often concluded that the enterprise union
had facilitated the smooth operation of Japan’s labor market by cooper-
ating extensively with management.
Given this positive assessment, the drop in Japan’s unionization rate is
ironic. If the enterprise union had indeed been an important force facil-
itating Japan’s extremely flexible response to the successive oil shocks of
the mid-1970s, as many allege, the enterprise-based union movement in
Japan should have strengthened. Even accepting the common claim that
the enterprise union is more suited to the functioning of large firms with
vertically structured internal labor markets, one would expect unioniza-
tion rates to rise in the large-scale sector. They have not. Nor has the
labor force moved from medium-sized to large-scale enterprises as some
might have expected. Moreover, by the 1990s the union movement had
still done little to incorporate those two-thirds of the labor force in the
private sector who were employed in firms with fewer than 100 employees
(Rodo Daijin Kanbo Seisaku Chosa Bu 1996a: 52).
In considering the decline of the union movement in Japan, one must
consider at least three elements: economic restructuring (e.g. the shift
from secondary to tertiary industry) and the push within enterprises to
achieve competitive best global practice; the shift of power from unions to
management; and the distancing of unions from their members and many
others in the labor force. Before considering each of these, it is useful to
review briefly the organization of the union movement in postwar Japan.
9.3 The structure of the union movement in postwar Japan

Although much attention has been given to the role of the enterprise
union in Japan’s postwar industrial and employment relations, there is,
as figure 9.1 shows, more to the labor movement than the enterprise
union.
9.3.1 National centers

The left in Japanese politics has long been ideologically fragmented. One
consequence is that Japan has not had a unified labor movement. Early in
the twentieth century radical intellectuals were divided in their support
for communism, various brands of socialism, and anarchism. Reading
various sources, even in English, one senses this factionalism in discus-
sions of the left in Cole, Totten and Uyehara (1966) on the history of the
socialist parties, in Smith (1972) on the student movements, in Packard
(1966) on the anti-security-treaty demonstrations in 1960, in Scalapino
(1967) on the history of the Japanese Communist Party, in Ui (1968 and
1972) on the anti-pollution movements, in Hoston (1986) on the evolu-
tion of Japanese Marxism, in Mackie (2003) on the feminist movement,
and in Large (1982) on the socialist leadership. The factors promoting
fragmentation include the high cost of strategic failure, the secrecy and
suspicions and the emotional commitment associated with efforts to fos-
ter change in the face of social opprobrium and repression by the state;
the tensions between the theorists at their desks and those organizing on
the ground; personal rivalries and the reliance on individual and group
loyalties; the strong, even idiosyncratic personalities required by a com-
mitment to fundamentally change society; outside pressures from Com-
intern, from looser groupings of Christian socialists, and from competing
sides when the Sino-Soviet split occurred; and the gaps between foreign
prognoses and grassroots realities in Japan, and incongruence between
the etic and the emic, as foreign terms were introduced by competing
National center
(nashonaru sentaa)
Industrial federation
(tansan or tan-i
sangyobetsu rengotai )
Enterprise
federation
the enterprise union

(kigyobetsu kumiai)
(kigyoren)
Unit union at the
business firm
(tanso or tan-i
kumiai)
Unit union at the
place of business
(tanso or tan-i
kumiai or jigyosho
kumiai)
Regional labor
federation
(chiiki rodo
soshiki)
= direction of affiliation
Figure 9.1 The three tiers of organized labor in Japan.
activists to legitimate their own ideological positions. Repeated attempts

by the prewar Japanese authorities to repress the various “isms” on the left
forced many to go underground, a situation which further contributed to
poor communications and to the splintering of the labor movement.
It is not surprising, then, that numerous groupings emerged and began
to jostle for position at the national level when unions were first legalized
Sanbetsu Kaigi Sodomei Nichiro Kaigi

19.8.1946 1.8.1946 25.10.1946 Unaffiliated
unions
Zento
26.12.1946
Mushozoku
Rokyo
Zenroren
10.3.1947
Zennichiro
7.1949
Shinsanbetsu
unions began 10.12.1949
to leave in
6.1948, going back to Sodomei
SOHYO
10.12.1949
Churitsu Rokon
Merged 4.1956
11.1950 Sodomei
reconstituted 6.1951
disbanded by
directive of SHINSANBETSU
GHQ Zenkanko
8.1950 9.1959
Zenro Kaigi
Schism 22.4.1954
7.1952
CHURITSU ROREN
8.9.1956
Zenro Sodomei
disbanded
2.1958 Domei Kaigi
Kinzoku Rokyo
26.4.1962
Toitsu Sokushinkon
DOMEI
3.1970
11.11.1964
Seisui Kaigi
Sorengo 7.10.1976
3.1973
Toitsu Rosokon
12.1974
Zenmin Rokyo
Rengo
20.11.1987
RENGO
Zenroren Zenrokyo
21.11.1989 9.12.1989 22.11.1989
Figure 9.2 A genealogy of the postwar labor movement in Japan.
by the Occupation in December 1945. Figure 9.2 provides a genealogy

beginning with the four national centers that were formed in 1946. From
the early 1960s onwards, however, two national centers dominated the
union movement until they merged in 1989, Sohyo on the left and Domei
on the right. Though much smaller, Churitsu Roren was also a significant
center, in part owing to its independent ideological stance somewhere
between the other two. As table 9.3 indicates, in 1970 each center had
Table 9.3 The national centers and their major industrial affiliates, 1970
Membership Industrial federation
Number of members Percentage Japanese name English rendition

National center English rendition (in 000s) distribution
Sohyo General Council of Trade 4,282 36.9 Tekko Roren Japanese Federation of Iron and Steel
Unions of Japan Industry Workers’ Unions
Domei Japanese Confederation of 2,060 17.7 Zenzosen General Federation of Shipbuilding and
Labor Engineering Workers’ Unions
Jidosha Roren Japan Federation of Automobile
Workers’ Unions
Churitsu Federation of Independent 1,400 12.1 Denki Roren All-Japan Federation of Electric
Roren Unions Machine and Tool Industry Workers’
Unions
Shinsanbetsu National Federation of 74 0.6
Industrial Organizations
Other national 1,124 9.7
federations
Other unions 2,829 24.3
Total 11,605 100.0
Source: Rodo Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (1972), pp. 326–9.

a large industrial federation from one of Japan’s major manufacturing

industries.
A major function of the national centers has been to provide competing
ideological foci for unions at the industrial and local level. The two major
centers did this by acquiring an array of industrial federations that were in
turn constituted by their affiliated branches or enterprise unions (figure
9.1). The ideological thrust was most evident in each center’s links with
the international labor movement, Sohyo affiliating with the World Fed-
eration of Trade Unions (WFTU, centered around the socialist bloc in
Eastern Europe) and Domei with the International Confederation of Free
Trade Unions (ICFTU, centered around the countries in Western Europe
and supported by many of the industrial federations in the US). The
WFTU and the ICFTU each had its own network of international indus-
trial confederations. When the communist regimes in Eastern Europe
collapsed, the WFTU lost its ability to function in a meaningful fashion.
Formed in 1951, Sohyo sought to foster a sense of working-class con-
sciousness by organizing an annual Spring Offensive (Shunto) that incor-
porated May Day demonstrations and slogans supporting working-class
solidarity. Created as a center for a more conservative social democratic
movement in 1964, Domei subscribed to economic unionism and waged
its own “Wage Offensive” (Chinto) in conjunction with Sohyo’s Spring
Offensive. Annual success each spring resulted in a certain ritualization
of the proceedings, and by the 1970s the negotiations with management
at the industrial level had come to result in fairly predictable outcomes
determined largely by changes in the consumer price index (Sano 1980).
During the 1980s the commitment to Sohyo’s militant unionism waned,
particularly in the private sector, and several of Sohyo’s strongest affili-
ates in the public sector (which organized teachers and employees of the
Japan National Railways) were crushed following a concerted campaign
by the government and the media against left-wing unions. Increasingly
emphasis shifted to the ability of individual firms to meet the demands
of their unions, an approach given further impetus by the recessions of
the 1990s.
9.3.2 Industrial federations and the move to unify the national centers
Industrial federations and industrial unions perform important research
functions. They promote the sharing of information among their affili-
ates and foster among their members a sense of industry-wide standards
and an industry-level culture that Clark (1979) referred to as a “society
of industry.” Through their international affiliations they also obtain
information necessary to link their demands to some notion of an interna-

tional standard. Information gathering also allows them to assess overseas
practices they do not like and to view their movement in an overall social
context characterized by low unemployment, high levels of education,
minimal crime, and the absence of tensions caused by having sizable
ethnic minorities. While the number of industrial unions has declined
over time and most industry-level organizations have come to be federa-
tions, some significant industrial unions remain (e.g. the Seamen’s Union
[Kaiin Domei] and the Japan Teachers’ Union [Nikkyoso]).
Industrial unions and federations have tended to mirror the ideol-
ogy of the national centers at the industrial level and to diffuse their
views through affiliates at the shop- and office-floor level. Nevertheless,
in the early 1960s the four major industrial federations listed in table 9.3
formed the Japan Council of the International Metal Workers’ Federation
to enable them to take a united stance in dealings with the European-
oriented organization. Given their dominant position, these unions often
led the Spring Offensive and had the pooled finances necessary to support
a concerted research effort. The Japan Council exerted a powerful influ-
ence on the union movement and served to bridge the three ideologically
opposed centers.
By the end of the 1960s working conditions in Japan’s large firms
had improved immensely, and private sector workers who identified with
Sohyo’s political unionism decreased. Having the right to strike them-
selves, they lost interest in the high priority placed by employees in the
public sector on obtaining the right to strike. By 1970 Domei came to
represent the majority of unionists in Japan’s private enterprises. In the
December 1972 Lower House elections the Liberal Democratic Party,
in government continuously since 1955, suffered a huge loss, picking up
only 46.8 percent of the popular vote, although it still managed to win a
reduced majority of the seats (55.2 percent) (ASC, 12 December 1972:
1–2). Attention focused on the difficulties faced by a fractured union
movement (with its support divided among the Japan Socialist Party, the
Democratic Socialist Party, and the Japan Communist Party). Behind
the scenes leaders in some of the major private sector industrial feder-
ations centered around the IMF-JC began discussions on how to unify
the labor movement. In the early 1980s they formed Zenmin Rokyo –
a liaison body which formed the basis for Rengo to be established in
November 1987 by affiliates from three of the four national centers. Two
years later Sohyo and many of its affiliates followed suit. Some unions
on the left formed Zenrokyo and some formed Zenroren as competing
national centers (table 9.4).
Table 9.4 Union members affiliated to each national center, 1998–2000
National English Percentage distribution

center nomenclature 1998 1999 2000 for 2000
Rengo Japan Union 7,476 7,334 7,173 61.0

Confederation
Zenroren National 837 827 802 6.8
Confederation of
Trade Unions
Zenrokyo 270 265 258 2.2
Other national 2,668 2,579 2,514 21.4
federations
Other unions 1,078 1,044 1,005 8.6
Total 12,329 12,049 11,752 100.0
Source: Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu (2002a), p. 298.
9.3.3 The enterprise union

Japan’s postwar labor movement has been structured around organiza-
tions at the enterprise level, and the enterprise union continues to be
the most basic autonomous unit in the union movement. The predom-
inant unit of organization is the business firm (kaisha) or the place of
business (jigyosho). Both are “enterprises” (kigyo). The term is used to
distinguish clearly between the company union (which is seen as being in
the service of the firm) and the enterprise union that consists of members
drawn wholly from the same firm. Restricting membership to employees
of a given enterprise does not mean that the enterprise union necessarily
embraces all employees at a single enterprise or that it is the only union
organizing workers at that enterprise.
The enterprise union (kigyo betsu kumiai) may be either a “unit union”
(tanso or tan-i kumiai) at a single place of business or in an entire firm
or in a firm-wide federation (kigyoren). Many large firms carry on activ-
ities at several places of business (i.e. enterprises), each with a distinct
legal identity. It is common for each enterprise to have its own union,
with a coordinating firm-wide federation (known as a kigyoren or kigyonai
rodo kumiai rengotai). Some kigyoren have come to supersede their affil-
iates and become the enterprise union, with their affiliates then becom-
ing branches. This complicates the collection of statistics on unions and
makes the tabulations difficult to assess.
The Trade Union Law allows any two persons to form a union in Japan.
Accordingly, very small unions sometimes form around the special inter-
ests of a limited number of employees. In the 1950s and 1960s second
unions were formed at many enterprises to compete with the enterprise

affiliate of a powerful left-wing industrial union. In many firms Japan’s
postwar industrial and employment relations have been colored by the
presence of two unions – a “number one union” (daiichi kumiai) (often a
left-wing union associated with Sohyo) and a “number two union” (daini
kumiai) (often a conservative business-oriented union affiliated with a
Domei industrial federation). Up to 20 percent of organized enterprises
had two such unions when the practice was at its height in the late 1960s
and early 1970s. The tensions this created at work often extended far
beyond enterprises that had the two unions. Some of the day-to-day ten-
sions have been described by Fujita (1968) and Kawanishi (1977 and
1990). The organizational outcomes are shown in figure 9.3. The ten-
sions were exacerbated by the extremely competitive situation found in
most firms as described by the novels mentioned above in chapter 6.
Enterprise unions maintain a strong sense of independence and possess
their own assets. They receive information and support, but not orders,
from their industrial federations. Most enterprise unions focus narrowly
on achieving better working conditions for their members, but negotiate
with management across a broad range of issues. Table 9.5 lists issues that
have recently arisen in the course of company restructuring. They give
some idea of the issues considered important by many enterprise unions.
With labor market deregulation, a major concern is the discretion of
management to shift employees among the various enterprises run by the
firm. The merits and demerits of the enterprise union have been debated
for some time along with arguments about its uniqueness.
9.4 Structural change and the social framework

It is commonly argued that high-tech and service industries require a
flexibility that makes employees difficult to organize. However, Freeman
and Rebick (1989), Ito and Takeda (1990), and Tsuru (1994) also suggest
that only between a fourth and a fifth of the drop in unionization rates
in Japan is due to the shift of employees into such industries. Fujimura
(1997: 300–3) argues strongly that the drop in unionization rates has
occurred across nearly all industries and in large firms as well as small
ones.
The impact of technological change has been more in terms of work
practices (e.g. labor process) in all industries and at all levels within
already established firms. As discussed in chapters 5 and 6, changing
work practices seem to be associated with further segmentation of the
labor market, making it more difficult for the enterprise union to appeal
to a wide range of employees. Firms continue to seek a competitive edge
National National
center A center B
Industrial Industrial Industrial Industrial

federation A1 federation B1 federation B2 federation C1
In industry A In industry B In industry B In industry C
Head office
Head office Head office
enterprise
enterprise enterprise
branch
union Y4 union Z4
union X4
Plant-level Plant-level
enterprise Plant-level
enterprise
branch enterprise
union Y1 Plant-level
union X1 branch
enterprise
union X2
union Z1
Plant-level
Plant-level enterprise
Plant-level union Z3
enterprise Plant-level
enterprise
branch enterprise
Plant-level union Y3
union X3 Z2 with no
enterprise
union
union Y2
Firm
Firm-wide federation of
Local enterprise unions
regional
federation Firm-based unions
Affiliation
Figure 9.3 The structuring of the union movement with competing

enterprise unions.
by peripheralizing their labor force. In 1996 41.8 percent of all women

employees worked part-time, and 23.3 percent of Japan’s total labor force
was hired on a non-regular basis. Table 9.6 shows that unionization is high
among regular employees in Japan’s largest enterprises and much lower
in smaller firms where about 60 percent of Japan’s employees work. The
Table 9.5 Percentage of unions attaching importance to different matters
raised by management in the course of their firm’s restructuring, 2000
Percentage of unions
concerned about the
Aspect of restructuring specific item
Temporary transfers and temporary change of employer 38.6

Change in the place of work with a relocation of residency 27.8
Change in the place of work without a relocation of residency 26.2
Freezing annual wage increases and other measures to restrain 22.7
wages
Establishment of an early retirement scheme providing for 22.3
preferential treatment for those taking voluntary early
retirement
Dismissals and heavy-handed pressure to take early retirement 20.3
Reconsideration of overtime rates and other allowances 13.0
Reviews of retirement allowances and corporate pensions 12.4
Reconsideration of company welfare provisions 11.6
Restraints on the hiring of new graduates and mid-career 10.8
workers
Measures to reduce the pay of managerial staff 8.6
Compulsion for employees to receive education and training 7.1
oriented to changing jobs
Changes to the normal working day 6.1
Changes to the number of days off (weekly and annually) 5.8
Lowering the compulsory retirement age or other measures to 2.6
reduce the employment of “over-age” employees
Source: Taken from the Survey on Labor Union Activities in 2000 (Rodo Kumiai Katsudo
Jittai Chosa Heisei Juninen) as reported in Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu
(2002c), pp. 302–3.
Table 9.6 Unionization rate by firm size, 2000
A B C D E F
Firm size Number Number of Percentage drop Number of Unionization
(number of of unions union members in membership employees rate
employees) (in 1000s) (1999–2000) (10,000s) [100 × (C/E)]
0–29 4,839 47 6.0

