Paper short abstract:

Is employment in Japan fragmenting into a new construct of gender, with so-called 'Womenomics' policy? Or will the resilience of the status quo remain? I argue that the way in which both sexes are expected to work has not significantly changed, despite 30 years of equal employment legislation.

Paper long abstract:

This paper offers a framework for analysing employment in Japan, the concept of 'gender dividend'. The post-war Japanese employment system at its core harnessed a gender dividend of difference that promoted a division of labour by sex. However, the focus on issues relating to women's employment since the implementation of the EEOL in 1986 is promoting a universal ideal that seeks to harness a dividend from gender equality. This paper investigates whether employment in Japan is fragmenting into a new construct of gender or whether the resilience of the old gender system will hold strong. The paper first outlines a theoretical framework within which gender and employment in Japan can be placed. It then analyses to what degree government policy and equal employment legislation has brought change and advancement for working women (and men) over time. The paper demonstrates how employment remains persistently gendered despite 30 years of equality legislation and an accompanying increase in the proportion of women working in Japan. It argues that gender equality cannot be achieved if men are not included in the renegotiation of employment. In Japan there has been advancing policy focused on female employment, but within an expectation that male employment will naturally accommodate and adjust to the increased presence of working women. This leads to an outcome where underlying 'traditional' gender norms are still being perpetuated in tandem with the movement to gender equality, resulting in a key tension and a persistence of a post-war division of labor by sex. Just as women remain segregated from men in employment, men too are therefore segregated from women. The paper argues that the way men are expected to work has not significantly changed since the early post-war years, and that, despite equal employment legislation, the current system discriminates against both sexes in Japan. The paper seeks to offer a critical framework for understanding how societal and workplace gendering continues to be reproduced in Japan.