Japan Struggles with Women in the Workforce

Japan Struggles with Women in the Workforce

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Introduction

Evidence has it the japan has had issues with women in their work force. Research has also indicated that only forty percent of the women in the Japanese economy are active in the economy. This paper expounds on of the reasons that bring about his scenario while comparing the situation to Korean economy.

Issues leading the struggle with women in the Japanese work force

Career Breaks

In Japan, the women still perform most of the society’s unpaid care jobs that affect their occupational and educational choices Mukhopadhyay & Chaudhuri (2013), with some occupations viewed as family-friendly as compared to others. Working part time and going for career breaks often minimizes the women’s present income and, additionally, their lasting earnings’ possibilities fail to achieve complete recovery (Merluzzi & Dobrev, 2015). In a recently conducted study, it was discovered that wage penalty directly increased with the increase in the time taken on maternity breaks. Therefore, resuming work after an year of going on a maternity leave caused a wage fall of under 5% while resuming after three years lead to wage fall of above 10%. Compared to Korea, Women take lesser career breaks that makes them focused on their careers. Korea also has women friendly policies that help the women to work online while on inevitable breaks to ensure that they do not lose track while away

 Payment decline related to women resuming work from a maternity break over time

Gender Discrimination

According to Blau & Kahn (2007), gender discrimination transpires when individuals are treated unfavorably due to their gender. It also surfaces indirectly from the variant plans and choices concerning jobs, education, and families made by the men and women. The said choices influence appropriate career perspectives for women, for instance, fit for those involving caring responsibilities. This may translate to employers where they may make assumptions concerning career and job paths suitable for women, influencing their decisions on job applicants, as well as existing employees. These factors may contribute to gender pay gap since they influence the roles that women make applications on, jobs they would be offered and how far they can develop in the job (Merluzzi & Dobrev, 2015). Due the traditional belief that women are considered to be the weaker sex Japanese women suffer discrimination in the sense they are not given jobs that are otherwise considered masculine. While in the real sense the women are qualified. Compared to Korea both men and women are hired on basis of qualification and not necessarily their masculinity orientation. While Japan has a wide gap in male income to female income in Korea the