Japanese Uniqueness Part II

WORK AND THE ECONOMY


Although a highly urbanized industrial nation, Japan retains many of its informal practices, norms, and client relationships of manorial societies. Companies, particularly large ones, are obligated to their employees, for example, to keep them employed, and to establish pension funds, and are quite paternalistic in ways that range from arranged marriages to school placement for empjoyee offspring. The “corporation is a social unit in which everyone has a role and a stake.”

Generally, boards of directors are not supposed to emphasize the maxization of profits. “Many senior Japanese managers . . . feel at least as obligated to the workers as to the owners of the corporation.” Employees are expected to be loyal to their companies. And as indicated in Table 7-2, the survey evidence confirms the generalization that employees in Japan are much less prone to shift jobs than in America. The comparative study of managers found that 59 percent Japanese and only one percent of Americans agreed that if they applied for a job with a company, “I will most certainly work there for the rest of my life.”98 These cross-national variations have also held up among the three samples of youth, with no change occurring between 1971and 1988. Close to three quarters, 72 percent, of the Japanese say they were still on their first job, a reply given by only one quarter,
percent, of the Americans. Almost a third of the Americans reported having held four or more positions; only one percent of the Japanese did the same.

Some analysts challenge the belief that prolonged employment and separation rates in Japan have cultural components by the contention “that life-time employment is only a large-firm phenomenon.”

TABLE 7-2. ESTIMATES OF THE NUMBER OF JOBS HELD BY MALES OVER A
LIFETIME IN JAPAN AND THE UNITED STATES

Source: OECD Employwent Outlook, September 1984, p. 63. Masanori Hasshimoto and John
Raisiun,Employment,Tenure and Earning Profiles in Japann and the United States, American Economic Review,75 (September J9SS), p. 724, reprinted in Masahiko Aoki, Information, Incentives and Bargaining in the Japanese Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1988), p. 61.

In fact, however, research by Masanori Hashimoto and John Raisian and also by Robert Cole indicates that although job tenure “is longer in large Japanese firms, it is quite long even in the tiny and small firms,” and much longer in all size groups than in American ones.100 And although mandatory retirement age is 60, the age at which guaranteed job security ends, many Japanese workers continue to work for the same employer-but often with fewer benefits and responsibilities.”’ International comparisons of the labor force participation rate by age
show that at age “65 and over,” Japanese participation (at 38%) far exceeds the United States rate (16%).”’

The recession of the early 1990s forced many Japanese companies to tighten their belts. The unemployment rate of 3.5 percent in 1995 is the highest since the post-war growth cycle began, up from 2.2 in 1992, 1.9 in I975 and 2.6 in 1985.Io3Thus far (1995) they have not broken the obligation to retain long-term employees, but they have cut back sharply on hiring new potential executive talent and have laid off female employees, many of whom have aways been looked on as “temporary,” until they married.

Japanese clearly exhibit much stronger ties to their employers than Americans do. Cross-national interviews with samples of male workers in 1960 and 1976 found that the proportions who said that they thought of their company as “the central concern in my life and of greater importance than my personal life,” or as “a part of my life at least equal in importance to my personal life,” were much greater in Japan than in the United States in both years and increased in absolute terms in Japan. The combined percentages for the company commitment responses, in surveys taken sixteen years apart, were 65 moving up to 73 percent for Japanese workers, compared to 29 declining to 21 percent for the Americans. The Americans were much more likely to loose other categories defining their relations to their employers in instrumental terms, that is, as less important than their personal lives.
Seemingly, the Japanese changed toward favoring a deeper involvement with their company, while the Americans became even less enamored of such a stance over the decade and a half between the two surveys .

Varying emphases toward particularism in economic life are evident the responses to 1978 surveys in both countries, which indicated that Japanese were much more likely than Americans to prefer a work supervisor who “looks after you personally in matters not connected with work,” by 87 to 50 percent. The alternative formulation, favoring someone who “never does anything for you personally in matters not connected with work,” was endorsed by 10 percent of the Japanese and percent of the Americans.’”’ The difference in particularistic expectations about the role of supervisors is brought out most strongly in the responses by samples of male workers in 1960 and again in 1976 to the question, “when a worker wishes to marry, I think his (her) supervisor
would [pick from four alternatives] .” Close to three quarters, 7 1-74 percent, of the Americans chose the category, “not to be involved in a personal matter,” as contrasted to 7 going down to 5 percent of Japanese. The dominant answer of the latter, 66 percent moving up from 60, was “offer personal advice to the worker if requested,” an answer given by 20 percent descending to 15 of the Americans.‘ Similar cross-national differences are reported by the World Youth Surveys When they inquired in 1972, 1983, and 1988: “Suppose you work for a superior, do you think it is a good idea to have social contact with him after hours?” The percentage replying, “No” changed slightly to 25.5 to 28 among the Japanese, a response given by a much larger segment of Americans, 42 to 46 percent.”’ Japanese workers are in much more likely to socialize “outside of work” with their supervisor and managers, as well as with co-workers.’