2,596
30–99 10,012 314 3.6 1.4
100–299 9,922 842 3.6

1,197
300–999 8,472 1,403 2.0 19.5
1,000+ 20,071 5,274 2.5 974 57.2
Total 56,538 8,975 2.6 4,796 19.4
Source: Kosei Rodo Sho Roshi Kankei Tanto Sanjikan Shitsu (2002), p. 486.
enterprise union continues to define itself in terms of employees in the

core labor force.
Japan’s large firms have taken three steps to be more competitive. The
first has been to push for the liberalization of the economy: deregulat-
ing the labor market; moving production overseas (most noticeably to
China); and “freeing up society.” In the past employers have wanted
to isolate the social relationships relevant to their firms’ operations from
other processes of economic rationalization. In 1997 Nikkeiren (the Japan
Federation of Employers’ Associations) argued that it was important
to the motivation and cohesion of their employees that Japanese firms
continue practices that embraced traditional work norms, maintain tra-
ditional work force discipline, and ensure egalitarian outcomes. It cau-
tioned firms not to move away from Densangata-type arrangements too
quickly for fear of upsetting understandings with (organized) labor. At
the same time, however, it also sought changes in the social relations that
had characterized work in Japan for nearly half a century. The increased
discretion of management to regulate workloads will likely result in core
employees working longer and more intensely. This will make it more
difficult for women to compete with men on an equal footing, for men
to be involved in domestic duties to the extent necessary for wives and
mothers to enter the labor force as core employees, and for employees to
engage in voluntary community-oriented activity. The enhanced capacity
for management to redefine workloads for its white-collar employees in
terms of output rather than the time actually required to get the output
will shift the basis for wage rates from labor input to labor output. That
will in turn mean that employers no longer need to assume responsibility
for assessing the value of labor per se or for enhancing its value as human
capital. By purchasing the output rather than the labor, firms will be able
to convert each employee into an independent subcontractor.
This segmentation of the core labor force corrects a certain inequal-
ity, while creating another that divides the membership of the enterprise
union. As Araki (1996) explains, the current system, tied to hours of
input, tended to subsidize slower or less productive employees at the
expense of more able workers. Because the less able employee will need
overtime to complete his work, he attracts overtime pay beyond the nor-
mal salary he would otherwise receive for working more productively and
completing his work within the normal hours. This fundamental change
in work relations will challenge unions to find common ground for their
increasingly differentiated membership.
Unions will also be affected by changes to the labor contract for core
employees. The longer contract period of three to five years will allow
management to remove professionals, other highly skilled employees,
and technical workers from the category of core employees (Nihon Kei-
eisha Dantai Renmei 1995: 32), further reducing the pool from which
the enterprise union has traditionally drawn its committed membership.
Even though unions may move to broaden their definition of employee to
embrace contract workers, such employees will now have to think care-
fully about how union affiliation might affect their chances for contract
extensions, as management seeks to respond to globally generated pres-
sure to be more competitive. One outcome is the growing ambivalence of
many skilled white-collar workers toward schemes that subsidize fellow
employees and others who are less productive. It is thus possible that the
enterprise union may come to center itself around a shrinking core labor
force. This will produce a smaller union movement with a more cohesive
subgroup within the labor market – an amalgam narrowly committed to
serving its own interests as Japan’s aristocracy of labor. However, it is
also conceivable that the aristocracy will fracture further, with cleavages
emerging between blue- and white-collar, administrative and technically
skilled employees. In any case, the openness of each grouping to women
will critically shape Japan’s union movement.
A major concern for those interested in a more broadly based union
movement is that that aristocracy has supplied much of the leadership in
many enterprise unions and industrial federations. As Kawanishi (1992a:
35) and others have documented, the enterprise union has come to be led
by the better-educated workers (many of whom were already in manage-
rial track positions). However, such unionists are served by the move from
labor-input- to product-output-based schemes that better reward them
for their higher productivity by widening intra-firm wage differentials
initially between the unionists (as core employees) and non-unionists (in
the peripheral labor force), and then between more productive unionists
and less productive ones. The commitment of many enterprise unions
to an ideology that puts productivity first is one source of apathy and
anxiety among those in the second tier of the permanent labor force.
This undermines notions of labor solidarity and the influence of the peak
organizations at the national level.
These new cleavages sit uncomfortably with the egalitarian heritage
left by the militant industrial unions that dominated Japan’s employment
relations immediately after the war, when unions worked to remove invid-
ious status distinctions between workers and to inject livelihood guar-
antees into the wage system. The enterprise union later emerged as a
response to what many skilled employees saw as excessive egalitarianism
once the material standard of living rose above subsistence levels. The
push for productivity shifted attention from the relative size of income
shares to their absolute size. The important thing was simply that the
material standard of living was improving at least a little for everyone. To

the extent (i) that the driving force behind Japan’s ever expanding econ-
omy was the large unionized firm and its core labor force, and (ii) that
consumerism (the desire for a higher material standard of living) came
to be the paramount value for most workers, the enterprise union made
sense. There was a kind of social contract.
However, the validity of that social contract has come to be ques-
tioned. The high cost of living and the absence of safety nets has bolstered
the sense of economic insecurity and reinforced the perception of many
Japanese employees that they need to work even more competitively. The
conditions for worker solidarity have changed; if unions cannot respond
to the needs of both the core and the non-core labor force, unionization
rates will continue to decline. The ever present linkage between wage
levels, job security, and competitiveness reflects an overall weakness in
the position of labor within an economy structured around extensively
segmented labor markets. That weakness will continue to undermine the
ability of the enterprise union to build a broadly based union movement
capable of raising the unionization rate and exerting its influence at the
national level.
9.5 Fluctuations in the political influence of the

union movement
The emphasis on cooperative industrial relations has shifted attention
from Japan’s history of industrial conflict at the national, industrial, and
enterprise levels during the postwar period. That history entailed conflict
between number one and number two unions at the enterprise level,
ideological divisions in the Diet and elsewhere in the political arena,
several “red purges,” the refusal of the Japanese government to interact
with the Japan Teachers’ Union, and Spring Wage Offensives.
The shift in power from Japan’s industrially based unions to enterprise
unions was the result of a thirty-year power struggle. The struggle had
several dimensions. One involved the efforts of management and suc-
cessive conservative governments to contain unionism, especially Japan’s
strong industrial unions. On another level were tensions between core
(unionized) and non-core (non-unionized) labor. On yet another level eli-
tist white-collar permanent (unionized) employees in Japan’s large firms
lined up against the less-educated and less-skilled permanent (unionized)
employees in their own firms.
At this point perhaps the connection of the enterprise union to the
internal labor market also requires brief comment. Although the enter-
prise union is often seen as an approach facilitating “internal transfers”
in Japan’s large firms, many transfers have been out-placements to sub-

contracting and other related firms. If there is merit in arguments linking
the enterprise union to the functioning of labor markets, keiretsu unions
might have been more effective than enterprise unions. While this would
present enterprise unions with the challenge of having to incorporate an
even more heterogeneous cross-section of employees, it would also pro-
vide a larger critical mass and offset the ability of management to weaken
the union by shifting its workforce to subcontractors or other related
firms. However the enterprise union is organized, its future will be shaped
significantly by the position it takes on inequalities which now differen-
tiate each firm’s labor force. Although many enterprise unions have dis-
tanced themselves from simplistic Marxist concepts and their associated
symbols (Fujimura 1998: 7), they have not yet found another unifying
concept. They have maintained an ongoing commitment to function as a
protective organization, yet have not been able to influence significantly
a number of areas which affect working conditions such as the speed of
conveyor belts, the rotation of employees between jobs or shifts, and the
promotion process. This contrasts, for example, with many of the work-
ers’ councils (Betriebsrat) in Germany, or the strong protection given by
many American unions to seniority rights.
Keeping those comments in mind, Fujimura (1998) reminds us that
the influence of the enterprise union at the firm level should not be under-
estimated. The enterprise unions were instrumental in removing CEOs
from several large Japanese firms in the early 1990s: the Mainichi News-
paper Corporation, the Tokyo Broadcasting Corporation, Yamaha Cor-
poration, Toyo Keizai Shimposha (a leading publisher of business-related
books and reference works), and Tokyo Shoko Research. This may not be
the production control (seisan kanri) gained by some unions immediately
after the war, but in each case employees were dissatisfied with excessively
authoritarian decision-making, management’s lack of vision, and the poor
performance of their firms. Benson’s surveys (1994 and 1996) of small
and medium-sized firms also indicate that the enterprise union has made
a difference. Other data shows that 81 percent of unionized firms have
arrangements for joint labor–management consultations, compared with
only 32 percent of non-unionized firms (Rodo Daijin Kanbo Seisaku
Chosa Bu 1996a: 232). The 2000 Survey on Labor Union Activities
revealed that union size may bring greater influence (part B in table 9.7)
in Japan’s largest firms (part A). Part C, however, suggests that unions
that do a better job of monopolizing the sale of labor in a firm have more
influence. This finding is consistent with the proposition that a single
enterprise union is stronger than two at the same firm.
Table 9.7 Percentage of unions having an influence on restructuring in their

firm, 2000
A. By firm size
Percentage of unions which have had a

Size of the firm by number of employees say in the restructuring process
100–299 68.4
300–499 72.0
500–999 81.7
1,000–4,999 84.1
5,000+ 91.3
B. By size of the union
Size of the union by number of Percentage of unions which have had a

members say in the restructuring process
100–299 78.2
300–499 86.9
500–999 88.5
1,000–4,999 91.4
5,000+ 96.3
C. By percentage of employees unionized in the firm-based

union organization
Percentage of employees unionized at Percentage of unions which have had a

the enterprise say in the restructuring process
10–30 55.7
30–50 64.3
50–70 77.8
70–90 79.0
90+ 90.2
Source: Taken from the Survey on Labor Union Activities (2000) (Rodo Kumiai Katsudo
Jittai Chosa Heisei Juninen) as reported in Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu
(2002c), p. 299.
There is another side to union size. The fortunes of the union move-
ment can also be viewed in terms of the average size of its smallest inde-
pendent unions. Column E in table 9.1 yields a different approach to
periodization than simple reference to the unionization rate per se (as
used by Fujimura 1997: 298–9). During the period of strong industrial
unions, the average size of Japanese unions remained at about 190 mem-
bers, dropping to about 185 following the split of many unions which
Table 9.8 Distribution of unions by membership size, 2000
Size of the union in Number of Number of Average number of

terms of membership unions members members
1−29 8,683 123,441 14.2

30–99 10,101 589,673 58.4
100–299 7,177 1,218,594 169.8
300–499 1,930 742,835 384.9
500–999 1,598 1,113,349 696.7
1,000–4,999 1,381 2,865,964 2,075.3
5,000+ 315 4,884,701 15,507.0
All unions 31,185 11,538,557 370.0
accompanied the first serious push for enterprise unions in the mid-
1950s. The average size came back to 190 as union membership and
the strong industrial unions were bolstered by the expansion of manufac-
turing, legitimated by the vocabulary of the socialist-inclined free speech
movements and anti-Vietnam War movements around the world, and
centered increasingly around the large-scale sector in the 1960s. During
the 1970s, however, as conservative enterprise unionism came to the fore
in Japan, average size steadily dropped to around 165 during the 1980s
when the adulation of Japanese-style management and the move away
from industrial unions became more pronounced. Though unionization
rates continued to fall, and a growing number of employees came to feel
that they had been left behind by the bubble years, the average size of
Japan’s labor unions rose from a low of about 165 members in 1986 to
176 by 1996. This reflects the concerted efforts from the late 1980s to
reunify the labor movement and the falling away of weaker unions as more
firms were pressured by the recession.
Table 9.8 provides information on the membership of unions. Rather
than the unit union counted in table 9.1, the unit of analysis in table 9.8
is the kigyoren (rather than its constituent unit unions). The table shows
a huge disparity between unions in terms of their members and the resul-
tant capacity to acquire a professional leadership team, to effect disputa-
tive action, and to supply leadership and other resources to its industrial
federation.
The shifts in the average size of unions (in the range of 5–10 per-
cent) over time are quite small, but are fairly significant in terms of their
financial viability. One shortcoming of the enterprise union identified
some time ago by Shirai (1983: 141) is its weak financial base. Based
on an international comparison, Naito (1983: 146–7) argued that this is
reflected in very high subscription fees paid in Japan, a factor which con-
nects to some of the cynicism enterprise unionists feel toward their union.
In recent years a number of unions have had to draw on reserves from
their strike funds to finance day-to-day operations. The decision of large
industrial federations such as Tekko Roren (the Japanese Federation of
Steel Workers’ Unions) and Denki Rengo (the Japanese Electrical, Elec-
tronic, and Information Unions) to move from annual to biennial wage
negotiations is an attempt to rationalize their activities by preparing better
for fewer bargaining sessions.
At the industrial level, most leaders come up from affiliated enterprise
unions, and serve the industrial federation at the pleasure of their home
union (and firm). Because most union leaders have to retain their employ-
ment status with their original employer in order to qualify for health
and retirement benefits, they are anxious about being able to return to
their firm upon completing their stint in the union movement. To have a
place upon returning to their firm and to be able to draw at least part of
their salary from the firm during their involvement in union affairs, the
employer’s support is also often necessary. Accordingly, few career union
leaders at the industrial level can fully commit themselves to egalitarian
causes for the more disadvantaged members of the labor force. Although
there are, as Iwasaki (1993) notes, variations in this regard and some
industrial federations do hire professional staff, those who have come up
through the ranks from enterprise unions tend to be reined in by “the
forces back home.”
Rengo now attaches importance to union organization at the industrial
level and recognizes the need for a critical mass of committed leaders
who are financially independent. It is taking steps to train and develop
such a leadership. At the same time, there is a firmly entrenched commit-
ment to the idea that strong enterprise unions are the best guarantee that
democracy will be maintained in the movement, and the move to create
an independent professional leadership will take time.
A major goal in forming Rengo was to pool resources and end the forty
years of continuous conservative government. Union leaders scrutinized
a number of visions for achieving that aim before deciding to rebuild the
Social Democratic Party of Japan (SDPJ) and the Democratic Socialist
Party (DSP). Following their poor performance in the July 1992 Upper
House elections, the possibility of creating an entirely new political party
was also entertained. Then, as Nitta (1993) relates, the Rengo leadership
was instrumental in achieving a seven-party ruling coalition following the
July 1993 Lower House elections. Nitta attaches importance to (i) the
decision of industrial unions to move away from single-party support,
(ii) Rengo’s contribution in controlling factional brawling within the
SDPJ, and (iii) its calming influence on the DSP which had considered
joining the conservatives to form a different coalition. Important also
was their ability to form a coalition without the Japan Communist Party
(which had won only 15 of the 511 seats with 7.7 percent of the pop-
ular vote). Significant was the union movement’s conscious decision to
move away from left-wing ideologies and to focus on realistic democratic
socialist policies to advance the welfare of the average employee.
Shinoda (1995) argues that Rengo’s combined resources allowed it
to develop much more sophisticated policy briefs than had previously
been possible. This allowed it to have a much greater input into policy
deliberations at the bureaucratic level and in the shaping of public opin-
ion. However, as the recession extended into the 1990s, many workers
were finding it difficult to make ends meet, a situation fostering cyni-
cism and alienation among many working Japanese. While Rengo had
distanced itself from the left-wing politicians, support for middle-of-the-
road democratic socialism eroded and the October 1996 Lower House
elections returned the main conservative party to government.
9.6 The enterprise union and growing diversity of needs

among its members
The enterprise union’s emphasis on productivity first has tended to focus
attention on the material standard of living. “Wages on a par with those
in Europe!” was a popular slogan in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the
mid-1970s, the demand for shorter hours of work was a demand only for
the standard workweek so that more overtime pay could be earned with
the same or even expanded hours. From 1975 to 1990 hours of work did
not shrink.
The acquisition of basic consumer durables in the 1960s and 1970s
fostered a belief that any Japanese could join the middle class simply by
working hard. However, from the late 1970s there was a slowly growing
realization that income differentials were widening as the mass consumer
market became increasingly segmented. As workers came to build their
standard of living around less tangible status symbols and style in the
late 1980s, they became less interested in political activity, and the ben-
efits of union membership came to be taken for granted. However, the
ability of enterprise unions to guarantee employment came to be ques-
tioned. Instead of fighting for jobs, they often assisted management in
implementing early retirement schemes and administering retrenchment
packages. Once the economic bubble burst in the early 1990s and firms
began to downsize, the enterprise union appeared unable or unwilling to
protect the jobs of all its members. It had no answer when females were
laid off, when new graduates found it hard to locate suitable employ-
ment, and when those in the semi-core male labor force were transferred
to smaller subcontracting firms. In the mid-1990s a growing number of
middle managers found themselves unemployed, and the anxiety caused
by job insecurity began to receive some prominence in the media.
Another concern among employees has been the way firms regulate
their lives in terms of the life–work balance. In the heady days of the
late 1980s karoshi (death from overwork) began to receive attention, and
workers began to ask why their hours of work needed to be so long and
why they had so little say in setting their own work schedules. At the same
time, the economic slowdown of the 1990s allowed many employees to
reflect for the first time on fatherhood and the needs of the family, and the
plight of the absentee father was frequently taken up in the media. Firms
responded quickly by being more flexible in determining work schedules,
a move welcomed by many employees (Sato 1997a). Morishima (1997)
also reported that employees took to these initiatives and appreciated
having a choice between earning more income with longer hours of work
and enjoying family life more fully. Embourgeoisement has been accom-
panied by global flows of information and greater exposure to intellectual
and ideological developments abroad. To the extent management is seen
to be taking the initiative in responding to the diversification of lifestyle
needs among individual employees, the value of union membership will
continue to be questioned.
9.7 Toward new forms of unionism in Japan

