Women and the Japanese Economic Performance

Much has been written about Japanese economic performance in the twentieth century, and especially over the past thirty years. Japanese economic growth is viewed by some as a ‘paradox’, given the seeming limitations on mobility of the labour force. This view, in my judgement, reflects misperceptions of the life-commitment (and nenko) system; in fact this system has a high degree of internal adaptability and has proven flexible also in innovative organisation of linkages of larger firms with the rest of the economy through various subcontracting arrangements. More recently there has been a tendency to marvel at the low level of unemployment in Japan, and various explanations of this aspect of Japanese performance have been expounded both in Japan and in the West. Among the most interesting explanations are the wage flexibility provided by the bonus system (recognition of which is begining to spread in the United States) and the proposition by some Japanese economists that there are strong culturally based protections of employment within the informal spheres of the economy. However, no assessment of the Japanese economic dynamism has systematically examined the roles of women in that performance, despite sociological and related studies about women in Japan and even about women at work.1