The continued Japanese preference for particularistic relations is also exhibited in the reactions to a question posed in 1973 and 1978 asking them to choose between working for a firm which “paid good wages, but where they did nothing like organizing outings and sports days for the employees’ recreation” and a “firm with a family-like
atmosphere which organized outings and sports days, even if the wages were a little bit less.” The Japanese respondents to both surveys over­whelmingly chose the particularistic alternative, even if it involved less pay, by 74 percent in 1973 and 78 percent in 1978.1°9Japanese executives (50%)were much more likely than Americans (21%) to feel that in determining compensations, (‘a company should take into account the size of the employee’s family,” as compared to believing that “an employee should be paid on the basis of the bvork he is doing for the
company . . . [which] does not have to take into account the employee’s family.”

The Japanese, to reiterate, are more loyal to their employers than are Americans. A review of the relevant behavioral evidence of the early eighties documented the generalization that Japanese workers put in more time on the job per week than American workers . . . unexcused absenteeism is generally so low as to seem nonexistent; strike activity is lower in Japan than in the U.S. . . . and unions cooperate with management in achieving corporate goals and in carrying out company programs. . . Since 1992, however, the workweek differential has vanished as American industry has become leaner to be competitive, although the other generalizations still held up.

Studies of leisure and family involvements, both attitudinal and behavioral, agree that the Japanese devote less time than Americans to leisure pursuits and are more disposed to emphasize work over leisure or home life generally. Thus James Lincoln and Arne Kalleberg Found “only 35 percent of our Japanese sample (vs. 70 percent of the Americans) rate family life as more important than work responsibilities.” The Japanese (49%) were also more likely than Americans (28%) to agree with the statement: “Employees shouldn‘t take time off when
things are busy, even though they have a right to take time off.”115 A 1980 NHK (the public broadcasting system) sunrey found more than a quarter, 27 percent, of Americans gave the highest priority to leisure
activities, while 18 percent of Japanese did. The World Youth Survey reported that when asked in 1977, 1983, and 1988. Which do you find more worthwhile work or something else? Two thirds, 67-7 1 percent, in the United States replied something other than work, as compared to around half, 49-57 percent, of those in Japan.

A survey-based comparison by the Leisure Development Center of Japan in 1989 of work and leisure in seven developed nations noted that the Japanese work the most and have the least time off. Two out of three Japanese employees worked more than 45 hours a week; in every other country surveyed, the majority of workers spent less than 45 hours per week at their jobs. “The American figure [for more] is 42.5 percent. As for weekend holidays, the most common pattern in Japan is one day off, and less than 20% of workers have two-day week­
ands every week. On the other hand . . . 68% of Americans are assured two-day weekends every week.” Not surprisingly, “leisure participaion is comparatively low in Japan. Japan was last in 23-or more than
half-of the [42 leisure activity] categories.”

The United States is not an olAtlier in these respects. In 1994, The Economist reported that behaviorally, Americans are now close to the Japanese pattern and well ahead of the citizens of the European Union
in average number of working hours per year, 1,945 for the United States, 2,017 for Japan, and 1,771 for the European Union.”’ Americans appear significantly more work-oriented than Europeans for every country, still reflecting their Protestant sectarian origins.

Although Japanese groups and firms are intensely competitive, individuals within them are not expected to be-nor do they want to be- in overt rivalries with colleagues in seeking to get ahead. Promotion and salary increases within Japanese firms tend much more to be a distinction of seniority than in American ones, even among white-collar employees and executives.’?” Seniority is even more important and strictly respected within the civil service, where political appointees do not intervene in personnel matters.I2’Chie Nakane points out: “In the
West, merit is given considerable importance, while in Japan the balance goes the other way. In other words, in Japan in contrast to other societies,the provisions for the recognition of merit are somewhat weaker, and the social order is institutionalized largely by means of seniority.” When national cross sections of employed young adults
8 to 24 years of age) were asked in 1977, 1983, and 1988 for their preferred basis for promotions and pay increases, an average of 80 percent of the Americans favored giving more weight to performance than
seniority, compared to 36 percent of the Japanese. Preference for seniority basically stayed constant from 1977 to 1988 at 46 to 44 percent among the Japanese and 16 to 15 percent for the American youth.