The union movement has traditionally been driven by full-time male
employees in Japan’s large firms, predominantly in enterprise unions, but
also in industrial, trade, and general unions. Departing from that pattern,
several new forms of union (shingata rodo kumiai) have emerged over the
past twenty years. Three types are discussed below. In recent years Rengo
and the other national centers have promoted such unionism in an effort
to stem the downward slide in unionization rates. In September 1997
Rengo announced plans to increase its membership by 1.1 million over
three years. Part-timers and employees in small and medium-sized firms
in medical and welfare services, financial services, construction, printing,
and airport services were targeted.
9.7.1 Regional unions

The enterprise union has difficulty organizing workers without a sta-
ble base in the single firm. Given that the number of paatotaimaa
(part-timers), arubaito (student casuals), friitaa (long-term casuals),

haken rodosha (dispatched workers), and others hired on an irregular basis
has increased, Rengo focused on establishing regionally based unions
(chiiki yunion). By June 1997, however, Rengo had managed to recruit
only about 150,000 new members in 10–20 prefectures.
The union movement as a whole had not been involved in a member-
ship drive for some time and was not well prepared for the rigors of such
a campaign. Organizers had difficulty explaining the benefits of union
membership to part-timers and to the dispatched workers who believed
the movement primarily served the interests of Japan’s core labor force.
Rengo decided to fund its organization efforts more adequately and began
to train organizers. It also moved to assist those looking for work by estab-
lishing a kind of job exchange for those facing unemployment and anxious
about job insecurity.
9.7.2 Unions for managers

Under trade union legislation in Japan supervisors and other lower-level
managers (kanrishoku) are placed outside the union’s domain. A grow-
ing number of those in this stratum of management have been required
to accept wage cuts, redeployment, or even “voluntary” retirement as
restructuring occurs. Because voluntary retirement is seen by executives
as a better outcome than having to fire employees, lower-level managers
have had to put up with considerable psychological pressure and vari-
ous forms of intimidation designed to push them out. Without a union,
middle-aged managers have become easy targets.
In December 1993 the Tokyo Union of Managers (Tokyo Kanrishoku
Yunion) was formed by fifteen individuals. By mid-1997 it had 700 mem-
bers (Anonymous 1996a). Branches were formed in Nagoya (1995) and
in the Osaka–Kobe–Kyoto area (Anonymous 1997b). Their most impor-
tant activity has been the “labor hot line” for those who feel their rights are
being abused by management (Shidara, Ito, and Kawahito 1997). The
involvement of the Nihon Rodo Bengo Dan (Labor Lawyers’ Associa-
tion of Japan) has been critical. During ten days in 1995, 1,700 calls
were received from people seeking advice about their rights at work.
Two-thirds of them concerned deteriorating working conditions owing to
restructuring; the other third concerned workplace intimidation designed
to induce resignation or the acceptance of a major relocation within the
firm. Calls from women and young workers increased over time. Half of
the callers were managers; the other half were ordinary employees seeking
independent job advice before entering the lower ranks of management.
Calls came from large and small firms. The Tokyo Union of Managers
has been critical of the enterprise union’s “excessive” concern with coop-
eration to achieve corporate goals benefiting a small group of employees.
It plans to broaden its activities and to become a general union seeking
to free individual employees from the social confines of the firm.
Rengo’s think tank recently surveyed 2,000 office staff (of whom about
50 percent were departmental and divisional heads). It indicated that
more persons were having to negotiate their working conditions indi-
vidually as annual salary systems were introduced more widely. Many,
particularly managers seconded to other firms, felt that they could not
depend on the enterprise union to assist in those negotiations. As the
line between employees and the lower level of management blurs further,
there will likely be more pressure to revise the trade union law which cur-
rently places lower-level managers outside the domain of the labor union
(Anonymous 1997d and 1997e).
9.7.3 Unions for women

Women constitute another group of employees not well served by the
male-dominated enterprise union, and in February 1995 six women
formed the Tokyo Women’s Union (Josei Yunion Tokyo). Its membership
had grown to 250 by May 1997, and included women aged from 20 to
70. Its centrally located office is a place for women (members and non-
members alike) to chat and to support each other. In its first two years the
union advised about 1,000 women on retrenchment, forced retirement
owing to maternity and childcare commitments, sexual harassment and
other forms of intimidation, shortfalls in pay and pay cuts, and difficulties
in taking annual leave (Shidara, Ito, and Kawahito 1997).
The first year of the women’s union was an eye-opener for many
of the union’s members. For the first time they studied Japan’s labor
laws, and many engaged in some form of bargaining with management.
They also received advice from the Labor Lawyers’ Association of Japan.
Ms. Nakano Mami, a lawyer assisting the union, commented that male–
female wage differentials widened over the ten years following the imple-
mentation of Japan’s Employment Equal Opportunity Law in April 1986
(Anonymous 1996b). In 1994 twelve women in Osaka formed their own
union and obtained a court ruling that male–female wage discrimina-
tion was unlawful (Anonymous 1994b). Upset that their enterprise union
would not concern itself with the dismissal of non-regular (women) work-
ers, five women working in the Osaka office of Japan Railway Shikoku
formed their own minority enterprise union and obtained a court ruling
that overturned the dismissals (Anonymous 1994a).
9.8 Toward a more ambivalent appraisal of

enterprise unionism
From the late 1940s to the Miike dispute in 1960, unions were concerned
primarily with the democratization and modernization of Japanese society
and with the need to establish an independent consciousness in workers
(Hidaka 1984: 21–2). Such goals were conceived primarily in American
and Western European terms, and a number of “feudalistic” aspects were
identified by Okochi (1952: 9; 1954: 17–18), Sumiya (1950), and others
who felt that agricultural workers working seasonally in urban indus-
tries were unable to articulate their interests vis-à-vis management. They
directed attention to client–patron relations in the labor market, the fail-
ure of the union movement to achieve true parity with management, and
the segmentation of the labor force.
In the early 1960s many came to argue that familial relations at work
were integral to the maintenance of social cohesion and high levels of
motivation and commitment within the firm. This shift was reinforced
by the growing ideological concern with economic development. Mat-
sushima (1962) concluded that the Japanese approach to employee rela-
tions had injected certainty into the hand-to-mouth existence of many
workers. Hazama (1964) argued that the ability of managers to trans-
plant the vocabulary of the family to the firm produced high levels of
motivation and commitment among Japanese workers.
In the literature highlighting the dynamics of the internal labor mar-
ket in Japan’s large firms (Shirai 1980; Koike 1977; Koshiro 1982a and
1995) and Japanese-style management (Tsuda 1980 and 1981) as mecha-
nisms promoting both efficiency and democratic involvement, the enter-
prise union was described as a support for the internal labor market
and the development of the high skill levels and technological sophistica-
tion among employees. By the late 1980s many were portraying human
resource management practices in Japan as postmodern or post-Fordist
(Womack et al. 1990; Florida and Kenny 1993; and Coriat 1992). These
assessments tended to overlook many of the tradeoffs built into the
Japanese approach to enterprise unionism. When the economic bubble
burst, some of its demerits became more apparent. Although the mate-
rial standard of living had improved considerably over the previous forty
years, it was argued that the system had still not produced a satisfac-
tory lifestyle for ordinary employees. Housing was still inadequate and
expensive; hours of work were seen as being excessively long and regi-
mented. As attention shifted from lean production and product processes
(e.g. in terms of zero defects, the large number of product lines, QC
circles and the kanban system), the “real” labor process at many firms
became more apparent. For many work was characterized by a consid-

erably weakened sense of solidarity among employees, by overwork, and
by the failure of the enterprise union to curb excessive authoritarianism
at work.
9.9 Future directions for the union movement in Japan

The future of unions in Japan has by no means been cast. Chapter 7
stated that a vacuum in economic leadership in Japan has left the door
open for labor to return as a significant actor on the national stage. In
some ways the competitiveness of the Japanese economy in the 1970s and
1980s tended to vindicate the enterprise union, lending it a raison d’être
and its proponents a false sense of security. Seen as universal best practice
overseas, certain aspects of “Japanese-style management” (e.g. outsourc-
ing, just-in-time, enterprise bargaining) had come to be widely accepted
by managements abroad as part of the global drive to improve competi-
tiveness. In the 1990s, however, global changes were accompanied by a
renewed push for international competitiveness that has taken work orga-
nization far beyond the horizons of Japanese-style management. In this
context the future of the Japanese union movement will be shaped by
(i) the dynamic interaction of the peculiarly Japanese social milieu
and ethics and the trends associated with global capitalism, (ii) the
power relationship between labor and management, both in the politi-
cal/organizational strength of the union movement vis-à-vis management
bodies and in the labor market, and (iii) the changing consciousness of
Japan’s employees.
While some attention must be paid to changes in technology and to
the structure of the economy as a contributing factor, the movement of
workers from one industry to another does not appear to have been the
major cause of the drop in unionization rates. However, technology has
had an impact across the full range of industries in terms of workways and
the nature of the labor market, which is now becoming more segmented
with the demand for increased flexibility. This has placed increased pres-
sure on the enterprise union (i) to broaden its membership to incorporate
many non-core employees, (ii) to examine a broader range of issues rel-
evant to the peripheral labor force as the core labor force becomes more
diverse, and (iii) to move from the enterprise base to a keiretsu or other
multi-firm basis for defining its membership.
The cultural/ideological shifts accompanying embourgeoisement, the
restratification of Japanese society, and higher levels of affluence and edu-
cation are affecting (i) notions of what the good life (the desired standard
or mode of living) is, especially in terms of the role of male household
heads within the family, and (ii) the sense of fairness or social equity.
Left-wing unionism has given way to more “mature” or “sophisticated”

dialogue between labor and management. Nakamura’s case study (1996)
of the privatization of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corpora-
tion in 1985 provides an optimistic assessment of how such dialogue has
developed out of “economic necessity.” The cooperation of enterprise
unions has often facilitated the successful implementation of “voluntary”
retirement programs in many companies. How this will affect the aware-
ness of the cleavages that stratify Japanese society remains to be seen.
The need to be tentative here is underlined by the complexity of polit-
ical alignments at the present time. How the labor movement will ulti-
mately align and interface with the multitude of political parties is not
clear. During the 1990s unions have tended to support whoever supports
labor, an approach that is unlikely to produce a cohesive political force
for the union movement.
The internal dynamic of the union movement itself is between different
levels of organization. National centers have the highest profile in the
national political arena and will ultimately shape the images that ordinary
Japanese have of unionism. The movement as a whole must eventually be
seen as legitimate in philosophical or trend terms if ordinary employees
are going to step forward to join. The industrial federation will likely
continue to play a major role in setting standards and norms for working
conditions. The enterprise union is likely to retain its prime interest in the
implementation of work rules and in the regulation of work practices on
the shop floor. Here a tradeoff exists between the concern for social justice
and that for productivity when progressing from the national center to
the enterprise union.
Despite the Union Identification Movement, which sought to change
symbols used by the unions to foster and reinforce the identity of union
members with the union movement, as a means of broadening the base
for enterprise unionism in Japan (Fujimura 1997: 305–11), many of the
more recently formed unions with different ideas about organizational
structures will continue to be driven from outside the enterprise union
by the national center or by groups emerging spontaneously from the
grassroots. One difficulty has been that the Union Identification Move-
ment has come down from the top, and many ordinary workers still have
difficulty identifying with the union movement as a whole. The commit-
ment of many aristocratic enterprise unionists to the movement is likely
to be questioned. Change to the enterprise union is likely to come only
if professional leadership is injected at the enterprise level and the core
labor force fractures.
In this regard Kawanishi (1992a: 423–40) and Mouer (1992: xxv–
xxvi) have noted the functional specialization that occurred with dual
unionism in the past. In the 1960s and 1970s competing enterprise unions
existed at up to 20 percent of Japan’s unionized firms. One was a left-

wing union concerned largely with social justice issues. The other was
a conservative union concerned mainly with productivity issues. Each
competed to keep its set of interests at the fore. While such competition
may have lessened the political clout of the union movement as a whole,
it also meant that unions worked harder to do what they are established
to do: represent the interests of the workers as effectively as possible.
The emphasis on reunification has seen many competing unions merge.
However, the expected gains at the ballot box have not materialized, and
union membership has fallen. Moreover, though competing unions may
have merged, in many unions a delicate balance has been maintained
between union members who support the social justice thrust and those
who support the “productivity first” approach. Perhaps one lesson is that
to be viable unions will have to balance both interests.
Considering the dynamics at work with the deregulation of internal
and external labor markets, the functional approach might lead in other
directions, with one type of union evolving out of the enterprise union
as we know it today. Drawn largely from the elite employees in career
tracks leading to managerial positions, this type of union might function
as a fairly closed masonic-type organization. A second type might include
those currently in the permanent core labor force who have highly special-
ized skills that have immediate, but not necessarily long-term, utility for
a firm. Should such employees end up on medium-term contracts in the
future, they could conceivably organize into strong professional, guild-
type unions and perhaps be national in scope. A third type would revolve
around those currently in the peripheral labor force and might be a kind
of general union organized on an industry or regional basis. Its mem-
bers might well develop a proletarian-type consciousness. The first type
would be most concerned with productivity, the third type with social
justice issues. To constitute a viable union movement, however, some
sort of accord would need to be reached between these groupings with
a negotiated balance being struck between the push for further improve-
ments in productivity and the interest in social justice. The formation of
unions to represent in a collective manner would have huge social and
political implications. However, a union movement without a vision of
labor process at the meso level will remain weak. It is likely that the trend
toward greater social inequality will continue and release another set of
dynamic forces. Despite prophecies about the end of ideology and the
end of history, there are still a number of chapters to be written before
the story of Japanese capitalism is completed.
10 Management organizations and the interests
of employers
10.1 The sparse literature on management organizations

in Japan
A number of organizations represent the interests of employers. It is our
impression that the academic research on management organizations has
been limited compared with that on labor organizations. Some time ago
Aonuma (1965) analyzed the socioeconomic background of senior man-
agement in Japan’s large firms. Mannari (1974) followed with a similar
study but did not comment or build upon Aonuma’s findings. This style
of research was later picked up by Koike and Watanabe (1979), who
stirred a vigorous debate on how open Japan’s large firms were to making
managers out of graduates from Japan’s less prestigious universities (see
Iwauchi 1980 and Takeuchi and Aso 1981). In this fact there is a certain
paradox. On the one hand, there are many faculties of business studies
(kei-ie gakubu) in Japan, but no faculty of labor studies (rodo gakubu). At
the same time there is a sociology of labor (rodo shakaigaku), but no soci-
ology of management (kei-ei shakaigaku). Over twenty years ago Hazama
(1981) commented on this and pushed to establish a sociology of man-
agement. His view was that the study of industrial relations required both
a sociology of labor and a sociology of management as subdisciplines.
Despite Hazama’s pitch for such a sociology, the focus of studies in the
sociology of work has tended to be heavily on the side of labor. Books on
the sociology of work in Japan (e.g. Inagami 1981; Inoue 1997; Kawanishi
2001) have tended to describe and to analyze workers in their organiza-
tions, but have overlooked the other side of the power dynamics that
determine working conditions. Although Shunto was a union-led initia-
tive to concentrate collective bargaining into the spring months each year,
the bargaining occurs between labor and management at the firm level,
and the “battleground” is often prepared at the national level and the
tone set by early skirmishes between the union movement’s national cen-
ters and their constituent industrial federations, on the one hand, and
management’s national center and its constituent employer associations
229
Table 10.1 References to unions and management associations in the index to

Takanashi Akira’s Shunto Wage Offensive
Unions Management associations
Number of Total number of Number of Total number of

organizations places referred organizations places referred to
cited to in the book cited in the book
Mention of 18 36 4 10
organization at the
national level
Mention of 25 51 1 4
organization at the
industrial level
Mention of 2 4
organization at the
international level
Total 45 91 5 14
Source: Compiled by the authors from Takanashi (2002), pp. 123–8.
at the industrial level, on the other. Much of the writing about Shunto,
however, focuses on the role of the unions. A brief look through the index
of a recent book about the Spring Wage Offensive (Takanashi 2002), for
example, shows that the references to unions far outweigh those to man-
agement groups (table 10.1). Particularly interesting is the number of
entries referring to the internal workings of the unions (eight) compared
with those for the internal affairs of management groups (none).
This impression is further confirmed by a look at the encyclopedic
surveys of issues defining debate in Japan at the end of each year. Edited
to reflect the issues currently picked up in the media, the annual com-
pendium for 2003 of Nihon no Ronten (Bungei Shunju 2002) consisted of
134 essays on the most important topics/issues defining Japanese society
at the end of 2003. The articles were sorted into eighty major categories
from politics, employment relations, and America’s role in the world to
sports and culture. Not one dealt with the implications of the merger of
Japan’s two most influential employers’ federations in May 2002.
It should be noted that there is a large supply of books on kei-eigaku
(management studies) and on nihongata or nihonteki kei-ei (Japanese-
style management). However, Hachiyo Publishing’s series of over ten
volumes on management, including Inaba’s The Firm in Society (2002)
and Futagami’s Enterprise and the Economy (2000), make no mention of
the three or four national centers that have been instrumental in set-
ting the agenda for national policy affecting how work is organized in
Management organizations and employers 231
Japan. The same is true of Mineruva’s series on management studies (e.g.

