Japanese Women, Under Utilized Members of the Labor Market: A Human Resources Perspective

The Demographic Issue
Let's begin be reviewing Japan's population distribution situation.  Japan's population is changing drastically, in a negative way.  A healthy population should be in the shape of a triangle.  Japan's population is gradually turning into an upside down triangle, where there are more elderly than young people.  The birth rate is only 1.37 per woman, while 2.1 is the necessary rate to keep population stable.  According to government forecasts, within 50 years the population will drop by almost a third.  One in three Japanese people will be over 65.  United Nations recommended that, in order to have the same working-age population as they did in 1995, Japan needs 33.5 million immigrant from 1995 to 205o.  An average of 609,000 immigrants per year.  However, the majority of Japanese people oppose this.  So what else can help alleviate this crisis for the Japanese economy?

The Statistics
- Ranked 101 out of 135 countries on the 2012 Global Gender Gap Report
- 15% of department managers across all sectors are female
- 1% of board members are women
- Women's salaries are 70% of that of their male counterparts
- Women's employment participation is 60%, compared to men at 80%
- 70% of Japanese women give up work after having their first child
- 20,000 children in Tokyo are on waiting lists for public day-care centers
- 25,000 on five year wait lists nationwide based on official data, but private experts estimate it is higher
- It costs $737 per month for your first child at public day-care centers
- 2.63% of employed fathers take paternity leave, compared to women at 87.8%
- 18.2% of employed fathers in their 30s in 2012 worked 60 hour weeks.  Fathers in their 40s at 17.5%, and 50s at 12.9%.  

The Current Situation for Working-Age Women
Japan is having a labor shortage.  It just so happens that they are also under utilizing women.  Kathy Matsui, chief Japan strategist at Goldman Sachs, stated that getting female participation up to 80% could add 15% to Japan's GDP.  Not only that, but countries with high female employment rate (like Sweden, Denmark and the US) have high birth rates.  While, countries with low female employment (like Japan, South Korea and Italy) have low birth rates.  There are some major firms, like Toshiba, who are trying to diversify their executives.  Unfortunately, the work-life balance and traditional values is deterring the majority of Japanese companies from changing their HR strategy.  Business lobby, Keidanren, is attempting to stop a proposal that requires listed firms to report their gender statistics.  

The current prime minister and his Abenomics are pushing female participation, which is an improvement.  His plan is to have women hold 30% of leadership positions of all sectors of society by 2020.  He wants one female directer per firm.  He pledged to eliminate day care waiting lists.  However, a couple of his goals are being heavily criticized.  He desires to increase childcare leave from a maximum of 1.5 years to 3 years.  Benesse Corp introduced a three-year leave program in 1990.  They found that fewer females returned to their job.  In 1995, Benesse shortened the program to one year and saw an increase in female returnees.  The LDP, Prime Minister Abe's party, proposed to make private nursery schools free for preschoolers.  Private nursery schools only hold morning sessions, so women would only be able to work part-time.  Democratic Party lawmaker Renho explained that "the message is: 'Don't think about working full-time.'"  This may be due to Japan being stuck between a rock and a hard place.  The Japanese government conducted a poll in December of 2012 where they found that 51% believe women should stay at home while husbands work.  "[The LDP's] view of women is basically as tools to boost the birth rate, reduce social security spending and increase growth," said Mari Miura, political science professor at Sophia University.

It isn't only the day-care and childcare leave that keeps mothers from working full-time.  The work-life balance in Japanese business culture is poor.  Japanese society is very masculine, so they have rigid views of gender roles and emphasize material possessions.  While feminine societies care about well-being of their members, relationships and standard of living.  Kikuko Kondo, who works in management of a small company, expressed that "in Japanese society, the company comes first, not the family.  We have no foundation of the family being a priority."  This means long hours and on top of that the expectation to go drinking with your coworkers and superiors.  Their society has high power distance, therefore society dictates that you can't reject your superior's invitation.  Full-time employees are guaranteed lifetime employment as long as you don't royally screw up.  Promotion is based on seniority.  You are just expected to do the same and put in the same hours as everyone else.  Families can even receive compensation from firms if their loved one dies from overwork.  In other words, even if you have sick days or paternity leave, you can't take it unless everyone else does.  Men may want to spend time with their family, but are worried if they do they won't get promoted.  The problem is that (1) Mothers can't take care of their children and household chores with the work schedule expected of full-time employees (2) Men aren't putting in their share of work with taking care of the children and housework.  

My Recommendations
Let's first get out of the way the argument that culture prevents firms from adopting the organizational structure they want.  Based on Gerhart (2009), national culture does not have a strong role as a constraint of organizational structure.  There is room for significant organizational differences.  Therefore changes can be made to improve.  

I would recommend companies to offer benefits like in-house daycare.  They can then attract more potential employees.  Those employees would then be more loyal to the firm, so a lower voluntary turnover.  There are costs of voluntary turnover like loss of productivity, loss of knowledgeable employees, hiring and training new employees.  The employees can focus on their work, and not worry about their children.  It would also boost their public image by showing that said firm cares about their workers.  SAS is one of the world's largest private software firms based in the United States.  Their products are used by 79% of Fortune 500 companies.  They are an example of how tech firms can succeed if they invest in human capital.   

Japanese firms should focus more on performance.  People don't need to work extreme  hours in order to do good work.  Instead of paying employees for those long hours improve  productivity and innovation.  Employees will be more creative and productive when they  are leading a healthy lifestyle.  A better work-life balance will allow men and women to  spend more time with their children and have a two-parent income.  This will increase the  birth rate - > improve the population distribution - > improve the economy.   

Sources
Gerhart, B.  (2009).  How much does national culture constrain organizational culture? 

Management and Organization Review, 5(2), 241-259.

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