著者

張 純紅

出版者

桃山学院大学

雑誌

桃山学院大学経済経営論集 (ISSN:02869721)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.49, no.3, pp.215-253, 2007-11-20

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The ratio of the Japanese women to men's earnings(wage gap)in percentage remained at approximately 66 in 2005. The women-men wage gap of Japan has decreased, but narrowing the gap is extremely slow compared with other advanced countries such as the USA(81), the UK(78), France(78 in 2002)and Germany(72). This is a large and somehow puzzling question(figure 2-1). This study explores into the Japanese wage differentials between men and women, clarifying factors which have brought to the bigger wage gap. This study examined the Japanese Employment Practices, finding several possible explanations for the gender gap in wage. First is employment discrimination of a lifetime employment, behind which there has been the generally accepted idea. That is the Japanese sex role specialization system(men work for a living, and women do housework and child care). The second is that various family allowances and promotion are preferentially given to men, which also reflects the Japanese sex role specialization system. The third is that there has been sex discrimination of job specification and an unequal personnel performance evaluation underlying the Japanese seniority order wage system. Full-time women's wage increase and promotion have been extremely small and slow compared with those of full-time men. Moreover this study explores the actual women's labor force status such as labor force participation rate, work experience, and the number of managerial staff and part-timers. This women's situation explains lower wages under the Japanese seniority order wage system. The Japanese women's labor force participation rate depicts M-shape, which means that they are retired for marriage and child care. Therefore the Japanese women relatively have shorter work experience than men, and fewer numbers of them are assigned to a managerial position. The number of poorly paid women part-timers have greatly increased. Since 1990s, it is expected that the enactment of various antidiscrimination legislation has an effect on narrowing the Japanese gender gap in wage, but they are imperfect measures, and many deep-rooted prejudices to women still remain in the Japanese company and society, accordingly the greater improvement will not be expected in the near future. It will be a greater challenge of Japan on how the human capital of women is used usefully.