Kataoka and Shinozaka 1998). Even when the focus is on the future of
management in Japan at the beginning of the twenty-first century (e.g. as
in Takagi 2000 or Minami and Kameda 2000), the role or contribution of
national or regional management associations in the running of Japan’s
firms is not mentioned. One can conclude that kei-eigaku in Japan is
concerned wholly with what happens within the firm at the micro level.
Having noted the sparse attention given to management associations
in the currently available literature on work organization in Japan, this
chapter provides a brief overview of how management is linked at the
meso level.
Some time ago Hazama (1981: 8) proffered several reasons for the
relative absence of research on the associations representing corporate
Japan. One was that management organizations are much more tightly
structured than their labor counterparts and more closed to outside
scrutiny. Japan’s unions have depended on a certain openness to mass
participation, and their raison d’être is in democratically representing a
diverse cross-section of workers. Management forms a much more cohe-
sive group and may perhaps have a certain discipline that accompanies
the sharing of a common corporate culture and a sense of elitist purpose.
To borrow a term first made popular by Mills (1956), this allows for man-
agement to function around a range of “tacit agreements” and to debate
many critical issues while keeping differences “in-house.” Another factor
cited by Hazama is the greater willingness of unions to make informa-
tion available to the public through their publications. To some extent
this has been necessary in order to involve a wide range of intellectu-
als in various study groups and research projects (many on a voluntary
basis) and to form joint fronts on specific issues with various citizens’
groups. Union activities have involved large numbers of people, thereby
resulting in many of the union’s activities being more newsworthy in the
mainstream media than a small committee reporting on its meeting with
government officials to hammer out small points of policy.
The legal status of unions also draws attention to their affairs. The
Trade Union Law gives workers certain rights to behave collectively, but
also regulates what unions can and cannot do. It provides a yardstick
against which to assess their performance. Management, however, has
more of a free hand. The way management might associate for mutual
benefit is not touched upon in the law (except in the 1954 legislation
that provides guidelines for the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and
Industry). Generally, management groups have been able to invoke the
norms of privacy to shroud their discussions and activities. This can be
seen not only in management’s dealings with unions, but also in its reac-
tion to concerns about pollution in the 1970s (cf. Ui 1968 and 1972), in
the practice of collusion in contract bidding (McCormack 1996), in the

political contributions by specific firms to specific politicians or bureau-
crats (a matter constantly reported as scandalous in the print media), and
in the general lack of transparency in the overextension of credit (i.e. bad
loans) in the banking sector.
10.2 Toward a sociology of management

“Management organization” is a direct translation of the Japanese term
kei-eisha dantai. Another term, shiyosha dantai (employers’ associations),
is also used. The latter term is generally more inclusive of a broader
range of firms and tends to refer to the owners or entrepreneurs who
are ultimately responsible for the running of the firm and guarding its
assets against the demands of labor. In this sense the term shiyosha refers
somewhat loosely to Japan’s capitalists (shihonka), but without the class
connotations associated with the Marxist academic tradition. As such it
focuses attention on the wage-for-labor nexus and on the firm and its
owners in terms of how paid labor is utilized to generate profits. The
term kei-eisha refers more broadly to the managers or executives whose
responsibilities extend over a wider range of concerns than just man-
aging human resources and generating profits. Although the adjectives
“top,” “middle,” and “lower” have been used in English to suggest that
there are three categories of management, in Japanese Hazama (1997a:
130–63) distinguishes between kei-eisha as directors and executive offi-
cers at the top of a corporate organization, kanrishoku (administrative
officers) as equivalent to middle management in English nomenclature,
and kantokusha (supervisors) as lower-level management. This is con-
sistent with the practice of kantokusha belonging to Japan’s enterprise
unions, and the recognition given to kanrishoku as being in a kind of
no-man’s land – neither in the ranks of the kei-eisha nor in the union.
In an earlier book Hazama (1981) wrote about shiyosha dantai, but later
called for a sociology of kei-eisha – a strategy that would allow for a more
integrated approach to the study of decision-making in Japan’s larger
organizations. This move suggests a subtle distinction in usage between
kei-eisha who work as a team of shiyosha collectively fulfilling a range of
functions and the small entrepreneur (ji-eigyosha) who as a shiyosha is the
single manager of a small company and covers by himself or herself all of
the functions from strategic planning, marketing, and purchasing to the
management of a handful of employees.
Hazama’s sociology of management incorporated the study of man-
agement ideology and behavior both within the firm and in various man-
agement associations. Hazama tended to see the structuring of work as
the outcome of power relations between labor and management. From

his viewpoint those relations were determined largely, though not wholly,
by the power internally generated out of the ideology and behavior of
those in each grouping. Accordingly, for Hazama the study of industrial
relations and employment relations constituted an overarching discipline
that was concerned primarily with the resultant structural arrangements.
It built on the integration of the two sociologies – a sociology of labor
and a sociology of management – and incorporated research on labor
law, social policy, and the politics of government. Within that larger con-
text this chapter focuses on management ideology and behavior at the
meso level by considering how management is organized vertically and
horizontally beyond the confines of the firm.
10.3 Enterprise groupings and the vertical integration

of management
Many of Japan’s firms are vertically grouped together in one of two ways.
The keiretsu group is a tier of contracting and subcontracting firms. They
have been conspicuous in manufacturing. The interaction among keiretsu
firms is based on unilateral hierarchical linkages rather than on mutual
interaction. The keiretsu reduce the fixed labor costs associated with the
manufacture of goods that are only assembled at the final stages by work-
ers in the larger firms at the top of the subcontracting pyramids. Those
lower down the hierarchy are often played off against each other, and
contractors lower costs by shifting them further down the subcontracting
chain. The success of just-in-time schemes has contributed to the main-
tenance of considerable differences in working conditions between those
in Japan’s large firms and those in smaller firms. The pressures felt in
subcontracting firms and the exploitative dimensions built into keiretsu
are well documented in business novels (for a full list see Tao 1996).
However, the keiretsu have enhanced the flow of capital, technology, and
personnel while also contributing to the trickling down of industrial stan-
dards, particularly in terms of quality control and the discipline associated
with professional work habits.
Another type of enterprise grouping, the kigyo shudan, has worked to
maintain linkages among Japan’s larger firms that were affiliated with the
zaibatsu groups in prewar Japan. After the war, the affiliated companies
regrouped around a number of financial institutions. Six major enter-
prise groups were commonly recognized in the late 1990s (table 10.2).
In 1994 these six groups accounted for about 15 percent of Japan’s cor-
porately owned capital and roughly 20 percent of net profits (down from
around 24 percent in 1993 but up from 12 percent in 1988). In the late
Table 10.2 Major enterprise groupings in Japan in 1995
Number of
companies in Name of regular Main trading
Grouping the grouping presidents’ meeting Main bank company
Mitsui 27 Nimokukai Sakura Mitsui Bussan

(October 1961)
Mitsubishi 28 Kin-yokai (1954) Mitsubishi Mitsubishi Shoji
Sumitomo 20 Hakusuikai Sumitomo Sumitomo Shoji
(April 1951)
Fuyo 29 Fuyokai Fuji Marubeni
(January 1966)
Sanwa 44 Sansuikai Sanwa Nichimen Nissho
(February 1967) Iwai
Ichikan 48 Sankinkai Daiichi Itochu Nissho Iwai
(January 1978) Kangyo
Source: Hazama (1997a), pp. 118–19; and Toyo Keizai Shimpo Sha (2000), pp. 10–11.
1990s they did that with only 3.6 percent of Japan’s labor force, down
from just over 4 percent at the beginning of the 1990s (Hazama 1997b:
121; Toyo Keizai Shimpo Sha 2000: 13). These groupings each have at
least one affiliated firm in each important manufacturing industry. How-
ever, each group extends far beyond the major corporations that form its
core. For example, Toray belongs to the Mitsui Group of twenty-seven
companies, but heads a group of 204 other companies, most of which
are 80–100 percent owned by Toray. Each of the nearly 200 companies
in the Big Six controls a large number of subsidiaries and other related
companies. The empires extend into every region and nearly all industrial
sectors.
To some extent each grouping functions as a very large diversified cor-
poration. The presidents of the major companies meet on a regular basis,
and in many of these groups there are separate regular meetings between
vice-presidents, planning executives, public relations officers, and those
looking after other important functions. Because of their mutual hold-
ings of stocks, and tight interfirm networks, the firms in each group have
worked to cross-subsidize each other. One result has been the diffusion
of a certain standard of treatment across the group in terms of working
conditions and personnel practices, so that many typical male employ-
ees could identify themselves with a larger grouping as a Mitsubishi or
Sumitomo man.
Toyo Keizai Shimpo Sha (2000) lists about twenty-five other enterprise
groupings. Most are concentrated in specific industries. They include
Toyota (with 200 firms), Matsushita (281 companies, including 42 man-
ufacturing companies and 85 retail companies), and Sony (1,174 sub-
sidiaries, including 48 in related manufacturing). Kojima (2000) has
examined how the internet and the spread of IT are resulting in the cre-
ation of new networks and new businesses. Biggu Pen (2002) has taken a
different approach, looking at fifty-seven industries and identifying thirty-
five industrially based groupings without specifically highlighting the Big
Six. Their presentation suggests that there are other ways of thinking
about enterprise groupings and that the groupings are multidimensional
and not just vertical in the strict sense.
10.4 Management organizations and the horizontal

integration of management at the national level
After the war the main goal of the Occupation was democratization. The
immediate strategy was to strengthen the independence of Japan’s ordi-
nary workers both individually and collectively. It did this through land
reform, the dissolution of the zaibatsu and the purging of key indus-
trial leaders, and the legalization of labor unions. It also disbanded the
powerful Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Nippon Keizai
Renmeikai, formed in 1922), the socially influential Industrial Club
of Japan (Nihon Kogyo Kurabu, formed in 1919), the Chamber of
Commerce (Shoho Kaigisho, formed in 1878), the Industrial Patriotic
Society (Sangyo Hokokukai, formed in 1939), the zaibatsu cliques, and
other prewar organizations controlling economic activity and work orga-
nization in ways directly contributing to the war effort. One outcome
was the sudden jump in Japan’s unionization rates as shown in table 9.1.
The story of Japan’s management associations in the postwar years (see
table 10.3) is largely one of their efforts to regroup, to reassert their
control over Japan’s economic agendas, and to limit the influence of the
union movement.
The first national organization to form after the war was the Keizai
Doyukai (the Japan Association of Economic Executives). Formed in
April 1946, Doyukai consisted of a new generation of leaders. Able to
mouth the Occupation’s vocabulary of democracy, these leaders were
more progressive than their elders and were able to see the sense of hav-
ing a more open society. Their charter (kaiin kiyaku) explicitly limited
membership to progressive businessmen (Koga 2000: 266). Committed
to building a new Japan, they soon gained the support of the Occupation
authorities. Many of its members were open to reading both the Marxist-
inspired literature being produced by academics at Japan’s leading uni-
versities in the years immediately after the war and the literature on the
virtues of democracy being produced in America and Western Europe.
In the 1950s and 1960s the Association functioned as a study group,
and its members produced a number of important position papers which
provided visions for a democratic approach to business management and
industrial relations.
The organization gave younger leaders an opportunity to extend their
networking skills before moving on to Nikkeiren and Keidanren, the two
major employers’ federations. Koga (2000: 262–70) provided a long list
of individuals who first headed Doyukai or had important positions there
before becoming top leaders in the other two senior organizations. In
Doyukai they were trained to think about business activities within a
larger social framework. Koga concluded that Doyukai lost much of its
early influence as a progressive force as its members aged and graduated
to leadership roles in Keidanren and Nikkeiren. More significantly he
points to Doyukai’s loss of mission – its early commitment to an intel-
lectually and academically oriented concern with the future of Japan as a
socioeconomic entity – as it evolved into being a kind of holding pen for
prospective business leaders.
The second of these changes may have resulted from the institution-
alization of the keiretsu and the way the business world functioned. The
result was a degree of certainty that brought with it a fairly clear idea
of how a businessman’s career would fit into the overall picture. This
may have resulted in a certain overall conservatism. Many employees
became strongly attached to the goals of their firm and did not culti-
vate the ability to incorporate either their family or the wider community
into their thinking. The weeding-out of left-wing socialist-inspired edu-
cators from Japan’s top universities also resulted in university graduates
not being challenged to think critically about issues of social justice, the
environment, and social organization outside the firm. This is not to
say that this generation would oppose moves to change gender relations
or the role of newcomers in Japanese society. It does, however, under-
line the absence of a drive to proactively and creatively explore alterna-
tive ways to organize social affairs and to take the lead in formulating
new visions for Japanese society. On that basis Koga (2000) argued that
Doyukai was seen by many as having outlived its usefulness. He concludes
his discussion (pp. 269–70) by considering whether the appointment of
Kobayashi Yotaro as its new leader (daihyo kanji) in April 1999 would
give Doyukai renewed momentum. Kobayashi was an outspoken grad-
uate of Keio and Pennsylvania universities with extensive experience in
America. He is the first head of a foreign-owned corporation to step into

that position.
Immediately after the end of the war, in September 1945, government
leaders took the initiative to call together leaders from Japan’s main pre-
war business organizations. One result was the creation of a new organiza-
tion, Keizai Dantai Rengokai (Keidanren), initially as a body to facilitate
communication among the doyens of the prewar groups. Although some
of the wartime leadership had been purged by the SCAP directives, those
in the second line moved quickly to form the Keizai Dantai Rengokai
to fill the vacuum. They offered the new organization as the most effec-
tive means by which the GHQ could communicate with Japan’s new
industrial leaders. With the idea that it would be a body independent of
the government and the old zaibatsu groupings, Occupation authorities
approved the launching of Keidanren in August 1946. Following a good
deal of jostling, Keidanren came to be the national center representing
large-scale manufacturing and heavy industry, the sector that became
the driving force behind Japan’s rapid economic growth in the 1960s and
1970s.
Over time Keidanren came to be known for running the corporate
office of Japan Incorporated. Its strength came from its ability to mobi-
lize committees of businessmen from Japan’s major firms to dovetail into
the work of the government ministries (particularly those responsible for
finances and industrial and trade policy). It supplied a constant stream
of able leaders to participate on a wide range of government consulta-
tive councils (shingikai ), and the term minryo (the private sector and the
bureaucracy) came to be used as a label designating the close working
relationship between the two groups. In the 1990s Keidanren turned its
attention to business ethics in order to bolster the image of the business
community following a spate of scandals and spectacular bankruptcies
involving prominent firms following the collapse of the economic bubble
in the early 1990s. Toyota Sho-ichiro headed the organization from 1994
to 1998, and actively promoted the development of a charter of busi-
ness ethics and corporate responsibility. The charter publicly underlined
a commitment to the social good and to transparency. At the beginning of
the twenty-first century words such as “transparency,” “restructuring,”
and “disclosure” appeared frequently in media discussions concerning
ways to move the economy forward.
In regional Japan leaders of commerce and local industry continued to
use the wartime organizational framework of local chambers of commerce
and industry (shokokaigisho) to communicate among themselves regard-
ing issues of common interest. In September 1946 the Law Concerning
Commercial, Industrial and Economic Associations was repealed, and
Table 10.3 An overview of five major employers’ federations, 1950–2003
Keizai Dantai Nihon Shoko Nihon Kei-eisha Nippon Keizai

Keizai Doyukai Rengokai Kaigisho Dantai Renmei Dantai Rengokai
Acronym Doyukai Keidanren Nissho Nikkeiren Nippon Keidanren

Common English Japan Association of Japan Federation Japan Chamber of Japan Federation of Japan Business
rendition Corporate of Economic Commerce and Employers’ Federation
Executives Organizations Industry Associations
Dates established April 1946 August 1946 November 1946 April 1948 May 2002
↓ ↓ ↓
May 2002 → May 2002→
Membership criteria Individuals Incorporated Companies become
(managers, officials companies and affiliated through
of economic organizations and belonging to
federations, lawyers, owners of smaller industrial
accountants) who firms associations (gyokai)
have a progressive or regionally based
outlook associations
(chiikibetsu keizai
dantai)
Number of members 1,321 persons 527 chambers with 1,541 companies,
(July 2002) 150,000 members 127 industrial
federations and 54
regional associations
Financial obligation Individual Varies according to Affiliation fee
of members subscription the capitalized value depends on the size
of the member of the firm, ranging
from ¥3–5 to 100
million
Major functions To consider the role To represent the To look after To consolidate the This body was
of business in interests of large interests of the views of affiliated formed to combine
socio-economic manufacturing firms commercial sector employers’ the functions of
development in the context of in the context of associations in Keidanren and
national/state liberalizing a rather recommending Nikkeiren
interest complex and employment policy
protected and in countering
distribution system the influence of
(progressive in unions
principle) (conservative) (conservative) (conservative)
Industrial-level None None 127 industrial
organizations federations are
affiliated, but no
special
organizational
arrangement within
Nippon Keidanren
Regionally based None 527 chambers 54 regional
organizations around the country associations with a
and overseas special organization
of association heads
Annual budget in 878 3,569 3,641
2002 (¥million)
Amount of budget 664,648 22,306 2,362,751
per member (¥)
Source: Information publicly made available by each of the organizations.