The two World Values Surveys conducted in 1981-82 and 1990-91 found that Americans are much more likely than Japanese to believe in merit pay; more of the latter are inclined to pay the same to all in a given type of work. Thus in the first survey, as noted in chapter Four, when asked whether a secretary who “is quicker, more efficient
and more reliable at her job” should be paid more than one of the same age who does less, over four fifths of the Americans, 82 percent, said pay the more useful one more, compared to 68 percent of the Japanese.12‘ The American support for merit basically stayed the same a decade later, while the Japanese actually fell to 48 percent. A second question, presented in 1990, asked respondents whether “there should be greater incentives for individual effort,” or should “incomes be made more equal.” As in the response to the earlier query, the Americans favor greater emphasis on “incentives” by 59 percent to 29 for the Japanese (top four categories). Not surprisingly, business executives in the two countries differed in a similar fashion. Thus, when asked to express a preference between “Jobs in lvhich no one is singled out for personal honor, but in which every one works together” or “Jobs in which personal initiatives are encouraged and individual initiatives are achieved,” almost every American (97%) opted for “individual initiatives,” compared to 49 percent of the Japanese.”’

Individualistic expectations of the American worker, in contrast to the Japanese, are reflected in a comparison of job satisfaction measures taken in 1991 using the Worldwide Office Environment Index.” In response to a question about things rvorkers look for in a job, a large number of U.S. workers said it was very or somewhat true that “I can contribute significantly to my company.” (92%1c),“My job is challenging’ (92%), “Management recognizes my contributions” (84%), and “Employees at all levels are encouraged to participate in problem-solving” (78%). The concomitant percentages of Japanese workers who responded similarly were 69 percent, 73 percent, 63 percent, and 51 percent.”

Ronald Dore accounts for the conundrum of greater emphasis on equality of result in the more elitist society by suggesting that in Japan, “egalitarianism is a matter of the equal rights of all members of the family to consideration granted by the responsible head-viz, in modern terms, responsible elite,”in other words, Tories. In America, on the other hand, “egalitarianism is based on the notion of equal rights of free-standing, rights-asserting individuals.” The difference may also be linked to the greater stress on individualism and competitiveness in
the United States (see Appendix pp. 293-296).

Economists and culturally oriented social scientists debate to what extent the much higher savings rate of the Japanese (15% in 1991) compared to Americans (4.9% in 1992) is a function of variations in corporate structures and tax policies or of values.’?* Without trying to challenge the effect of economic and political policies on savings patterns, it may be noted that in the 1990 World Values Survey, the Japanese were more likely than Americans to say that it is especially important that parents should encourage or teach children about thrift, saving money and things”-by 40 to 28 percent.

Some, though not all, of the comparative survey results dealing with economy-related attitudes appear contradictory. On a subjective level, a number of surveys have found that Japanese are less work­ oriented, less satisfied with their jobs, and less positive in feelings about their companies than Americans. James Lincoln and Arne lleberg, who have commented on these inconsistencies between behavioral and survey findings, note-correctly, I believe-that there“cultural biases operating to generate overly positive assessments work life on the part of American employees and understatements the Japanese. . . .”

The cultural biases are in part an “apparent manifestation of Japan- collectivism and Western individualism . . . [as in] the tendency for Japanese respondents to give average or non-committal answers, while Anglo-American respondents are somewhat more prone to take strong, extreme stands on issues. . . . Ronald Dore suggests that variation in average personality also affect cross-national attitudes, such a difference on a dimension which has cheerfulness and good humored complacency at one pole and a worried earnestness and anxious questing for self-improvement on the other.” He believes this restricts varying propensities to express job satisfaction. Answers to
questions about job satisfaction or working hard or ratings of employers also relative, are affected by conceptions of what hard work means, expectations about a job or organization, by perceptions about fellow workers or supervisors. It has been argued that it is “precisely because Japanese subscribe to a strong work ethic that they are less likely to say that their expectations have been met.”’

The Japanese are more reluctant than the Americans to speak in comparable terms to interviewers about their work role and environment, positive feelings of the former may show up in their response to othcr question posed in the 1990 World Values Survey as to quality which is especially important to impress on children. Almost three fifths, 59 percent, of the Japanese mention “determination, perseverance,” compared to 36 percent of the Americans. But it must be said that the Americans lead in emphasizing “hard work,” 48.5 to 31 percent, a response pattern which reiterates the curious reluctance of Japanese to speak in approving terms of work.

