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Somehow over the past 20 years the world’s second-largest economy slipped into poverty -- at least to the extent that rising unemployment, underemployment and underpaid employment have become the overriding domestic concerns, powerful enough to topple a ruling party that has governed almost uninterruptedly for 54 years.
Shukan Kinyobi (Aug 28) focuses on an aspect of the issue it claims is often overlooked -- women’s poverty.
It is different from men’s poverty, the magazine says, not only in being more widespread and more acute, more easily shrugged off by society at large, and more bound up with child bearing and child rearing, but also in being more isolating. A South Korean film director, researching a documentary on women’s poverty, spent three months interviewing poor women in South Korea, the Philippines and Japan. Though better off materially than women in the slums of Manila, poor Japanese women are more isolated, the director tells Shukan Kinyobi. The poor in poor countries live together and offer each other moral support. The poor in rich countries tend to be flung back on their own solitary resources.
It was with a view toward alleviating that isolation that the Women’s Union was formed in Tokyo in 1995. Since then, it has been consulted by thousands of women whose range of problems necessitated a stretching of the union’s original economic agenda to one in which mental health counseling figures heavily. Victims of sexual harassment or domestic violence, the union reminds us, aren’t always able to slough off symptoms of depression even after their cases have been favorably resolved.
One such favorable resolution concerns a 39-year-old woman whom Shukan Kinyobi calls Yoko Endo. In 2007, she was dispatched by a temp agency to work as a translator for a Tokyo company connected with the auto industry. Endo worked under contracts renewable every three months. Last September, she notified her temp agency that she was pregnant with her second child. Two weeks later, the agency informed Endo that her contract would not be renewed when it expired in January.
As Shukan Kinyobi points out, dismissal on grounds of requiring childbirth or child care leave is illegal under the Equal Opportunity Employment Law, first passed in 1985. Employers know ways around that, however. The official reason for Endo’s non-renewal was “insufficient ability.” That doesn’t seem to stand up to scrutiny. Endo had been a high school English teacher; she had worked overseas; her current employer, in the course of two years, had never complained about her. Endo discovered the Women’s Union online. The union intervened on her behalf -- successfully. The company agreed to grant her a year’s leave.
Statistics on the economic status of women relative to men speak plainly: 66% of female workers, Shukan Kinyobi says, earn less than 3 million yen a year, as against 21.6% of males. Farther up the ladder, 21.6% of men earn over 7 million yen a year, compared to 3.1% of women.
By tacitly accepting, if not openly enforcing, women’s low status and low earning capacity, men have brought their current problems upon themselves, writes Midori Ito of the Working Women’s National Center (AWC2) in Shukan Kinyobi. Japan’s poverty, male and female, will end, she says, only with the end of “patriarchal thinking.”
© Japan Today
15 Comments
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herefornow
No surprise here. Anyone who has been in Japan longer than a week or so sees this first-hand every day. Japan is very-much third-world in thinking in many ways. This being just one. Hopefully a DPJ-led government can start to correct this problem.
timorborder
Ah, yes how inconsiderate of Ms. Endo and her compatriots to get pregnant. What is one to do.
Ms. Endo should have taken up this matter with the labor standards bureau as well and really worked hard to put her employer under the microscope.
TSRnow
This happen all the time. Even if they are not fired, the pregnant OL would be kicked out from her previous responsibilities.
Ways to "get around the laws" needs to be stopped, now!
hakujinsensei
Been watching this post for a few days to see how it would go. A story about some bimbo that is popped for drugs garners hundreds of posts yet one of the most important stories to come along in months gets only 4 so far. There is no greater black mark on society than the apathy that allows huge blocks of the populace to live in abject poverty. Japan should be ashamed of itself with regards to its track record of taking care of its less fortunate. But even more so should be the shame shared by all foreigners coming here, sucking up at the trough and leaving nothing in return.
herefornow, dont kid your self, the DPJ will do nothing to bring any meaningful change. There are going to be swamped for the next while paying back favors ; ) And once they get that task handled, they will be busy getting themselves re-elected...
These issues will change when there is truly enough outrage felt by the common man to stand up and be counted. With the response here, I would say that we are eons away from that point now.
30061015
Japan punishes women for having babies. Gee? Any correlation here with one of the world's lowest fertility rates? Myopic economics and corporate culture club behavior. A nation of DINKs, no grand kids and no future.
Rugbyfan
I agree totally with the comments so far. Treating women as second class citizens is deep seated and entrenched in Japanese society. This will be no quick fix, but hopefully Mr Hatoyama and the DPJ will stay in power long enough to get the ball rolling.
lunchmeat
Most times women negotiate for a lower compensation. Who's to blame for that? If you're running a business you want to pay your employees fairly but as little as possible.
Now, about a photo and DOB on the CV...
alphawolf
It is that way in America also..isn't it? In Japan however those who work govt jobs have much better treatment than in Japans civilian sector, America's civilian sector or in Americas govt sector. Just look at the leave given to new mothers.
aw
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nipponreddog
TSRnow
lunchmeat, is that an excuse? A lot of the women in Japan do not have the slightest chance to negotiate a salary, let alone their job description.
dolphingirl
Hopefully, in the not too distant future, more women will become aware of their rights & the labor laws and take a stand! It's surprising that this 'equal opportunity employment law' has been around for so long but companies are still getting away with unfair treatment! My guess is that many working women don't know about organizations like the 'women's union'. Awareness first, then change...
DarkKnghtZ
Assuming said woman is doing a good job in her position (Not tea serving and answering phones) they should get paid well enough to live comfortably, just like any man. My wife worked for a security officer dispatch as the ONLY PAYROLL clerk and made less than 1/2 of what I make, while working more hours per week. Its pretty damn sick.
PASHA_51
We have seen in past few years big sogo shooshas hiring women as officers whereas in past they were hired as clerks or secretaries. Still we don't see many women as officers in big companies or banks etc except job of letter writing, tea serving or filing documents. Since this practice is many many generations old, so there is scarce possibility of big change even new DPJ government can't help in this matter.
diggerdog
a womans job in a company is to bring the tea and cakes when customers visit the office and to look pretty. If makes me want to puke each time i see it. This is never going to change because japan is run by men, and old men at that. Why would they want to change it? And the temp workers thing may never change because companies dont want it to and these companies bankroll politians and big business rules in japan, not workers rights. Is there even a minimum wage here? if so it must be really really low. Anyone who knows japan knows that nothing changes here. Thats why the country is getting left behind in terms of workers rights, cusumers rights and equal equality laws. But until the people demand better it wont ever change, and so it will never change. But im not gay, a woman or on a temp contract so what do i care, hehe.