the involvement of the state in their affairs (which accompanied the spe-
cial legal protection they enjoyed) came to an end. With a new spirit of
independence, the local chambers joined together in November 1946 to
form a national body to coordinate their activities. The organization was
later to be once more defined by legislation in 1954 (the Shoko Kaigi
Sho Ho).
Somewhat delayed was the formation of an employers’ association
to coordinate the interests of employers vis-à-vis labor at the national
level. Initially concerned that such moves would undermine its efforts to
strengthen the union movement, Occupation authorities came to appre-
ciate how radical some unions had become and to see value in having
an employers’ organization to deal with labor and employment relations.
Formed in August 1948, mainly as a body to deal with Japan’s militant
union movement and the forces for socialism in Japan, Nikkeiren fitted
in with the reversal of American policies for the democratization of Japan
and its decision to constrain the union movement and give priority to
Japan’s economic recovery as part of its larger strategy to contain com-
munism in Asia.
By 1950 the lines were drawn between labor and management in Japan.
By the late 1980s management had a dominant say in the nation’s eco-
nomic affairs, a position further reinforced in May 2002 when Nikkeiren
and Keidanren merged to form Nippon Keidanren. An overview of the
four postwar associations is provided in table 10.3. A quick glance at the
table reveals that Nissho is the most broadly based organization, with 527
regional affiliated offices (including a large number of overseas branches)
and 160,000 members, a number equivalent to about 2.58 percent of all
enterprises in Japan and nearly 10 percent of those with five or more
employees (based on the figures in table 10.3). With 1,233 affiliated
companies, Nippon Keidanren represents only a minuscule percentage of
Japan’s 6.2 million enterprises and only 2.53 percent of those with 100 or
more employees. Doyukai’s membership consists of individual business
leaders.
10.5 Networked families and the keibatsu

The relative power of management is enhanced by another set of networks
based on horizontal ties: interpersonal relationships that are facilitated by
family connections, sometimes referred to as keibatsu. Many studies have
described how Japan’s elites are linked through a complex series of mar-
riages. Hazama (1997b: 142–3) provides a two-page diagram detailing
the mosaic of intermarriages that connected the founder of Matsushita
Electric with an extensive range of other influential individuals (including
Table 10.4 Distribution of firms in Japan by

firm size, July 1999
Firm size (number

of employees) Number of firms Percentage
0 2,062,858 33.25
1–4 2,367,874 38.17
5–29 1,511,460 24.37
3–99 212,272 3.42
100–499 45,063 0.73
500+ 3,722 0.06
Total 6,203,249 100.00
Source: Kosei Rodo Sho Daijin Kanbo Tokei Joho Bu

(2002a), pp. 50–1.
the head of the Bank of Japan, a member of the Upper House of parlia-
ment, and the presidents of Sanyo Electric, Suntory, and many other cor-
porations in Japan). The family tree also reveals that many of Matsushita’s
companies have been run by relatives of one sort or another. Kitagawa
and Kainuma’s study (1985: 142–3) of elites provides a similar mapping
of another intertwined lineage connecting through an array of interlock-
ing marriages several postwar prime ministers and industrialists at the
top of Japan’s business world. It is generally accepted that these net-
works and alliances have facilitated the formation and maintenance of
the types of tacit agreement associated with the real “behind-the-scenes”
decision-making of elites around the world.
10.6 Management in Japan’s smaller firms and the

Shoko Kaigisho
Management of Japan’s smaller firms with, say, fewer than 100 employees
(which, as noted in chapter 5, engage the majority of Japan’s workforce:
see table 10.4) is generally not represented by the major kei-eisha dantai.
Like most of their employees, the vast majority of those owning and
operating Japan’s small businesses are left without adequate representa-
tion, especially at the meso level. This is not to say that owners of small
businesses and their management teams do not belong to associations.
Apart from belonging to a local chamber of commerce and industry,
many small entrepreneurs affiliate with the Japan Association of Small
and Medium-Sized Businesses (Nihon Chusho Kigyo Dantai Renmei),
an organization which makes representations to the Office for Small and
Medium-Sized Businesses (Chusho Kigyo Cho) and other sections of the

government. Such groups have not always effectively protected the inter-
ests of small firms from the rationalism associated with the economies
of scale enjoyed by Japan’s larger enterprises. In the 1960s and 1970s
small retailers obtained legislation limiting the inroads of supermarkets
and other large-scale high-volume chains with much smaller margins and
much more competitive prices. By the 1980s, however, the legal protec-
tion they enjoyed had gradually eroded, and many small retailers now
face very severe competition from the larger players. The political clout
of small entrepreneurs is more often seen in terms of local politics and is
often consolidated through organizations such as local shopping arcade
associations (shotenkai) found throughout Japan. While local associations
with an industrially defined basis may be considered as shiyosha dantai,
they are not usually considered as kei-eisha dantai unless they are orga-
nized at the regional level, and the term shiyosha dantai is not gener-
ally used to include Rotary Clubs or similar associations in which local
businessmen, shopkeepers, and other professionals often discuss their
“business.”
10.7 Nikkeiren’s half century

The change in US policy in the late 1940s allowed management to take
the offensive in the struggle to reestablish its authority in the workplace, to
expel left-wing radicals from its workforce, and to move the fundamentals
of employment relations negotiations from the industrial level back to the
enterprise. With the tacit support of the Occupation authorities, the first
“red purge” was carried out in 1950. A decade later a second clampdown
on radical unionism resulted in the prolonged struggle with and ultimate
defeat of the union movement at the Mitsui Miike coalfields in 1960.
The years between 1960 and the mid-1970s were characterized by
the steady introduction of American management philosophies, a brief
interlude with an emphasis on Japanese-derived solutions in the 1980s,
and then a further borrowing from the US as the recession of the 1990s
set in and a growing number of managers came to accept that ultimately
globalization would be driven by the adoption of American standards and
approaches in dealing with market forces. A careful analysis of the push
and shove between labor and management over the first four postwar
decades would reveal that the tensions were mainly about the union’s
push for greater distributive justice and management’s emphasis on the
need to be internationally competitive (i.e. more efficient by containing
labor costs and generating more surplus that could be invested back into
the operations of the firm).
The emphasis on pay according to the immediate livelihood needs of

the employee, as imposed by Japan’s powerful industrial unions in the
late 1940s, gave way to seniority wages and a longer-term view of life-
cycle needs in the 1950s. In the 1960s the push was to adjoin criteria
linked to the employee’s job designation and qualifications. By the 1980s
payments according to performance-linked task assignments had become
widespread and in the 1990s companies began to introduce schemes that
would more tightly tie wage income to actual output over the short term.
As Kusuda (2000) describes in some detail, the evolution of the wage sys-
tem was an incremental process whereby new determinants were added
on to an existing system, thereby reducing the relative importance of
previous criteria over time.
The ongoing concern of Nikkeiren with high wages is evidenced in a
series of reports and pronouncements. One of the best known is Japanese
Management for the New Age (Nihon Kei-eisha Dantai Renmei, 1995).
Although Nikkeiren has for some time emphasized the necessity of trad-
ing off job security for higher wages, in this report it underlined the high
fixed costs associated with having a large permanent labor force. The
report suggested that it was time to disaggregate the core labor force as
it was then conceived in most of Japan’s established corporations. More
recently a similar line has been publicly pushed by Fukuoka Michio,
one of Nikkeiren’s executive directors. He has argued that Japan’s eco-
nomic woes resulted from a loss of international competitiveness owing
to excessively high wage rates and too much of a commitment to pro-
tective or safety-net provisions. He pushed for the deregulation of the
labor market, greater use of part-time and other casual labor, and a
shift from pay linked to age, position, and other personal traits to pay
for work actually accomplished, stating that such a move would help
to eliminate discrimination based on gender and age (SRN, 13 May
2002: 3).
Two reports released in 2002 corroborate this general assessment of
Nikkeiren’s stance on these matters (Nihon Kei-eisha Dantai Renmei
2002a and 2002b). The first details the vision for a new wage system that
would match output with wage payments at regular intervals. By removing
seniority as a consideration in determining remuneration, the proposed
arrangements would pave the way for firms to acquire more readily sud-
denly needed skills from the external labor market. The approach is seen
as a means of shifting the fixed costs of human capital formation (and
the associated risks) more squarely onto the individual employee before
he or she is even employed. Decisions about the skills to invest in and the
ability to make such an investment are likely to be determined by parents
through processes reproducing social class.
While the first report points to an ongoing attachment to disciplined

management and a fairly simplistic view of the nexus between labor out-
put and labor cost, the second report points to a new wave of thinking
aimed at creatively managing an increasingly diverse labor force. Pro-
duced by a group of about thirty people, each responsible for the man-
agement of younger employees in their respective firms, the report calls for
a move away from personnel practices that treat all employees as though
they were from the same mold. This is in line with various calls from
outside business (e.g. Paku 2002; Hayashi 1996 and 2003; and Wakisaka
2002) for a more balanced approach to organizing life around work, fam-
ily, and community. The experience of companies such as Matsushita
Denki, P & G, Isetan, and Benedix Corporation is cited to introduce
innovative ways of shortening hours of work, implementing work shar-
ing and telecommuting schemes, and contributing in meaningful ways
to the diverse career needs of individual employees. Particularly notice-
able is the report’s invitation to unions to play an active role in providing
information on worker needs and proactively proposing better ways that
management can embrace its work force.
Some unionists have seen the proposal as a Trojan horse. They argue
that unions have for many years been in touch with their members’ views
and have had their input largely ignored by management. While the top
leadership of Rengo seems to welcome the suggestion that their views
might carry more weight in the future, after decades of representing their
members’ interests other unionists see as presumptuous the invitation to
begin performing an information gathering function within the confines
of each firm’s personnel management program. They are particularly
alarmed at the suggestion that enterprise unions might want to evolve into
employees’ consultative councils. The suggestion nevertheless underlines
the major dilemma facing the union movement as unionization rates con-
tinue to fall and the mission of unions in an affluent Japan is no longer
clear to anybody.
10.8 The newly formed Japan Business Federation

Nippon Keizai Dantai Rengokai was formed in May 2002, and Okuda
Hiroshi (chairman of Toyota Motor Corporation) became its first chair-
man. Okuda had been chairman of Nikkeiren since May 1999. He
brought with him a reputation for the tough but quick and fair decision-
making that was credited with revitalizing Toyota in the mid- to late
1990s, and Toyota achieved a record profit in 2001. Many hoped he would
work the same magic for Japan’s economy. The merger was conceived as a
means of consolidating the position of Japan’s large business community
in the wake of bankruptcies, questionable managerial practices, and scan-

dals at some of Japan’s largest and most prestigious firms. Many felt that
a more unified front would give business circles more weight in influenc-
ing legislation and government policy on economic reform, taxes, social
welfare, and employment practices. The new executive board consisted
of nine directors from Keidanren, four from Nikkeiren, and two new
directors. All directors were presidents of large corporations. In addi-
tion it established a new umbrella organization to coordinate the various
prefectural-level organizations (known as chi-ikibetsu keizai dantai ).
Where is Okuda likely to lead Nippon Keidanren? At Toyota he moved
quickly to treat what has been called “the big company disease” (the slow
and complex decision-making machinery associated with Japan’s large
organizations). In a series of annual keynote addresses as president of
Nikkeiren (as reported in the SRN, 30 August 1999: 4; 7 August 2000: 4;
and 1 August 2001: 4), Okuda provided some insight into his thinking.
While embracing globalization based on the spread of American capital-
ism, American standards, and a heavy dependence on free market forces,
he argued that Japan needed to ensure that its own brand of capital-
ism had a human face. In saying that, he hinted that the deregulation of
markets should be welded to the history, cultural orientation, national
character, and existing institutions associated with work organization in
each country. In the case of Japan, he seems to place a great emphasis
on employment security and the role of internal labor markets. His view
is that the approach of Japanese-style management to developing and
retaining human resources and to looking after employees is the key to
reinvigorating the economy and regaining Japan’s international competi-
tiveness. Nonetheless, while arguing that it is immoral and short-sighted
to expose excess labor to the whims of the labor market, Okuda also
endorses moves to deregulate the labor market and trim the core labor
force. His belief is that the hard decisions that firms must quickly adopt
can be humanized by statesmanlike leadership.
Is management likely to follow Okuda’s lead? Although Nippon
Keidanren is still in its early days, one can already sense a certain dis-
comfort with the notion of humanized markets among CEOs in many
affiliated companies. They continue to downsize their own work forces
as they see fit, and argue that Okuda’s humanist approach is a luxury
that only the rich companies like Toyota can afford. Even regarding the
introduction of work sharing schemes – about which Okuda met directly
with the head of Rengo, Sasamori Kiyoshi, in March 2003, and achieved
an accord – many businesses have concluded that work sharing would
only frustrate their efforts to promote the most rational use of personnel.
Business leaders have also been critical of his support for the proposals
of the Koizumi government to reform the medical and pension schemes,

arguing that such reform would shift too much of the financial burden
back on their firms.
Despite the apparent agreement between the heads of Nippon
Keidanren and Rengo concerning work sharing, management and unions
are likely to remain at loggerheads over a number of other issues, many
of which continue to be highlighted during the Spring Offensive at the
beginning of each financial year. Okuda has claimed that employment
security ought to be the goal of management and unions, that talk of
wage hikes in any form was irresponsible regardless of a firm’s ability to
pay in the short term, and that any surpluses generated at this time should
be ploughed back into the firm’s future. He has stated that wage hikes
have become increasingly out of line with improvements in productivity
over the past decade, and that labor and management need to return
to the parity existing a decade ago. Rengo’s recent White Paper for the
Spring Offensive reveals (i) an abiding commitment to Keynesian policy
and (ii) a continued insistence that unions need to be consulted more
fully at the firm level. However, the union movement has not been proac-
tive in putting forth its own visions of how work should be organized,
and for the foreseeable future it is likely that management groups such
as the Nippon Keidanren will, however presumptuously, take the lead in
defining a role for the union movement.
The dominance of management’s national center arises from its abil-
ity to be involved in policymaking deliberations. This means having a
conspicuous presence on the government’s many consultative bodies
(shingikai) and in the various private advisory groups established by lead-
ing politicians. Central to that involvement is its wide range of committees
and subcommittees. Its prospectus for 2002–3 (Nippon Keizai Dantai
Rengokai 2003: 10–15) lists thirty-four committees dealing with differ-
ent aspects of domestic policy, each led by one or two heads of major
corporations. The time of the chairmen and committee members is sup-
plied gratis by their companies. Eight of the committees are of particular
relevance to labor process: those on (i) management and labor policy,
(ii) employment, (iii) personnel management, (iv) labor–management
relations, (v) labor legislation, (vi) regional revitalization, (vii) corporate
behavior, and (viii) the national standard of living and lifestyles. The work
of most committees is carried out by subcommittees or working parties.
Because those involved either command their enterprises or, in the case of
junior executives, have considerable support from their enterprises, they
are able to mobilize many resources within their companies to prepare
reports and to facilitate participation in outside meetings and even the
occasional overseas mission. With 1,262 companies (including 70 with
foreign ownership), 125 industrial associations and over 50 regional asso-

ciations affiliated under its umbrella, the pool of talent is huge. Related
to its involvement in policymaking is the Federation’s involvement in
international forums. It takes an active interest in ILO activities and was
instrumental in the establishment of the Confederation of Asia-Pacific
Employers (CAPE) in 2001 and is affiliated with the International Orga-
nization of Employers.
Another source of strength is in the activities of its regional affiliates.
At the local level they provide many kinds of advice to local business-
men and maintain channels of communication between Japan’s largest
firms and its medium-sized and smaller firms. The larger affiliates employ
legal and other professions to provide specialized advice. While smaller
offices are unable to do so, they are plugged into a network through which
the appropriate counsel can be sought on most issues.
Nippon Keidanren’s presence is further reinforced by its ability to pro-
duce a constant stream of publications. Its newspaper, Nippon Keidanren
Taimusu, has been published every Thursday since 1946. It conveys the
organization’s views on all aspects of employment relations. As a kind
of clipping service, Keizai Clippu is a monthly magazine. Keizai Trend
(Economic Trends) is a glossy monthly with a lead article explaining
Keidanren’s stance or proposals regarding a major issue, and then a num-
ber of articles on issues that may be of general interest to managers at
affiliated firms. The Federation has a publishing house that stocks 120–
150 different titles offering advice on how to look after certain aspects of
business (in particular, personnel affairs) and suggestions for managers
seeking ways to grow.
Finally, the role of political contributions should be considered. In
1990, Koga (2000: 109) reports, Keidanren coordinated the contribu-
tion of some ¥13 billion from business to the Liberal Democratic Party.
Although Keidanren argued that such pooled money was clean because
it could not be tied to the interests of particular firms, the contributions
were heavily criticized in the media. Most ordinary people could not be
convinced that such large amounts of money would be given to a politi-
cal party without strings. Keidanren decided in 1993 that the association
should stop coordinating political contributions, but in 2003 the newly
formed Nippon Keidanren decided to again coordinate such contribu-
tions, and the media has widely warned in its editorials that Nippon
Keidanren must take care not to misuse the influence that comes from
such activity. At the same time, the Federation has also been active in
gathering and channeling donations for a wide range of public events
that are in the broader interests of society and the nation’s standing as a
whole.
10.9 The future for management associations