Cultural dispositions clearly affect differences in verbal responses. Japanese are not disposed to boasting, to expressing positive judgments about themselves, a trait which extends to groups of which they are part, such as pride in country, an item on which they rank close to the bottom in international comparisons. Kiyoshi Ando, in explaining why “Americans start speeches by cracking jokes, [while] the Japanese do so by apologizing for their lack of information and their inability to live up to the expectations of the audience, notes that the difference
reflects the fact that in Japan, to be modest is considered desirable and to boast of one’s accomplishments is regarded as negative. He refers to research which shows that the more advanced elementary school students are, the more likely they are to consider humble pride or modesty as the hall-mark of a capable person. Americans, conversely, are almost uninhibited in such terms. They lead the world in positive expressions about their own country.’35 In 1991, 77 percent told Gallup, “I am very proud to be an American,” and 19 percent said,
“quite proud.” Only 4 percent responded negatively. Americans also show up as among the most optimistic people in Gallup Polls conducted in thirty countries, while the Japanese are among the least. Polls taken annually near the end of each year from 1959 to 1987, and again in 1990, posed the following question: “So far as you are concerned, do you think [next year] will be better or worse than [last year]?”6 Even in December 1990, after the recession began, the United States still led, with 48 percent of Americans, compared to only 23 percent of the Japanese, who had not yet entered a recession, replying next year will be better. At the end of 1992, Americans were even more optimistic (61%), while the Japanese Lvere unchanged; 24 percent thought 1993 would be better.

Individualism may also press Americans to give positive responses about satisfaction with job and company, while embeddedness in strong group allegiances reduces the propensit!, of the Japanese to answer in comparable terms. Since Americans believe in personal choice of jobs, schools, and mates, a response that one docs not like
hisher situation raises the question: What is wrong with the individual?‘Why does he/she not quit? Japanese, in contrast, do not have the option to break from a group relationship. If the individual does not like the spouse or company, there is no implication that there is something wrong with the respondent. Hence, Japanese can be
much more outspoken about voicing negative feelings than Americans. In this case, individualism constrains speech; group allegiances liberate.

Group oriented commitments are weak in the United States, where the religious tradition, linked to its Puritan origins, emphasizes individualism and personal rights. Bourgeois norms enjoin the same behavior. Americans do not feel obligations, other than familial, if these conflict with the requirements of efficiency or income. They are more disposed than other people to expect individuals to do their best for themselves, not for others.

STATUS PATTERNS

The dominant stratification orientations of the two societies are also quite different. America, as noted, stresses equality of opportunity and quality of respect, but not of income. Tocqueville suggested that Americans believe individuals should give and receive respect because they are human beings. Everyone recognizes that inequality exists, but its impolite to emphasize it in dealing with others.

In Japan, as the industrialized society most recently derivative from feudalism, hierarchy remains important in defining social relations. Edwin Reischauer has written that no other people place a greater emphasis on status differentiation in social relationships than the Japanese.’ Living in a relatively collectivist society, Japanese “show much more status consciousness and accept [social] inequality to a greater extent than individualists,” such as Americans. ‘39 Each person in an institution has a place in the prestige order. It is generally recognized that medicine everywhere is the most status-conscious occupation. Physicians demand and receive more deference than those in other professions, perhaps because of the concern about health and consequent need to respect and obey doctors.“ But the comparative evidence indicates that the Japanese again are outliers in this respect. Stephen Anderson reports that more than in other “advanced industrial societies, physicians in Japan make treatment decisions with little consultation with their patients. Compared to client behavior in the United States, clients in Japan seldom question a physician are less likely to file cases of malpractice to challenge errors in medical judgment.” Conversely, Americans are the most prone to do this concern for status also shows up with respect to education. A comparative surveys of youth aged 18-24 conducted in 1977, 1983, and 1988 found, in response to the questions concerning the factors valued about a college education, that the Japanese were much more likely than their trans-Pacific counterparts to say that “having gone to a top ranking college” should be valued, by an average margin of 25 to 16 percent, while Americans put much more emphasis than Japanese on “school performance and school record,” by 39 to 10 percent." The results of a detailed study of the relationship of college status and occupational attainment in Japan and the United States on a mass level challenges the thesis that educational credentialism is greater in Japan than in the United States. However, “when we focus on the process of elite formation, a different picture emerges. The linkage between the size of educational stratification and way of the corporate managerial [and civil service] hierarchy appears to be much stronger in Japan than in the United States.” And Ronald Dore notes that in Japan, the “examination-selected official still has higher prestige than the elected politician.” Douglas Kenrick states that Americans “think of civil servants as wielders of red-tape which clogs private enterprise. The Japanese think of them as functionaries who make and implement the rules which make for communal harmony.”

