Life Courses of Japanese Women: "Change" and "Continuity" in the Heisei and Reiwa Eras

2024/02/16

How have the lifestyles and work styles of women changed from the Heisei to the Reiwa era? This book analyzes these changes based on the "Panel Survey on Consumer Life," which has conducted fixed-point observations of 1,500 randomly selected women and a younger generation added later for approximately 30 years. It clarifies what has changed and what has remained the same regarding marriage, childbirth, employment, career development, housework, childcare, caregiving, power balance between couples, asset formation, consumption structure, wages, and income inequality. Furthermore, it reveals the economic and social factors, changes in awareness, and policy effects behind these shifts, as well as the challenges that remain.

Unlike other developed countries, the employment rate of female university graduates in Japan was not always high in the past. However, the employment rate for women has generally risen since then. Particularly in the Heisei era, the number of highly educated women in the workforce increased, eventually surpassing the employment rate of female high school graduates.

Looking at the details, many high school graduates left their jobs upon marriage or childbirth and later returned to work, partly due to the stagnation of their husbands' incomes. However, most of them were part-time or non-regular workers. In contrast, among university graduates, the use of childcare leave systems became widespread, leading to a rapid increase in those continuing their careers as regular employees. Furthermore, although not to the same extent as in Western countries, more women are now utilizing their professional skills. While these trends matched the advancement of industrial and occupational structures, they also expanded household-level disparities more than individual income disparities.

On the other hand, regarding marriage and childbirth, while early marriage was common among lower-income groups in the beginning, recent years have seen a further progression of late marriage, non-marriage, and declining birthrates within this same demographic.

What has not changed is the time husbands spend on housework and childcare. Although the number of men in the younger generation who perform housework and childcare has increased, the time spent on these tasks remains short, with most of the burden still falling on women. The consciousness of gender-based division of roles remains strong.

This book focuses on generation, education, academic background, and employment status to quantitatively analyze the diversification of Japanese women's life courses. This was made possible largely due to the panel data collected continuously for about 30 years. If readers can appreciate the effectiveness of using long-term panel data for this type of analysis, then one of the primary goals of this book will have been achieved.

Life Courses of Japanese Women: "Change" and "Continuity" in the Heisei and Reiwa Eras

Yoshio Higuchi (Co-editor)

Keio University Press

280 pages, 2,420 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and job titles are as of the time of publication.