Japan has a range of organizations to which firms can affiliate. Indus-
try, regional and firm-size differences, the large proportion of small firms
in the economy, and the domination of most national organizations by
representatives from Japan’s largest corporations mean that several man-
agement cultures coexist in Japan. At the same time, the hierarchical
organization of work at the meso level, the status attached to the scarce
jobs identified by Koshiro (1982b), the nature of the enterprise group-
ings, and the involvement of Nippon Keidanren in setting the nation’s
economic agenda all contribute to a trickle-down effect resulting in the
diffusion of a commonly understood and distinctly Japanese culture of
work. Accordingly, to understand labor process at the meso level, it is
important to be abreast of trends occurring in the groups mentioned in
this chapter. Over the next decade major changes will take place in Japan’s
economic leadership. One of those will be a “changing of the guard” and
the emergence of a new generation that has grown up with Japan’s afflu-
ence and has come through the top ranks of their companies after the
bubble years. They will likely have to implement the restructuring that
is now being talked about and then legitimate and live with the logic on
which the new arrangements come to rest.
The leadership of the 1950s, 1960s, and even the 1970s was born out
of a tradition of national sacrifice, the sense of social justice associated
with scarcity, and some of the elements of socialist thinking associated
with the notion of democratic capitalism (shusei shihonshugi ). The next
generation, reigning from the late 1970s into the 1990s, however, were
apprenticed at a time when Japan was emerging as a powerful force in
the world economy. They inherited the model associated with Japanese-
style management and helped to circulate ideas about its overall superi-
ority, along with the cultural essentialist view that Japan was an ethnically
homogeneous middle-class society without major disparities in lifestyle.
Based on assumptions about the distinctiveness of Japan’s own brand of
capitalism, this second generation of leaders tended to be committed to
“more of the same” and to the firm as a castle which should be defended
at all costs. Sometimes that involved a system of mutual interdependence
and a tightly knit coterie of “corporate warriors” who tended to cover up
poor individual performance in order to maintain the outward appear-
ance of great collective strength.
The late 1990s brought with it recognition of the need for a new gen-
eration. At the beginning of the new century one editorial in Nikkei
Bijinesu’s influential monthly, Associe (vol. 10: February 2003: 7) called
for such a change. Noting that 10 percent of Japan’s CEOs of major
companies were aged under fifty and that many firms were giving able
young employees challenging managerial projects once reserved for more
senior managers, it mentioned a survey reported in Nikkei Bijinesu
(1 July 2002) showing that major firms listed on Japan’s upper stock
market headed by men in their thirties and forties outperformed similar
firms led by presidents in their fifties.
The age difference reveals itself not just in terms of energy and the
high levels of concentration required to run complex organizations in the
constantly changing global environment. To restructure firms, managers
will need to be in tune with the new generation of young people coming
into the labor force. Part of the challenge is in understanding aspects of
lifestyle about which employees are most concerned. There is a spread-
ing interest in being more involved in family and community life at all
levels. Potential employees are also looking more carefully at employ-
ment options. The weekly Shukan Toyo Keizai (25 January 2003: 82–91)
reported that over 20 percent of university graduates have decided not
to work during the first year after graduation. Whereas graduates used
to line up to get a job at the best firm possible (as judged by the likely
financial benefits for themselves and the firm’s size, status, and stability),
with major firms having the pick from a large number of aspirants, firms
are now finding that graduates are becoming more choosy. Reflecting this
fact, weeklies such as Shukan Toyo Keizai and Shukan Daiyamondo (e.g.
as revealed in their 25 January 2003 issues) are now publishing rankings
of companies informing them of the criteria they must meet in order to
employ the best scarce graduates.
Management is also having to respond to watchdogs. Over the past
decade the Asahi Shimbun has annually surveyed Japan’s largest employ-
ers to gather data for its index on corporate responsibility (kigyo no shakai
kokendo). It ranks companies in terms of their efforts to provide for (i) a
fair and transparent workplace, (ii) gender equality, (iii) employment for
the handicapped and non-Japanese residents, (iv) a framework for imple-
menting global standards, (v) a framework for ensuring the welfare of
consumers, (vi) contributions to the broader society, (vii) environmental
guarantees, (viii) a moral basis for running the firm, and (ix) the disclo-
sure of basic information (Asahi Shimbun Bunka Zaidan Kigyo no Shakai
Kokendo Chosa Iinkai 2002).
Large firms are now considering how to retain and to motivate a
competitive but malleable labor force by integrating better employees
recruited mid-career from outside, reducing the size of their perma-
nent labor force, and blurring the lines between permanent and non-
permanent employment. The new generation of managers will have to
develop new visions to legitimate the heavy demands placed on their elite
labor force. It is too early to judge whether the new visions will share cer-
tain common assumptions accepted across the board or whether they will
vary greatly from company to company. When thinking about business
ethics, governance, and notions of social responsibility, the new gener-
ation of business leaders will need to balance considerations internal to
each firm, industry, and regional locale with those raised by the diffusion
of global standards, the logic of free markets and the new social con-
sciousness emerging in Japan. As Teramoto and Sakai (2002) indicate in
their volume on corporate governance, the outcome of structural reform
must not be simply to stop the scandalous behavior of managers in a few
firms. Change must bring with it more dynamic ways to create and use
information so that firms can create added value in an increasingly global,
competitive, and fluid environment. The ability of the new generation to
do that will go a long way to determining the power relationship they have
with labor in the future.
Part VI
The future
11 The future of work in Japan
11.1 The end of the model

Not long ago Japan was seen as offering both the fully industrialized
and the newly industrializing world a viable model for organizing work.
Following the OECD’s two reports on Japan’s industrial relations in the
1970s, Dore’s comparative study praising the running of Japanese fac-
tories compared with the way the British managed theirs (1973), and
Vogel’s popular volume drawing attention to Japan’s across-the-board
success (1979), a series of volumes applauding Japanese management
practices appeared at the beginning of the 1980s. “Japanese-style man-
agement” became a key referent in a new literature on corporate culture
in the 1980s. Japan seemed to be going from strength to strength as its
economy entered what have become known as the bubble years in the
late 1980s.
By 2003, however, the awe engendered by Japanese employment prac-
tices had given way to skepticism. The bubble years were followed by
recession. The management of many firms seemed to be buffeted not
only by forces attributed to globalization, but also by unforeseen changes
within Japanese society, especially in terms of the labor supply it had pre-
viously taken for granted. Unemployment more than doubled in just over
a decade, and the growth rate fell from over 5 percent into negative terri-
tory. While only one firm on the upper stock market had gone bankrupt
in 1985 and none had done so in 1989, twenty-nine did so in 2002. By
2003 references to the Japanese model were hard to find, whereas allu-
sions to “the Japanese disease” had come to the fore. Many observers
came to speak of the “lost decade,” a term first used in 1974 by Hazama
to refer to a Japan plagued by workaholism. Today it is used to refer to the
particular difficulties Japan has had in coming to grips with globalization
and the higher degree of competition and rationalization global devel-
opment has brought to Japan. One observer has suggested that Japan’s
economy was beset by a kind of narcolepsy – an illness punctuated by
periods of inattention – that allowed debt to freely rise and other areas
253
254 The future
in need of attention to go unheeded. The Japanese seem to have entered

“their century” without confidence, groping about for a way forward out
of the current recession.
How could the decline from the heady days of the late 1980s have
occurred so rapidly and on such a scale? Observers have pointed to Japan’s
own financial crisis and to the bad debts that had accumulated behind
a veil that hid the true situation from the public – indeed from many
of the employees in the very firms experiencing the most trouble. The
first in a series of articles on nihonbyo (the Japanese disease) published
prominently on the front page of Japan’s leading economic newspaper
(the NKSC) throughout January 2003 highlighted four major sources of
the problem: (i) the failure to implement many of the much-talked-about
structural reforms in terms of how corporate society is organized and run
in Japan; (ii) an innately conservative attachment of Japan’s leaders to the
ways which appeared to have brought Japan so much economic growth
over four decades; (iii) an apparent imperviousness to the full extent of
the crisis besetting Japan in terms of how globalization is progressing, the
main features of change in the nature of Japanese society including its
move toward multiculturalism, and the fall in levels of universal literacy;
and (iv) a loss of confidence in risk taking following the sudden collapse
of the bubble economy in the early 1990s.
Our view is that the Japanese economy is suffering from a much more
basic contradiction which has been visible since the mid-1970s and is
seen in the paradox sensed by many Japanese over the past quarter of a
century and noted at the beginning of this volume – the contradiction
of being so rich and yet feeling so poor. Japanese worked long hours to
get to where they are today in a material sense, and many continue to
work hard. In this context it should be noted that the national economy
remains competitive and has continued to generate sizable balance-of-
payments surpluses. For that very reason, perhaps, one is struck by the
title of McCormack’s (1996) volume, The Emptiness of Japanese Afflu-
ence. The puzzlement which is felt by many Japanese in subjective terms
has been born out of major contradictions in the objective life circum-
stances we have tried to document throughout this volume. The con-
tradictions are between the rhetoric describing Japan as an egalitarian
society, on the one hand, and the reality of social inequality on the
other.
In discussing Sato’s (2000) volume on the end of Japan’s middle-class
mass society, we noted the surprise of many Japanese in the recent “dis-
covery” of inequality in Japan at the end of the 1990s, and commented
that it should not have been any surprise at all, given the objective dimen-
sions of inequality in Japan, and that the facts showing that Japan had
The future of work in Japan 255
become less egalitarian had been publicly documented for some time.
The subjective denial of that reality as part of the cold-war ideology on
the conservative side of politics served to isolate critical scholars on the
left within Japan and meant that the country had to wait an unnecessarily
long time until established scholars of a more conservative hue felt moved
to pronounce that inequality was indeed a major feature of Japanese
society.
11.2 The ongoing crisis of inequality

In considering the future of work in Japan, it is useful to keep the Japanese
paradox in perspective. Rifkin (1996: 14), for example, has written in a
similar vein about the confusion of the relatively well-off people in other
similarly industrialized societies: “In every industrial country, people are
beginning to ask why the age-old dream of abundance and leisure, so
anticipated by generations of hardworking human beings, seems further
away now, at the dawn of the Information Age, than at any time in the past
half century.” Basic to his argument about the looming crisis in advanced
capitalist societies is the view that inequality is an endemic problem – a
contradiction in objective terms which will sooner or later surface and
result in a subjective awareness that gives way to fundamentally revolu-
tionary tendencies. For Rifkin it is the unequal distribution of employ-
ment that will seriously exacerbate the situation. Without accepting fully
Rifkin’s vision concerning the likelihood that technological advance will
lead to catastrophic levels of unemployment, it is nonetheless instructive
to revisit Hazama’s data showing that the net profits of major companies
in Japan’s major enterprise groupings increased over the 1990s, while the
size of their labor force decreased.
One key to understanding work in Japan over the next decade will be
in the way unemployment is handled. Japan’s enviably low unemploy-
ment rates over the forty years leading up to the 1990s have risen. In
the meantime, something has changed so that many of Japan’s more pro-
ductive employees no longer see value in subsidizing less able employees.
The work force has been trimmed even in firms belonging to Japan’s
enterprise groupings with their strong communitarian ethos. The drive
to rationalize should not be seen simply as a response to the pressures
firms feel to be more competitive. There is also a materialism that attracts
the more capable workers to seek the monetary rewards associated with
the desirable lifestyles they increasingly see on television, on the internet,
and on trips overseas for business and pleasure. This push to rational-
ize comes with advocacy for transparency – exposure of the subsidies for
“underperformers.”
256 The future
The challenge facing Japan and other societies in these regards is in

finding and designing ways of dealing with the underemployed (i.e. soci-
ety’s “underperformers”), some of whom are in the better jobs and some
of whom miss out completely. Some may believe that the next major tech-
nological revolution will create new employment. They perhaps have a
fairly strong case based on past history. Nevertheless, if we accept that the
IT revolution is likely to create considerable employment on or just above
the poverty line (not Koshiro’s scarce jobs mentioned above in chapter 5,
but jobs nonetheless), the outcome will still be the entrenchment of social
inequality and solidification of the lines between social classes as those
inequalities are socially reproduced.
The clash between Okuda, who heads Toyota and Nippon Keidanren,
and has pushed for the Toyota way of retaining employees at all costs,
and managers in many firms that have decided to retrench workers (as
discussed in chapter 10) points to the fundamental dialectic at work in
Japanese capitalism today. The shift of the world’s “last great socialist
economy” from market-conforming but nonetheless socialist structures
which resulted in intricate patterns of cross-subsidization to a more ratio-
nalist capitalist format is a sociopolitical choice. While this view may seem
contrary to a more economic determinist view, or even the sociopolitical
arguments of Fukuyama that such changes are inevitable (even though
temporarily slowed down by the cold war), the experience of Japan over
the last few decades suggests that the relationships between capitalism,
socialism, and globalization are symbiotic. Although the generation of
huge balance-of-payments surpluses may have inevitably drawn Japan
into the global capitalist system, the power struggles in the background
have been real and the outcomes have not always been inevitable.
Related to these challenges are shifts in Japan’s demographics. New
ways of estimating demographic change suggest that life expectancy in
Japan is likely to continue rising for both women and men as the median
age for the population rises from 41.5 in 2000 to 51.1 in 2025, and the
dependency ratio increases. Some have suggested that the retirement age
might be raised to 75. This would institutionalize the already high labor-
force participation rate for Japanese aged 65–75, and result in a newly
defined “aged population” accounting for only 17–18 percent of Japan’s
population in 2025, a dependency ratio equivalent to that now cited for
those in Japan’s population aged over 65 in 2000. However, if Rifkin
(1996) is right in arguing that current levels of production can be achieved
globally with a smaller labor force, another option is to discourage those
aged 65–75 from working and to shift the newly unemployed to servicing
them in ways that will enhance the leisure they enjoy as a reward for
their hard work during their years in the labor force. The redistributive
consequences of adopting either approach are not obvious, but will be
hotly debated in a society seeking to balance productivity concerns with
those of social justice.
11.3 The policy framework

It is too early to know how employment will evolve in Japan over the first
few decades of the twenty-first century. However, employment practices
and the organization of work will be shaped by forces at the three levels
introduced in chapter 1: the macro or global level; the meso, national,
or societal level defined in geopolitical terms; and the micro level where
practices are hammered out within the firm, family, school, and/or local
community. It is the interaction of forces generated by each of these
domains that will shape the behavior and relative bargaining power of
employees (as suppliers of labor both in their own right and on behalf of
their families) and employers (as buyers of labor). Their interaction will
influence greatly the way work is organized.
An approach cognizant of labor process on those three levels has been
adopted for this volume, but with attention being focused on the meso
level. Our contention is that social and cultural trends, policies, the seg-
mentation of the labor market and the power relations between organized
labor and organized management at that level impinge greatly upon the
choices that employers and employees make at the micro level. It is fur-
ther posited that realities at the meso level are increasingly shaped by
developments at the global level – developments that also open up possi-
bilities for employers and employees to work around the forces generated
at the meso level. Those propositions remain to be tested.
These propositions are not meant to suggest that the influence of indus-
trial relations institutions or other work-related legislation at the national
level is diminishing. Rather, they are built upon recognition that much of
the impact of globalization on local events will continue to be mitigated by
intervention at the national level. They do, however, suggest that the envi-
ronment in which national institutions function is evolving and that the
outcomes are uncertain. While reference to international standards may
become more common, national systems of employment and industrial
relations will be further shaped and honed by the way workers navigate
through the “windows of opportunity” that remain after interaction in
order to achieve work environments suitable to their needs. Changes at
the meso level will provide clues as to how the global and the local impinge
upon each other in shaping work organization.
258 The future
11.4 The end of the sarariiman and established

employment practices?
From the mid-1990s a number of observers have speculated about
whether the sarariiman has a future in a more globalized Japanese econ-
omy. In putting the salaried employee (blue-collar and white-collar)
under the microscope, they have questioned not only the survival of
Japanese-style management, but also the lifestyle of a nation that had
been ordered around the needs of the business firm, especially the large
corporation. The reference was to the structures that drove competition
among employees in the firm, to long-term employment practices, and to
the application of several criteria in determining wages (including senior-
ity, ability, educational attainment, and job description). It was also to the
expectation that, at worst, redundant male employees could and would
be relocated through an internal labor market existing either within the
same firm or among related firms in an enterprise grouping. Finally, the
reference was to the segmentation of the labor market.
Forces now shaping work organization in Japan include the aging of
the population, heightened international competition, and the changing
outlook or consciousness of those in the labor force (especially in terms
of the role of women). They are reflected in the establishment of venture
capital firms, in the spread of the furiitaa and the parasitic singles lifestyle
(which is accompanied by the postponement of marriage and children),
in the free-agent schemes for individual employees, in the extension of
the mandatory retirement age, in the high turnover of those in their first
job following graduation, in the “slow life movement,” and in the general
romanticism associated with alternative lifestyles. At the same time, some
of the attraction associated with these kinds of developments lies in the
difficulties faced by those who choose to follow the “road less traveled.”
There is, then, a quixotic element in the new lifestyle that is seen as
positive, while the tough realities and structural constraints facing those
who choose that path are also fully recognized.
Some writers (e.g. Yomiuri Shimbun Keizai Bu 2001) have concluded
that the old system of long-term employment and senior wages is com-
ing to an end. They see a different type of Japanese employee emerging,
one who wants to test his or her own value in the market and then be
remunerated accordingly. These observers see change coming in free-
agent schemes and in raising the retirement age. These changes, they
argue, will promote employment security for a small number of the most
proficient employees while assigning a growing proportion of the less pro-
ficient workers to the peripheral labor force where decisions to employ
and to maintain employment are more at the whim of the employer. The
high rate of unemployment among Japan’s youth, casualization, and the

