Much recent scholarship is devoted to projecting Japan’s future and analyzing its prospects as a global power. After two decades of economic stagnation, alarming demographic trends, and the 3/11 triple disaster, some scholars argue that Japan is grappling with an era of precarity, marked with instability and anxiety. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe returned to office in 2012, promoting his economic reform policy, “Abenomics” and within the third “arrow" of this approach targeting structural reforms, he promoted “womenomics”, a term coined by Kathy Matsui of Goldman-Sachs. Prime Minister Abe’s objective is to create a society where "women can shine” and women can participate in the labor market more equitably. However, it is unclear if equality can be achieved when Japanese women still encounter persistent workplace sex discrimination. While labor laws, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Law, have attempted to tackle workplace sex discrimination, many scholars and critics believe the laws have not done enough. One way Japanese women have attempted to combat workplace sex discrimination is with litigation. Starting in the 1960s, women have resorted to judicial relief to address discriminatory treatment in the workplace. However, while litigation is a powerful tool for social change in Japan, the literature suggests that Japanese women are reluctant to litigate, consistent with the larger consensus that Japan is a low-litigious society. If Japanese women have engaged in “litigation campaigns" and litigation rates are rising, yet Japanese women are reluctant to litigate, this creates an interesting paradox worth exploring. While these two conditions are not unique in  

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The Nail That Sticks Up Isn't Always Hammered Down: Women, Employment Discrimination, and Litigiousness in Japan

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Imagining a home for us: representations of queer families in contemporary japanese literature

In a time of uncertainty and crisis, many Japanese have sought comfort in images of an idyllic native home, centred on a devoted, nurturing mother. Paradoxically, while this romanticised conception of the 'mother' is mourned as a casualty of modernisation, it is a relatively recent invention produced in response to anxieties over the rapid social changes Japan experienced during the post-war period. The construction of this maternal fantasy has primarily been the work of men seeking solace in the warm embrace of the 'mother' as compensation for their diminishing social status. However, nostalgic representations are not invariably sweet reminiscences. The television drama Woman is one example of a media product that exploited the nostalgic image of motherhood without ignoring its contraditions. I argue that in its depiction of two contrasting returns to one's native home, the drama constructs an indulgent, child-centred idealisation of motherhood only to deconstruct it through the revelation of its artifice. In the process, it reveals the constrasting dissatisfactions of men and women in contemporary Japan.

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De)Constructing Nostalgic Myths of the Mother in Japanese drama Woman

Japan is currently experiencing a diminishing of its population coupled with a demographic crisis, where the percentage of individuals over the age of 65 is increasing rapidly. This demographic shift is already bringing about a number of social and economic consequences across the nation. According to projections, the Japanese economy is headed for disaster. As the population declines and ages, the workforce gets smaller and the numbers of elderly in need of care increases. This thesis will explore the social and economic impacts of population aging, along with taking a look at what actions are being taken to combat these issues as well as looking at some possible solutions. Its purpose is to advance our understanding of population aging and the changes it brings. Multiple other nations are headed in the same direction as Japan in regards to population decline and aging, and it is therefore important to study the case of Japan as it will be valuable information in the years to come.

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Impacts of Population Aging in Modern Japan and Possible Solutions for the Future

The socio-economic phenomenon of post-Fordism strengthened the growing Japanese economy since the 1970s. However, the economic recession in the 1990s led to the birth of the precariat in Japan. A country known for permanent employment and long-term stability was replaced by policies that enabled a new class of temporary workers. These vulnerable part-time employees, also called freeters, are victims of anxiety and social pressure. They led a life of insecurity and hopelessness. This ontological vulnerability prevalent in modern workplaces has profound repercussions on gender relations and identity formation and attempts to resist and expose these hegemonic powers shape the central theme in Sayaka Murata’s deadpan comedy Convenience Store Woman (2018). The protagonist Keiko, a freeter herself, struggles to live up to the societal expectations of marriage, motherhood, and a stable career. The workspace, which the protagonist of the novel considers as her safest place despite being a forcibly normalised environment, could not hold its illusion of stability for long as it becomes a precarious space of crisis. Precarity experienced under post-Fordist capitalism forces institutionalised forms of recognition where the performances of identities are regulated and constructed to ensure survival. The textuality of the workspace in the novel parallels the world outside of it, making the convenience store a microcosm for the capitalist world after globalisation. With Judith Butler’s studies on gender performativity and precariousness, and textual analysis of the novel, the authors of this paper study how anxiety-ridden precarious living conditions can also become a foundation for alternative performances troubling gender categories, thereby transcending the narrow social scripts rooted in exclusion and inequality.

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Ayako Kano

Papers

The Future of Gender in Japan: Work/Life Balance and Relations between the Sexes