Today is Thanksgiving Day (勤労感謝日) in Japan. I enjoyed the nice weather and was preparing for my discussion leading in a class tomorrow. I will share the summarized contexts and my personal critiques with you. Moreover, I strolled around the MeijiJinguu-Gaien (明治神宮外苑). Wow…it is so impressively gorgeous!! It might be a very romantic place to walk along with your beloved in this wonderful season!
Economist's Angle: Full-time Housewife—a Modern Invention
by Yutaka Harada (Chief Economist, Daiwa Institute of Research Ltd.)
"専業主婦"は近代の産物/ 原田泰(大和総合研究所チーフエコノミスト)
＊Key Points:
Women's labor will be crucial to support the aging Japanese society. However, Women in their late 20s to mid-30s are hindered to enter workplace due to the preoccupation of the domestic work, such as childcare. Mr. Harada argues that this phenomenon is NOT resulted from Japanese traditional culture. For instance, in the past agricultural society, Japanese women were not full-time housewives in their farming families. In addition, before 1920s, industrialization created more job opportunities, such as textile and apparel industries, for women employees.
However, starting from the 1920s, heavy industries and demand for white-collared workers at big organizations advantaged males in Japanese employment market. Thus, the necessity for wives to participate in workforce was lowered. This originates full-time housewives. Furthermore, interestingly, not only Japan, but also Europe and the US had such similar societal phenomena. For example, right after the end of WWII, the ratio of full-time housewives to all married women in the US reached about 55%; During Japan's economic rapid-growth era of the 1950s and '60s, the number of full-time housewives increased significantly, approximately 40%.
Japanese full-time housewives are not traditional at all; instead, they might be deeply affected by American way of life. Japanese viewed American full-time housewives as a symbol of wealthy, and worked hard to achieve the same level of prosperity. Mr. Harata concluded that Japanese full-time housewives are NOT traditional, but just a result of responses to changing economic conditions (so called as a “modern invention”). Therefore, the author optimistically anticipates that Japanese women will be driven to employment market by the emerging needs of an aging society.
＊My Critiques:
Do you agree author's arguments that full-time housewives are not traditional and they will re-enter employment market if there is need, based on an primary economic theory—demand and supply? In my opinion, the approach of economics can only serve as a sensible analytical lens to explain why women withdrew from employment market to their families. However, I am hardly convinced by author's anticipation that those full-time housewives will re-enter employment market if need forces. I think once a societal mechanism or social constraint has functioned for a while, say more than 50 years, a fixed culture or value might be constructed through this socialization process.
In other words, Japan is a very typically andocentric society mainly dominated by male fellows, who contribute to be breadwinners in their families. There might be some invisible and common value input in many Japanese cultures and social institutions. Though the change of economic condition might drive some couple to rethink co-paying for their living expenses, probably the society is not capable of providing those people with a suitable mechanism, such as day-care centers for kids or welfare and job-training programs for full-time wives to support their innovative ideas. Presumably re-entry into employment market needs professional skills nowadays; it might be too costly to challenge the fixed social mechanism, which does not encourage full-time housewives to participate in labor force. It does take long time to transfer one value to another, thus economic approach might fail to bridge the gap between the reality and theory applied.
Another critique on Mr. Harata's argument is that he over-generalizes the term of labor force, which actually could be divided into several levels more precisely. For example, I guess the group of housewives, who he anticipated to re-enter employment market, might need less professional skills, and receive much lower pays, compared to their male counterparts. Return into employment market is one thing, but what kind of work those housewives can really do is another issue!! If pays and benefits, such as promotion system, are not equal for both men and women. What serves as incentives to attract married women to give up staying home and concentrated on domestic work, such as baby care or household chores? Calculation is difficult and complex, thus we should pay more attentions to realize the essence of gender equality.
Last, there is a controversy in his argument. Without good societal system, how can the aging problem be solved if women are encouraged to work publicly, while spending much less time inside their families? Since raising a child is so costly in a competitive era, the result of calculating opportunity cost might lead to the same choice, staying home.
pic:御岳渓谷
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