Gender Equality and Low Birth Rate in Japan

Tomomi Tsuchiya
Yih Yeh Pan
Course 150-3
July 8, 2008

Gender Equality and Low Birth Rate in Japan

Introduction

In Japan, low birth rate is one of several serious social issues. It is said that it will greatly influence Japan’s political and economic system in the 21st century. In 2005, the Japanese population began to decline. In 1971, Japan's total fertility rate stood at 2.16 but it has steadily declined and hit a record low of 1.32 in 2006: well below the 2.07 that is needed to maintain the population (Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare (MHLW), 2006). In recent Japanese society, men and women tend to marry late and do not have children immediately after they get married. Why don’t many people have children after they get married? Multiple factors are believed to have contributed to this trend, including changes in young people’s life styles as well as the loss of traditional family structure and community functions that helped parents raise children (Kitazume, The Japan Times, 2006).

I also think that men and women’s social inequalities affect the birth rate in Japan strongly. It is said that the trend toward globalization has made women and men more equal in Japan. Moreover, thanks to the declining birth rate in Japan, the business community has to worry about a labor shortage in the near future. Thus, they have to hire, retain and promote not only talented men, but also women too (Jibu, 2007). In other words, Japanese companies have finally realized that they have no future without talented working women in their labor force. As a result, the Japanese business world has seriously committed to promoting gender diversity.
I am one of these Japanese women. I want a job that I can enjoy now and into the future. I do not want to have a child if I have to quit my job when I give birth. I do not want to marry if my husband does not help with the housework. Actually my opinion is not unique. There are many young women who think this way in Japan these days (MHLW, 2001). I guess the reason why women feel that child raising would be a burden on their careers is because Japanese society is still a male-dominated society, and there is still a deep-rooted prejudice from Japanese tradition against women with careers.

Here, I propose an effective way to solve the declining birth rate in Japan. Men should participate in housework and childcare more actively. Then they can support women’s career and lighten women’s burden. I believe doing so would help Japan’s future, which is now threatened by low birth rate. In this research paper, I would like to write about 1). The Japanese traditional way of thinking against women, 2). The present position of women in Japanese society, 3).Hints from other countries. First, let’s look at the Japanese tradition.

1.The Japanese traditional way of thinking against women.

Japan has traditionally been a male chauvinistic society. This idea is based on Confucianism. It came to Japan in the sixth century A.D. It advocates filial piety, loyalty, harmony, and predominance of men over women. It took root in the Edo era. It penetrated people’s minds as a philosophy to support the Japanese emperor from the Meiji Restoration until the loss of a battle of the pacific war (Kataoka, 1993). Women should stay at home and do housework and childrearing. This has been an inevitable thing and common sense in Japan (Equal Quality of Gender, 2003). This idea still exists in Japanese society. Married women have had more pressure from society than married men or single women in Japan (Friedman and Greenhaus, 2000). Next, let’s look at the present position of women in Japanese society.

2.The present position of women in Japanese society

There is a vicious pattern in Japanese society. In general, Japanese women do far more of the housework than their husbands do. In the household, Japanese mothers spend an average of five hours and forty minutes a day on house work and childcare whereas fathers spend only forty-six minutes (Jibu, 2007). Inequality at home influences women’s work at the office (Jibu, 2007). If men do not help with house work and childcare at home, women have to be in charge of everything at home, reducing their productivity at the office. That is, it makes it difficult for Japanese women to take leadership and managerial posts in their jobs. Actually, female managers represent only 10 percent of the Japanese business community (Jibu, 2007). Therefore senior management positions in the business field are almost all dominated by men.

Furthermore, there is an “M-shaped” women’s employment rate in Japan (Kawanobe, 2006). That is, women quit their jobs to give birth and provide childcare. The hollow portion of the M-shaped curve represents that period. In reality, most of the women who quit their job to give birth and provide childcare cannot go back to their previous jobs. Instead, they return as part-time workers or non-contracted workers (kawanobe, 2006). Even though the Child-Care Leave Law, a law which allows parents with children under the age of one to take leave for one year, was put into force in Japan in 1992 (MHLW), it is still difficult for women to take child-care leave and return to their previous jobs again after the leave. The problem is that even though the law says that both mother and father can take child-care leave, only 0.5 percent of fathers used the system whereas 72.3 percent of mothers used it (MHLW, 2004). For Japanese women who want to work as fulltime regular employees, having two children nearly means giving up their careers (Matuura and Shigeno, 2005). In fact, only 20 percent of women with children under a year old and less than 30 percent of women with children between one to two years old currently work (Japanese Bureau of Statistics, 2001). Are there any ways to end this vicious circle of work and life in Japan? I would like to see how other countries confront this issue to get a hint for solving this problem in Japan.

3.Hints from other countries

In the United States, “Women’s economic status is the highest in the world and their birth rate is the highest among developed countries” (Jibu, 2007). 71 percent of American women with children under 18 and 57 percent of women with children under three are in the labor force (Jibu, 2007). It is very different from Japan. In the U.S., men’s participation at home has increased since 1981 mainly because they have done more childcare than in the past (Pleck, 1993). In 2000, American men spent seven hours per week on childcare (Jibu, 2007).

In Norway, men also have right to use the childcare leave system, and 9 men out of 10 use this right (Grutle, 2005). Thus it is natural in Norway for men to participate in housework and childcare. Norway is one of the top countries, which the rate of women’s employment is very high. From 25 to 66 years of age, men’s employment rate is 82 percent. On the other hand, women’s rate is 75 percent. 72 percent of women with children under three years old are in the labor force. Furthermore, 82 percent of women who have children three to six years old are working in Norway (Norway Embassy, 2007). The notable thing is that total fertility rate in Norway is 1.80 which is much higher than Japan’s total fertility rate (Brende, 2003).

Conclusion

According to my research, it is obvious that men’s participation in housework and childcare support is needed for women to succeed in the workplace and at home a lot. Even though women are married and have children in America and Norway, they do not have to give up their careers. That is because men and women are more equal in those countries compared with present Japan. Although Japanese demographic history and tradition are different from America’s and Norway’s, I can say that Japanese men can change attitudes which are based on Japanese traditional way of thinking. If men and women equally could share what they should do at home, I think the Japanese birth rate would increase. I hope this change will happen to Japan in the near future. It will brighten the future of Japan.

References

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