Hierarchy is particularly evident in the Japanese use of words, many of which are laden with social-status connotations. Japanese employ different terms in conversations with superiors, equals, and inferiors.
In this way, their language is one in which status determines how people talk to each other. When two people meet, they must be able to place one another in order to determine how to interact, although for a brief meeting persons who are unacquainted may use status-neutral terms. A friend of mine, an anthropologist at Stanford, tells of an experience during his stay in Japan as a visiting professor. He invited two Japanese colleagues, who did not know one another, to dinner. They devoted considerable time trying to place each other hierarchically. Not only would this determine the language they used to each other, but even who would talk through the door to the dining room first. My friend could not get them to move to go in to dinner. A last, acting like a hungry, uncouth American, he literally shoved them into the dining room. To those who may think this story is unrepresentative, I submit the observation by Chie Nakane: “In everyday affairs a man who is not aware of relative ranking is not able to speak or even to sit or eat. When speaking, he is always expected to be ready with differentiated, delicate
degrees of honorific expressions appropriate to the rank order between himself and the person he is addressing. The English language is inadequate to supply appropriate equivalents in such contexts.

Although both countries are political democracies, the Japanese are more respectful of political leaders, of persons in positions of authority, and less likely to favor protest activities. Americans, on the other hand, tend to be more anti-elitist and suspicious of those in power. George DeVos notes that in Japan, “[aluthority figures-political, administrative, and familial-are for the most part, granted a degree of respect rare in the United States. . . .”’” These generalizations are borne out by comparative survey research which indicates that Japanese are more
likely than Americans to agree that “if we get outstanding political leaders, the best way to improve the country is for people to leave everything to them, rather than for the people to discuss things among themselves.” Both, however, express a low level of “confidence” in their current (1995) crop of politicians. Japanese respect for authority is also evident in the finding that a much greater percentage of them than of Americans feel that parents should support teachers by denying to their child the validity of a story “that his teacher had done something
to get himself in trouble,”even if the rumor is true.’

The Japanese are also less disposed to give verbal support to extra­parliamcntary activism, although the behavior of their students during the sixties may have contradicted such statements. The youth surveys conducted in 1972, 1977, 1983, and 1988 found that the Japanese were the least likely among persons aged 18 to 24 in six countries
France, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and West Germany to say that if they “are not satisfied with the society,” they would “engage in active actions as far as they are legal” to change things-2 1 percent in 1988, down from 37 in 1972-while the Americans were the most disposed among the six to favor activism, 55 per­ cent falling off from 62. The modal response (39 to 41%) for the Japanese was, “I will use my voting rights but nothin. g A somewhat familar question was posed in the 1990 World Values Survey with comparable cross-national findings. Over three fifths, 61 percent, of the Japanese said they would never take part in a demonstration, while only 38 percent of the Americans would commit themselves not to do so.

The latter were consistently more likely to indicate a greater willingness than their trans-Pacific peers to engage in various forms of more militant or even illegal political action. Here is further evidence of the different attitudes of Americans and Japanese (as well as Europeans) conformity.

GENDER RELATlONS

Gender-linked behavior presents another area in which the United States and Japan continue to vary along the traditional-modern axis, with Japan continuing to maintain its historic values and behavior. Mary Brinton emphasizes that Japan is “a persistent outlier among industrial societies, demonstrating a greater male-female wage differential and more pronounced sex segregation across a range of indicators, including employment status and occupation. . . .”‘’’The United States differs from Japan on all of these variables.‘”