increased use of dispatched workers are cited as indicators of this new
trend. The Yomiuri editors mention a survey taken by Denki Rengo show-
ing that only a fourth of its members were interested in providing their
employers with a high level of commitment. The findings indicated that
levels of commitment are considerably below those existing two decades
earlier and below the levels registered by workers completing the survey in
thirteen other countries (including South Korea, France, and America).
While noting that few Japanese employees are enamored of the idea of
their income being determined solely by market value (an arrangement
seen as going hand in hand with the high turnover rates and the wide
income disparities associated with the American labor market), the Yomi-
uri writers argue that these changed circumstances are producing a new
type of employee (the shinshu sarariiman), who is much more willing to
work for foreign firms if the pay is higher and in accordance with their
market value. This will induce many large Japanese firms to offer com-
petitive salaries to keep Japan’s most capable employees on their payrolls.
Inagami (2003) reports on a group project examining the situation in
this regard at major firms in Japan’s key industries between 1960 and
2000. The findings show that between 1960 and 1990 the firms were
able to maintain their commitment to long-term employment guaran-
tees through secondment and other practices involving firms in the same
enterprise grouping, and that this commitment served to maintain high
morale in the workplace. By 2000, however, those mechanisms were no
longer able to cope with the number of employees needing to be rede-
ployed. The result has been a spillover of unwanted labor from large firms
to many smaller firms having a business relationship with the larger firm
(which resulted in a broadening of the internal labor market) and to the
external labor market in general. Inagami concludes that employers are
moving away from long-term employment practices (choki antei koyo) and
seniority-based personnel practices to performance-based management.
In a recent interview at the beginning of 2003, Yashiro Masamoto, pres-
ident of Shinsei Ginko (formerly the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan),
commented positively on his bank’s move away from its earlier reliance
on academic credentialism in the bank’s approach to hiring and its com-
mitment to function internationally by injecting Japan’s own brand of
English-language proficiency into its personnel management schemes
(Yashiro and Hanami 2003).
Those critical of that position recognize some of these trends, but argue
that major changes in the employment system are confined mainly to
Japan’s small and medium-sized firms and to certain industries. Even if
there is movement away from seniority-based salary systems, they posit,
260 The future
the practice of long-term employment guarantees will remain for core

employees in Japan’s largest firms. They argue that Inagami’s analysis is
based on an amalgam of all employees in Japan’s large firms and does not
distinguish between those in different career tracks. They argue that the
shift in the overall average occurs as semi-core employees are moved fur-
ther from the ideal associated with a shrinking group of core employees.
Here Toyota’s commitment to long-term employment guarantees is
relevant. Its enterprise union federation made news during the Spring
Offensive in 2003 by not demanding any wage rise at all in its negotiations
with management. Moreover, the strong attachment of core employees
to those guarantees has recently been described by Ono (2002) and Ihara
(2003). The situation is the same at Honda (Wada 2003), and at Nissan
whose CEO (Carlos Ghosn), a French national with immense experience
in Europe, has also indicated support for the practice (Nishii 2003). The
president of Canon (Mitarai 2003), with thirty years at the helm of its
North American operations, has also argued that the pattern of long-term
employment is most appropriate in the Japanese context. One could cite
many other firms where support for the practice remains strong among
both management and elite employees.
In recent months a number of firms such as Fujitsu have attracted
considerable attention in the media with the announcement that they
are stepping back from performance management for several reasons.
One is the difficulty of objectively measuring an individual’s productivity
and the effects of the resultant arbitrariness on morale. The focus on
individual output also tends to undermine the team work so critical to
the success of on-the-job training, QC circles, and many other practices
associated with the generation of high efficiency in Japan. Still others
such as Ono (1997), Takanashi (2001), and Koseki (2002) continue to
emphasize the ongoing link between seniority and the ability to perform
in higher positions. Important to those taking this view is the claim that
certain features of Japanese-style management have always outlived the
doomsday predictions which have surfaced in the past when Japan was
faced with challenges similar to those posed by globalization today (e.g.
trade liberalization in the 1960s, the floating of the US dollar in the
early 1970s, the oil shocks in the mid-1970s, and the sharp appreciation
of the yen in the 1980s). It is not surprising, then, that a number of
popular books (e.g. Tanaka 2002) confidently predict that the Japanese-
style sarariiman will continue to dominate the scene at work in many of
Japan’s firms.
Our view is that the practice of long-term employment will likely remain
in Japan’s large firms in traditional manufacturing industries for members
of each firm’s core labor force. At the same time, this core is likely to
shrink, and firms will have to compete for scarce good labor as other
industries (e.g. information technology or services) and smaller firms
gain the advantage by linking remuneration to short-term assessments
of each employee’s market value. Japan’s large firms too will increasingly
come to treat their non-core labor force in a similar manner. They will be
especially inclined to do so when obtaining the services of professionals
with highly developed but very specialized skills that are costly to impart
and only needed in specific situations. All firms will respond with more
family-friendly practices and various work-sharing schemes to secure the
services of family-oriented workers and other “directed” individuals.
Books such as the one by Sekine (2002) will continue to appeal to
the adventurous spirit of the Japanese sarariiman and to many of the
young people not yet in the labor force. Kosugi (2003) documents how
the number of furiitaa has increased, with subgroupings now discernible.
Older Japanese will be critical of the way the values of Japan’s young
people have changed, many lamenting that the work ethic of the 1960s
and 1970s has given way to a commercial materialism that is under-
mining the very fabric of Japanese society and the way work has been
organized in Japan over the past fifty years. Our view is that the pro-
cesses are more complex, and that throughout the postwar period many
Japanese have worked very hard over many years to attain the material
affluence associated with the upper middle-class lifestyle in many Western
societies. While affluence has not necessarily brought happiness, it has
been a goal of many older Japanese. However, affluence was achieved in
Japan without the concomitant change in lifestyles. We would argue fur-
ther that long hours of work resulted from structures which made those
hours a prerequisite for advancement – a necessary, though not sufficient,
condition for achieving affluence in Japan. In a sense a significant mea-
sure of lifestyle equality was achieved, albeit in a somewhat mechanical
fashion. The confusion of affluence with lifestyle shrouded the myth of
social equality and homogeneity that underpinned the belief that by hard
work alone anyone in Japan could somehow “make it.” The awakening to
structured social inequality in the 1990s cannot be understood apart from
the above-mentioned paradox of being so rich and feeling so poor. Both
have contributed to many Japanese reassessing the way they work and
the options they have regarding work at the beginning of the twenty-first
century.
11.5 The future of work in Japan

This volume began with one major concern: the broader socioeco-
nomic context in which Japanese employees make choices about work. It
262 The future
considered the tradition of working long hours and sought to delineate

factors at the meso level that impinged upon the willingness of employees
to put in such hours, some of which were even “donated” to their employ-
ers as “service overtime.” In looking for reasons behind the motivation of
Japanese employees to toil long and hard, we sought to steer away from
structural conspiracy theories which rested on simplistic notions of cap-
italist exploitation, while also eschewing dependence on cultural factors
such as an innate work ethic or an entrenched loyalty to the firm as a
surrogate family or primordial group. We also strove to avoid the tempta-
tion to focus on Japanese-style management and firm-based techniques
designed to enhance the loyalty of employees to their firms by creat-
ing at the micro level a corporate culture revolving around long-term
employment, seniority wages, and the enterprise union. Although these
elements may be important at the firm level, as the first step in assessing
the motivation to work, we felt it was important to first paint the back-
drop against which employees end up in a particular firm – be it a large
firm or a small one – and attempt to make rational choices on the job.
That setting included images of power relations between organized labor
and organized management and the social and labor policy frameworks
which sometimes ameliorate and sometimes exacerbate inequalities shap-
ing the assets individuals take to work and some of the socialized rewards
they receive for their efforts at work once they have retired from the labor
force. Brush strokes were added to suggest how social values and thoughts
about work are changing in ways that are reshaping the supply side of the
labor market.
Work is an arena in which we can glimpse images of the new Japan that
is emerging at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It is a Japan in
which a new work ethic is emerging. For the first twenty or thirty years
after the war, many Japanese sought a new purpose in life. The goals and
the symbols associated with serving the empire had been dashed. Some
turned to Japan’s new religions; others turned to work, blindly commit-
ted to carrying out their jobs within a certain firm as their contribution to
rebuilding a nation and a civilization worth saving. The nihonjinron liter-
ature as folklore helped to validate that goal. However, commitment and
hype are not enough. Japan was successful in no small measure because
structures were put in place at both the meso level and the micro level
that in mechanical and functional terms made workways more efficient.
Some of the mechanisms relied on the introduction of technology; others
on work intensification. For a decade or two this may have been accept-
able. Many workers voted with their feet, crossing over from left-wing
unions with their banners promoting collectivistic egalitarianism to the
more conservative enterprise unions advocating productivity first and
materialistic benefits from cooperating with management. The attention

shifted from the rebuilding of the national economy to the building of
maihomu (an independent house on a privately owned plot of land), to
enhancing the educational credentials of offspring and to achieving other
consumerist goals associated with embourgeoisement.
With work intensification, however, came overwork and overregimen-
tation. Hours of work even rose slightly as casualization spread in the
1980s. The immediate outcomes were still greater affluence and exhaus-
tion, as evidenced in the pathological effects of overwork (e.g. karoshi).
The shift to wage systems rewarding actual performance represented for
many an attempt to squeeze further effort out of exhaustion. Retrench-
ment and the threat of unemployment provided another incentive for
those still employed to give that one last ounce. Taken together, these
factors contributed to the Midas phenomenon – unimagined wealth with
a new form of poverty. The search for meaningful work led some to seek
employment as furiitaa. Others have sought meaning in voluntary work
and community involvement. Multiculturalization has meant that firms
have had to become more accepting of multiple lifestyles and to adopt
increasingly sophisticated strategies to motivate employees. With those
thoughts in mind, employers seem to be pulled in one direction by those
who advocate a kind of socialist capitalism with secure employment for all
and in another direction by those advocating the logic of open markets.
Out of the tensions produced by these kinds of ideological differences a
new form of Japanese capitalism will likely emerge. As the outcome will
in part be a response to the global context, the old debate on similarity
and difference will continue. Despite the apocalyptic prophecies, the end
of history is not yet in sight. Any revival of the labor movement can only
serve to underline further one basic fact of life: Japanese capitalism, like
other capitalisms, will continue to generate its own contradictions from
which partisan support will emerge for organizing work in one way or
another. The challenge will be to generate surplus through labor pro-
cesses which also allow for a reasonable distribution of the fruits of that
labor.
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Yasueda, Hidenobu 1998, Rodo no Ho to Seisaku (Labor Law and Labor Policy)
(Tokyo: Yuhikaku).
Yasueda, Hidenobu and Nishimura, Ken-ichiro 1986, Rodo Ho (Labor Law)
(Tokyo: Yuhikaku; sixth edition 1999).
Yomiuri Shimbun Keizai Bu 2001, Dokyumento “Cho” Sarariiman (Document
on the Super Salaried Employee) (Tokyo: Chuo Koronshinsha).
Yomiuri Shimbun Osaka Honsha, ed. 2002, Tsubureru Daigaku, Tsuburenai
Daigaku (The Surviving Universities and those that Collapse) (Tokyo: Chuo
Koronshinsha).
Yoshida, Kazuo 2001, Nihon Keizai Saiken – “Kokumin no Itami” wa Do Naru
(Restructuring Japan’s Economy: What About the People’s Suffering?)
(Tokyo: Kodansha).
Yoshimura, Rinpei 2000, “Hinkonsen to Koteki Fujo” (The Poverty Line and
Public Assistance for the Poor), in Shinpan Shakai Seisaku – o Manabu Hito
no Tame ni (The Revised Social Policy Edition – For Those Wanting to Know
About Social Security), edited by Tamai Kingo and Omori Maki (Kyoto:
Sekai Shiso Sha), pp. 148–67.
Author index
Abe, Kin-ya 180, 194 Fowler, Edward 163

Abegglen, James C. 54, 146 Freeman, Richard B. 211
Ando, Masakichi 36 Fujimoto, Takeshi 36
Aonuma, Kiyomatsu 229 Fujimura, Hiroyuki 211, 217, 218, 227
Apter, David 8 Fujita, Wakao 38, 211
Araki, Takashi 173, 175, 214 Fukuoka, Yasunori 170
Athos, Anthony G. 4 Fukuyama, Francis 15, 256
Atsumi, Kiyoshi 124 Futagami, Kyo-ichi 230
Atsumi, Reiko 82 Fuyuno, Ichiko 105
Azumi, Koya 85
Galenson, Walter 12
Baisho, Chieko 124 Garten, Jeffrey E. 12
Ballon, Robert J. 54 Gill, Tom 163
Bell, Daniel 15 Goldthorpe, John H. 50, 58
Bennett, John W. 41, 54 Goodman, Roger 85
Benson, John 12, 217
Benyon, Huw 63, 69 Hagisara, Kiyohiko 38
Biggu Pen 235 Hamada, Hideo 193
Blackwood, Thomas 167 Hamaguchi, Eshun 54
Bungei Shunju 161, 230 Hampden-Turner, Charles 15
Burgess, Christopher 170 Hanami, Hiroaki 125
Hanami, Tadashi 38, 176, 259
Chalmers, Norma 52 Hashimoto, Kenji 166
Chubachi, Masumi 39 Hattori, Eitaro 29
Chuo Koron Henshu Bu 161 Hayashi, Hiroki 38
Clark, Rodney C. 25, 208 Hayashi, Michiyoshi 244
Cole, Allan B. 204 Hayashi, Yoko 134
Cole, Robert E. 21, 25, 48 Hazama, Hiroshi 33, 43, 44–6, 47,
Coriat, Benjamin 225 49, 146, 225, 229, 231, 232–3, 234,
Cornfield, Daniel B. 13 240
Hidaka, Rokuro 52, 225
Dalby, Liza Crichfield 25 Hirakawa, Takehiko 157
Deery, Stephen 51 Hirose, Niki 82
Dore, Ronald P. 4, 21, 48, 167, 253 Hodson, Randy 13
Drucker, Peter 4 Hokao, Ken-ichi 150
Dunlop, John T. 11, 32 Hoston, Germaine A. 204
Hull, Frank 85
Economic Planning Agency (Keizai Huntington, Samuel P. 21
Kikaku Cho) 126–7 Hyodo, Tsutomu 30, 37
Fisher, Christopher 51 Ihara, Ryoji 260

Florida, Richard 5, 11, 34, 79, 225 Iida, Kanae 39
296
Author index 297
Inaba, Motokichi 230 Kondo, Dorinne 25

Inagami, Takashi 11, 54, 58–60, 229, 259 Korzeniewicz, Roberto Patricio 14
Inoki, Takenori 165 Koseki, Tomohiro 260
Inoue, Masao 38, 229 Koshiro Kazutoshi 29, 53, 97, 110, 170,
Isa, Kyoko 135 172, 195, 225, 248, 256
Ishida, Hideo 31 Kosugi, Reiko 261
Ishida, Hiroshi 166, 167 Kruger, David 105
Ishihara, Shintaro 15 Kumazawa, Makoto 6, 14, 36, 52, 62–4,
Ishikawa, Akihiro 38, 162 82, 83, 86
Ishikawa, Kichiemon 38 Kume, Ikuo 157
Ishino, Iwao 41, 54 Kusuda, Kyu 243
Ito, Masanori 211 Kuwahara, Yasuo 136, 170
Ito, Midori 223, 224
Iwasaki, Kaoru 220 Large, Stephen 204
Iwata, Ryushi 33, 146, 160 Levine, Solomon B. 11, 46, 53
Iwauchi, Ryoichi 167, 229 Lincoln, James R. 63, 69
Lipietz, Alain 14
Kagoyama, Kyo 36
Kahn, Herman 3 Mabuchi, Hitoshi 85
Kainuma, Jun 166, 241 McCormack, Gavan 11, 232, 254
Kajita, Takamichi 136 Mackie, Vera 204
Kallenberg, Arne 69 Mahathir, bin Mohamad 15
Kamata, Satoshi 24, 52 Mannari, Hiroshi 36, 85, 229
Kamata, Toshiko 36 Marsh, Robert 85
Kameda, Hayao 231 Maruyama, Masao 39
Kamii, Yoshihiko 38 Masataka, Nobuo 125
Kaneko, Yoshio 75 Matsubara, Hiroshi 181
Kariya, Takehiko 166 Matsushima, Shizuo 35, 36, 39, 40, 41,
Karoshi Bengodan Zenkoku Renraku 43–4, 49, 225
Kaigi 17 Mayo, Elton 34
Karsh, Bernard 11, 53 Meany, Neville 69
Kassalow, Everett M 5, 7, 46 Mills, C. Wright 231–7
Kataoka, Nobuyuki 231 Minami, Tatsuhisa 231
Kato, Tetsuro 34, 39 Mitarai, Fujio 124, 260
Kawahito, Hiroshi 223, 224 Mitsuhashi, Hideyuki 125
Kawakita, Takashi 58 Miura, Fumio 120, 122
Kawanishi Hirosuke 12, 36, 42, 52, 82, Miyajima, Takashi 136
171, 172, 175, 181, 199, 203, 211, 215, Miyamoto, Musashi 124
227, 229 Mizukami, Tetsuo 69
Kawasaki, Yoshimoto 162 Moore, Joe 52, 199
Kazahaya, Yasoji 29, 97, 159 Moran, Timothy Patrick 14
Keizai Kikaku Cho see Economic Planning Mori, Kiyoshi 173
Agency Mori, Tetsushi 38
Keizai Sangyo Kenkyu Jo (Institute for Morikawa, Hidemasa 33
Economic and Industrial Research) 127 Morimoto, Tetsuro 137
Kelly, Kevin 141, 225 Morishima, Motohiro 222
Kenny, Martin 5, 11, 34, 79 Motojima, Kunio 45
Kishimoto, Shigenori 29 Mouer, Ross 8, 12, 54, 83, 134, 162, 170,
Kitagawa, Takayoshi 35, 44, 49–50, 241 227
Koga, Jun-ichiro 235, 247 Murao, Yumiko 167
Koike, Kazuo 31, 33, 37, 38, 53, 57, 60,
61–2, 70, 165, 167, 203, 225, 229 Naito, Norikuni 219
Kojima, Ikuo 235 Nakae, Akihiro 159
Komai, Hiroshi 136, 169, 170 Nakamura, Chu-ichi 167
Komatsu, Ryuji 39 Nakamura, Keisuke 227
298 Author index
Nakamura, Takafusa 103 Rohlen, Thomas P. 21, 25

