表題番号:2015B-458 日付:2016/04/07
研究課題Leaning Out for the Long Run:Japan's Urban 'Salarywomen' and Well-being
研究者所属(当時) 資格 氏名
(代表者) 国際学術院 大学院アジア太平洋研究科 教授 ロバーツ グレンダ S
(連携研究者) GSAPS Professor Roberts, Glenda
研究成果概要
This was the final year of my research project on salarywomen, until the next time I perform the longitudinal interviews on this data set of 15 married women with children, who have been working continuously at Naruse Corporation since they began their employment after finishing their final year of education.

In this set of interviews, I concentrated on asking these women about their promotions and their attitudes toward promotion.  I did this because I wanted to understand how they are situated in regard to Prime Minister Abe's efforts to increase the numbers of women promoted to management in corporations. All of the women in my data set are now in their forties at the youngest, so all of them have spent many years in their firm. Hence one would expect that they have all been promoted by now.  Yet this turned out not to be the case.  While some have been promoted, others remained behind.  Why?

The answer is complex, but it is rooted in the difficulties of being the primary caretakers of children while holding down a career job.  While there was one employee who had become a manager at a relatively early age, she was able to do so because her own mother took on a large share of the care work at home.  Other women also became managers, but this tended to happen after their forties, when the children were at least junior high or high-school age, and no longer needed as much attention from their mothers.  While promotions were rewarding for these women, they also entailed new responsibilities and hence, more workload.  Although salaries did not increase much from promotions, they noted that their pensions would increase significantly.  

The women who did not yet have promotions could be divided into three groups--those who wanted promotion yet were thwarted, those who were conflicted about it, and those who did not desire a promotion.  In a paper I wrote on this, I discuss three of the women who exemplify these three typologies.

The person who wanted the promotion yet who could not have it yet was an interesting case, as she had taken advantage of the company's generous system for childcare leave, as well as accompanying her spouse at the time of his transfer to the US.  When she returned to her position, she was unable to be promoted, even though she felt she had worked hard and deserved it.  Instead, the firm offered her extra educational courses. She appreciated this, but she really wanted to be promoted.  From her example we learn of the problems women can face if they actually make use of the flexible family friendly policies that firms offer.

The person who was conflicted still had three small children and a husband who worked very long hours. She loved her job, but she also wanted to spend time with her children. She knew that if she were promoted, she would not be able to spend the time with them that she wanted to spend. Even with her current job, she was unable to spend enough quality time with them. She even developed depressive symptoms twice because of the time dilemmas she faced.  She was hoping that her husband would be sent abroad, so that she could take a leave to accompany of him and be released from the time crunch she was experiencing at Naruse.

The person who did not want promotion was too busy with her children, always put them first, and was adament that that was her priority.  She liked her job and she was a very good worker, but for her, foremost came her family.  

We can learn from this that many women will not desire promotion until corporations provide more reasonable hours of work, for both men and women.

I presented the paper at the Asian Studies conference in Paris in September 2015. I will further rework the paper and hope to send it out for publication in the coming months.

I am grateful to this grant for the opportunity to continue work on my salary women data set.