著者

岩永 雅也

出版者

日本教育社会学会

雑誌

教育社会学研究 (ISSN:03873145)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.38, pp.134-145, 1983-10-20

---

The rapidly increasing number of unemployed youths has now become a most common phenomenon in many western capitalist countries. In Japan, however, there is no visible increase in the rate of youth unemployment, because in Japanese labor markets the number of so-called "first job seekers" is very small. On the other hand Japanese unemployed youths remain without jobs for a longer period than their western counterparts (especially U.S.A.). Thus we can presume that the Japanese youth labor markets are structurely organized not to discharge the employed and also not to charge the unemployed from the outside. This sort of structure is known as the institution of "collective employment" of school leavers. Because this institution minimizes the "gap" between schools and work, business companies can meet their demands for labor, and school leavers can also avoid the risk to be unemployed. But for companies, it would be better to recruit workers whoes productivity has already been tested through previous job experiences. How do companies measure the productivity of school leavers without job experience? Japanese companies (especially big ones) resolve this dilemma through organizing the youth labor markets in the dual (outer/inner) dimensions. First, the "outer" organization is the segmentation of the labor market rigidly combined with educational attainments of school leavers. Secondly, the "inner" organization is the organization of the career education system in schools (especially high-schools) based on a kind of hierarchy of schools. By this way business companies can shift the responsibility for measuring the productivity of their new conscripts to schools.