Nakane, Chie 49 Rostow, W. W. 13
Nakanishi, Yo 30, 37
Nakano, Mami 134 Saguchi, Kazuo 31, 38
Nakano, Takashi 41, 43 Sakai, Taneji 250
Nakayama, Ichiro 32, 38, 157 Sano, Yoko 31, 53, 72, 208
Naoi, Atsushi 164 Sato, Hiroki 222
Neustupny, Jivi xviii Sato, Machiko 6
Ninomiya, Atsuko 134, 135 Sato, Takao 186
Nishii, Motoyuki 260 Sato, Toshiki 164, 254
Nishikawa, Shunsaku 31, 54, 172 Scalapino, Robert A. 204
Nishimura, Ken-ichiro 150 Seisho, Hiroshi 176
Nitta, Michio 31, 38, 220 Sekine, Susumu 261
Nomura, Masami 38, 61–2 Shibata, Hirokatsu 108
Nomura Sogo Kenkyu Jo, Shakai-Sangyo Shidara, Kiyotsugu 223, 224
Kenkyu Honbu 126, 187 Shimada, Haruo 6, 31, 172
Shimizu, Ikko 24, 82, 99
Obata, Fumiko 148 Shimizu, Naoko 11
Obi, Keiichiro 31, 88, 123, 134 Shimoi, Takashi 151
Odaka, Konosuke 12, 38 Shinoda, Toru 221
Odaka, Kunio 34, 38, 39, 40–1, 42–3 Shinozaka, Tsuneo 231
Ogawa, Masaaki 159 Shirahase, Sawako 163
Ogura, Kazuya 71 Shirai, Taishiro 33, 54, 219, 225
Okamoto, Hideaki 45 Shiroyama, Saburo 99
Okano, Kaori 167 Smith, Henry Dewitt, II 204
Okawa, Kazuo 38 SOHO Shinku Tanku 126
Okochi, Kazuo 11, 29, 37, 38, 39, 42, 53, Sone, Yasunori 11
159, 225 Steven, Rob 34
Okonogi, Keigo 124 Stockwin, J. A. A. 11
Okuda, Hiroshi 244–6 Sugimoto, Yoshio 8, 12, 54, 86, 134, 170
Okuma, Yukiko 193 Sumiya, Mikio 29, 31, 32, 37, 39, 49, 225
Ono, Akira 38, 260 Suwa, Yasuo 151
Ono, Takeshi 260 Suzuki, Hiromasa 130, 137
Organisation for Economic Cooperation Suzuki, Takao 137
and Development 48, 103, 108, 131, Suzuki, Yoshisato 136
146, 148, 203, 253
Ormonde, Tom 18, 69 Tachigi, Nami 125
Ota, Kiyoshi 163 Taira, Koji 203
Otake, Fumio 163, 189 Takagi, Kiyoshi 231
Ouchi, William G. 4 Takanashi, Akira 37, 230, 260
Owaki, Masako 134 Takasugi, Ryo 82, 99
Takeda, Yukihiko 211
Packard, George R. 204 Takezawa, Shin-ichi 54, 85
Paku, Joan Sukkucha (Joanna Sook Ja Tamai, Kingo 178, 187, 188, 191
Park) 244 Tanaka, Hidetomi 260
Pascale, Richard Tanner 4 Tanaka, Kiyosada 151
Phillimore, Jane 125 Tao, Masao 99, 233
Plath, David W. 25 Teramoto, Yoshiya 250
Plowman, David 51 Teruoka, Itsuko 86–7
Thurow, Lester C. 4
Rebick, Marcus E. 211 Tominaga, Ken-ichi 43, 123, 164
Research Project Team for Japanese Tomita, Yasunobu 133
Systems, Masuda Foundation 54 Totsuka, Hideo 30, 37
Rifkin, Jeremy 12, 14, 255, 256 Totten, George O. 46, 204
Rodo Kagaku Kenkyujo 36 Toyo Keizai Shimpo Sha 234
Author index 299
Trompenaars, Fons 15 Watanabe, Ikuro 167, 229

Tsuchida, Takeshi 193 Whitehill, Arthur M. Jr 54, 85
Tsuchiya, Motonori 84, 167 Wigmore, John Henry 20
Tsuda, Masumi 33, 38, 146, 160, 225 Wilcox, Claire 16
Tsujimura, Kotaro 31, 39, 73, 76 Womack, J. P. 225
Tsuru, Shigeto 38 Woronoff, Jon 52
Tsuru, Tsuyoshi 211
Yabuno, Yuzo 169
Ui, Jun 204, 231 Yakabe, Katsumi 146, 203
Ujihara, Shojiro 29, 31, 37, 40 Yamada, Masahiro 124, 260
Umemura, Mataji 38 Yamada, Yoji 124
Uyehara, Cecil H. 204 Yamamoto, Kiyoshi 30, 37
Yashiro, Masamoto 259
Van Wolferen, Karl 11 Yasueda, Hidenobu 151
Vogel, Ezra 4, 48, 253 Yomiuri Shimbun Keizai Bu 258
Yoshida, Kazuo 105
Wada, Katsutoshi 260 Yoshikawa, Yumiko 167
Wakisaka, Akira 133, 244 Yoshimura, Rinpei 184, 186
General index
absentee fathers 83–5 dekasegi rodo (migrant labor) 37

absenteeism 85–6 densangata wage system 199, 200
aging of the population 146, 173 designated work system 111
amakudari 99 dispatched workers 127, 259, 263
annual leave Kaw fir 115
underutilization of 86–7 Domei 153, 172, 179, 206, 208, 211
aristocracy of labor 152, 215 Douglas–Long–Arisawa effect 88, 123
arubaito 121, 123, 129, 132, 223
economic growth
barrier-free society 159 and the affluent worker 152–3
Basic Livelihood Allowance 184, 248 and capital accumulation 14
Basic Survey of Schools 128, 131–2 and employment 170–3
behavioral approach 53–4 in the generation of economic surplus
business leadership 248–9 13–14
business-first capitalism 13 Heisei recession xiii
economic inequality 161, 162–4
capitalism education
business-first capitalism 13 credentialism in determining
and corporatism 11–12 occupational status 167
emperor-first capitalism 12 and social inequality 166–9
in a global context 15–19 emic dimensions xvii, 204
in Japan 248–9, 254, 256, 259, 263 emperor-first capitalism 12
and mercantilism 153 employment
casualization of work 165, 259, 263 employment policy 170–3, 179–80
casual employment 114, 117, 121–3 total employment 179
demand for casual work 123, 134, 135 employment contract, length of 114
See also arubaito and furiitaa enterprise (keiretsu) groupings 200, 202,
children raised overseas 123, 132 233–5, 236
Christmas cakes 134 enterprise system 60
Churitsu Roren 206 enterprise society 62, 127, 140–1,
civil society 195 257–8
commuting 78, 83 enterprise union (kigyobetsu kumiai) 33,
competition 37, 48, 51, 60, 61, 62, 146, 210–11,
and capital accumulation 15–16, 91, 225–6, 255
92 and the diversity of members’ needs
among employees 111 221–2
within the global context 16–19, 104–5,
116, 146, 173 family life
convergence and divergence 20–1, 47–8 conflict with work 83–5, 125
corporate responsibility 248, 249 and homeless household heads
corporatism 11–12, 63–4 184–5
culturalist approach 54–5, 184, 248 and the minimum wage 181
300
General index 301
flexibility reassessing JSM 5–8, 35, 48–50, 226

at work 10, 78, 83 theories of 33–4, 160–1
in the labor market 14 job sharing 110
Fordism xi
furiitaa 123–5, 134, 140, 181, 223, 258, karoshi (death from overwork) xiii, 17, 99,
259–60, 261–3 111, 145, 146, 173–5, 222
Keizai Doyukai (Japanese Association of
General Council of Trade Unions of Japan Economic Executives) 235–7
see Sohyo kigyobetsu kumiai see enterprise union
gung-ho company employee 99
labor contracts 214
hours of work labor economics (rodo keizaigaku) 31–2
in foreign firms 129, 132 labor-force participation 88–93
long hours xi M-shaped labor-force participation
overtime 111 curve for women 133
standard workweek 114 labor markets
trends and comparisons 70–5 deregulation of 110–16, 180
firm-size duality 117–21
imono machi (iron town) studies 42, market for foreign workers 135–7
44–6 market for jobs with foreign firms 128,
income distribution 161, 162–4 131–2
income maximization policy 10 market for new graduates 128–31
industrial federations 208–9, 220 market for women 132–5
industrial relations as an approach to and occupation 165
studying work in Japan 32–3 segmentation of xii, 97–9, 137–41,
inequality xiv, 165 165–6, 180
as an ongoing crisis 253–7 and social class 161–2
institutional approach 53 and social policy 145
International Confederation of Free Trade labor mobility 180
Unions 208 labor policy 147, 154
International Labor Organization labor process 64–5, 257–8
146, 159, 173–5, 178, 199, 200, Labor Relations Adjustment Law 147
247 labor sociology (rodo shakaigaku) see
sociology of labor
Japan Association for Labor Law see Nihon Labor Standards Law 111, 116, 147,
Rodo Ho Gakkai 173
Japan Association for Labor Sociology see labor–management relations as a power
Nihon Rodo Shakai Gakkai relationship 199–200
Japan Communist Party xiii, 209 Law for Dispatched Workers 115
Japan Socialist Party 11, 209 Liberal Democratic Party 209, 247
Japanese Chamber of Commerce and lifetime employment 33, 48, 54
Industry (Shoko Kaigisho) 231, movement away from long-term
241–2 employment 259–60, 263
Japanese cultural values 146, 160 Livelihood Protection Law 184
Japanese identity 170 Look East policies 15
Japanese labor law, notions of 148–54 lost decade (the 1990s) 253, 256
Japanese model Keidanren 236, 237, 240
end of the model 253–5
four challenges 254, 256 Male-Female Equal Employment
interest in 3–5 Opportunity Law 111, 133
Kassalow’s conditions regarding management, toward a definition of
acceptance 5–8 different levels 232, 237
Japanese-style management (JSM) management associations
230 future of 248–50
interest in JSM xi–xiv, 3–5, 48 history of 235
302 General index
management organizations, toward a production control movement (seisan kanri

sociology of 229–32 undo) 199, 200–4, 217
management studies 230
management unions 223–4 QC circle 60, 62
Marxism 30, 155, 204, 217, 232,
236 redundancies 103–4
May Day 97, 208 regional unions
meso level xiv, xv–xvi, 13, 19–20, 64, Rengo 209, 220–1, 223, 224, 246
69–70, 146, 173, 231, 257 rodo kagaku see science of Labor
minimum wage 91 rodo shakaigaku see sociology of labor
minimum wage system 180 rodo undo ron see union movement, theories
and the family 181 of
modernity roshi kankei ron see worker–capitalist
and the dilemmas facing Japan 8–9 relations
modernization theory 46–7
reaction against modernization theory scarcity of good jobs 110, 194, 248, 253,
47 256
M-shaped labor-force participation curve science of labor (rodo kagaku) 36
for women 133 seniority wages (nenko chingin) 33, 37, 48,
multiculturalism at work 136, 259, 263 54, 55, 146
and flexibility at work 10 shushin koyo see lifetime employment
skill 31, 56–7, 61–2
national health system 191–3 white collarization 59
national (peak) labor confederations and worker consciousness 58
204–8, 227 social mobility 164–6
national (peak) union centers 204–8 social policy (shakai seisaku) 147
National Pensions Basic Fund (Kokumin social policy school 28–30
Kiso Nenkin) 187–91 social security 178–80, 193–5
networked families (keibatsu) 240–1 sociology of labor 35–6, 50, 64–5,
newcomers 169 229
Nihon Rodo Ho Gakkai (Japan Association competing paradigms in 51, 55
for Labor Law) 151 early postwar studies 40–4
Nihon Rodo Shakai Gakkai (Japan genealogy of scholars 26, 37–40
Association of Labor Sociology) sociology of management 232–3
Nikkeiren (The Japan Federation of sociology of work see sociology of labor
Employers’ Associations) 107, 110, Sohyo 30, 153, 206, 208–9, 210,
114, 116, 214, 236, 240, 242–4 211
Nippon Keidanren 240, 244–7 Spring Wage Offensive 107, 116, 153,
political contributions 247 155–9, 208, 216
Nixon shocks 153 Survey of Social Stratification and Mobility
NPOs 126–7, 140, 159, 169 (the SSM Survey) 164
number one and number two unions 211
teleworking 126
office wallflowers 134 three Ks 88, 136
oil shocks 172 three labor laws (rodo sanpo) 147
Okochi–Kazahaya debate 29, 159–60, 178 three sacred treasures (sanshu no jingi) 146,
Organisation for Economic Cooperation 175–6
and Development 48, 103, 108, 131, Tora-san 124
146, 148, 203, 253 total employment 179
overtime 76–82 Trade Union Law 147, 210, 211, 231
oyabun-kobun relationships 41 translation, issues in xix
two-day weekend 76, 81
pension system 178, 186–91
performance-based pay systems, rethinking ultra-Fordism 14
of 260 unemployment 178, 179–80
General index 303
redundancies 103–4, 106, 110 theories of union movement 30

structural and mismatching unions for women 224
unemployment 105–6
unemployment insurance xi–xii, voluntary early retirement 109
181–3
unemployment rate 99, 102–3 welfare agents (shakai hoken romushi) 179,
voluntary early retirement 109 186
Unemployment Insurance Law 181–3 welfare for ongoing indigence 183–6
Union Identification Movement 227 Welfare Pension Fund (Kosei Nenkin)
Unions (see also enterprise union) xiv, 12, 187–91
57, 60, 255 women’s unions 224
ambivalence regarding deregulation work ethic xi, 18–19, 42, 44–6, 56, 64,
127–8 69–70, 91, 92, 180
declining density (organization rates) 11, and competition 99
12, 121, 132, 199, 200–4 egalitarianism 59, 215
declining influence 107 reassessing work 258, 261–3
effect of union size 217–20 search for less stressful work 126–7
fluctuations in influence 216–21 values concerning work 33–4, 226
future directions 226–8 work ideology 35, 42, 44–6, 63
industrial federations 208–9, 220 worker–capitalist relations (roshi-kankei
national (peak) centers 204–8, ron) 30
227 World Federation of Trade Unions
new form unions 222 (WFTU) 208
regional unions World Health Organization (WHO) 178,
rodo kumiai (defining the term) xvii 185, 186–91
and the social context 211–16 World Trade Organization (WTO) 159

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A Sociology of Work in Japan

What shapes the decisions of employees to work in Japan? The authors

        is Professor of Japanese Studies in the School of Lan-

              is Professor of Sociology at Waseda University,

Contemporary Japanese Society provides a comprehensive portrayal of mod-

D. P. Martinez (ed.) The Worlds of Japanese Popular Culture

Cambridge University Press

© Ross Mouer and Kawanishi Hirosuke 2005

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of

First published in print format 2005

isbn-13 978-0-511-11097-9 eBook (EBL)

isbn-13 978-0-521-65120-2 hardback

isbn-13 978-0-521-65845-4 paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of

List of figures page vii

Part I: A context for studying work

Part II: The commitment to being at work

Part III: Processing labor through Japan’s

Part IV: The broader social policy context for

Part V: The power relations shaping the organization

Part VI: The future

2.1 Approaches to understanding labor processes and the

5.3 Percentage of firms using different means of reducing their

8.4 Changes in the number of households and individuals

When he asked about the length of time for which unemployment

structural weaknesses of Japan’s 1986 Equal Employment Opportunity

the situation in other similarly developed societies. At the same time,

in a rich society than to be in the middle of a poor society. This view is

realization, however, that a replacement model is needed as one of the

A large number of Japanese terms are introduced in this volume. Sev-

ASC Asahi Shimbun (morning edition of a national daily

A context for studying work

1.1 Japanese-style management and the interest

1.2 Reassessing Japanese-style management

“oil shocks” in the 1970s fostered a renewed seriousness about national

to be found more in the form of an awkward silence than in a resounding

As the evidence on Japanese-style management overseas accumulated

1.3 A general perspective on postmodernism and the

1.3.1 The dilemma of modernity

came late to industrialization and required disciplined efforts to “catch

1.3.2 The question of flexibility at work

Japan has traditionally placed heavy emphasis on uniquely Japanese cul-

1.3.3 Corporatism and the free market economy

Without introducing the debate on the continuing significance of the

1.3.4 The generation of surplus

levels of productivity. Massive restructuring in large economic organi-

1.4 Work ideology in the changing world system

to any assessment of competing brands of capitalism. One is the way work

1.5 Toward a superior work ethic?

1.5.2 Choice and free trade

imperialism, and economic dependence. Do workers in industrialized

1.5.3 Human rights and the right to compete

The challenge is more starkly stated when translated into hours of

1.6 Toward an understanding of work in Japan

and very segmented labor market. Moreover, the organization of work is

1.7 The structure of this volume

The volume concludes with a look to the future, commenting on how

2.1 Perspectives on work in Japan

Scholars researching the organization of work in Japan can be charac-

such approaches by foreign scholars studying work in Japan. The stud-

2.2 Eight intellectual traditions focused on understanding

2.2.1 The Social Policy School ( Shakai Seisaku Gakkai)