Before the recession of the early 199Os, structural changes in the economy forced the Japanese to choose between admitting large numbers of foreign workers, thereby upsetting their traditional aversion to accepting outsiders, or allowing a sizable increase in employed married female labor, thereby undermining the norms defining the relations between the sexes. The Japanese chose to do the latter, although they remained far behind the United States and almost all other industrialized nations in participation by ivomen in the employed labor force.’’’ The recession, however, led to a great erosion of the job gains Japanese women had made during the eighties. This reaction could have been anticipated from the findings of the 1990 World Values Survey, which asked respondents to react to the statement. “When jobs are scarce, men have more right to a job than women.“ The great majority of Americans, 70 percent, disagreed, a sentiment shared by only 23 percent of the Japanese. A 1993 Labor Ministr)? survey of one thousand companies “found that more than half said they xvere cutting back in the hiring of women so they could keep hiring male students. . . .” The New York Times reported in May 1994 that Japanese “corporate executives said . . . they were not inclined to . . . comply with the country’s eight-year old Equal Employment Opportunity Law. . . .” The behavior of Japanese employers during a recession demonstrates that their previous willingness to hire women “had far less to do with a change in national values than with a shortage of worhers.” Essentially, Japan responded to the economic downswing of the early nineties by cutting back sharply on female employment. Many companies stopped hiring women college graduates.

Japanese values, of course, do change. This is particularly evident in the almost 40 percent decline in the marriage rate in Japan over the past two decades, while the increase in the average age of newlywed has been greater than in any other society. Marriage rates have changed little in America in recent years, hovering around 15 per 1,000
Population, aged 15 to 64, between 1960 and 1991, while dropping from 14.5 to 6 per 1,000 in Japan in the same period.’ The age of marriage in Japan is the highest in the world.’6 And not surprisingly, the changes in behavior have been paralleled by shifts in attitude. The proportion of Japanese females agreeing with the statement: “Women had better marry because women’s happiness lies in marriage,” declined from 40 percent in 1972 to 14 percent in 1990.”’ Marriage values apart, traditional values concerning cross-sex relations and the behavior of single women remain much stronger in Japan. Mary Brinton points out: “Rates of cohabitation [with an unmarried person of the opposite sex] have. . . increased dramatically in the United States, but trend is scarcely visible in Japan.”

Gender relations remain much more traditionally hierarchical, more asymmetrical in Japan than in Western nations, particularly the United States.’” The traditional male-dominant family is much more characteristic of Japan. Comparative survey data gathered by NHK in 1980 indicate that three fifths of the Japanese think males “have higher anatomical ability” than women; most Americans, 72 percent, believe that nature there are no differences between men and women.“ The NHK study reports that 80 percent of Japanese men and 74 percent of the women say the “husband should have the final deciding voice” in the family, compared to 40 percent of American men and 34 percent of the women. When asked how the household chores should divided when the husband and wife both work, 90 percent of the Americans said equally between the spouses, a position taken by only slightly over half of the Japanese, including 54 percent of the women.’“ That these cross-national variations in opinions correspond to behavioral differences is evident in Table 7-3 below. In Japan between 1965 and 1990, an unchanging nine tenths or more of the time spent on household chores is spent by women, compared to 79
percent declining to 64 percent in the United States.

Even these cross-national differences, it is not surprising that the Primee Minister’s Office multinational Survey of parents of children, which inquired in 1981 whether women should have jobs after marriage or “after childbirth,” found that a majority of Americans, 52.5 percent replied, “Yes, at any time,” in contrast to 30 percent of the Japanese. Similarly, the 1990 World Values Survey reports that Japanese are more likely than Americans to agree that “A pre-school child is to suffer if his or her mother works,” by 70 to 51 percent.

TABLE 7-3. DISTRIBUTION BETWEEN WOMEN AND MEN OF AVERAGE TIME SPENT PER WEEK IN HOUSEWORK AND CHILD CARE: JAPAN, 1965-90, AND THE UNITED STATES, 1965-86 (PERCENT)

Source: Noriko O.Tsurya, ”Work and Family, Life in Japan: Changes and Continuities.” Unpublished paper, Department of Sociology, Nihon University, Tokyo, 1992. Table -4

The Japanese-conducted international youth surveys reported cross- national differences running in the same direction when they asked respondents to react to the more general statement: “wen should go out to work while women stay home and take care of the house.” In each year (1977, 1983, and 1988), the large majority of Americans dis­ agreed by 71, 81, and 81 percent, compared to minorities, albeit increasing ones, of Japanese, 32, 35, and 44 percent, who felt the same way.2 The Prime Minister’s Office also reported that American spouses are much more likely to socialize together than Japanese. The percentages for “eating out” are 48 American, 17 Japanese; for “films and theaters,” 40 percent and for “social parties,” 37 and 5; and for “travel,”33 and 5."

Polls conducted in 1990 by the Roper Organization and the Dentsu Institute for the Virginia Slims Company in both nations supply further evidence of continued Japanese traditionalism in gender relations.’“ Working females were asked lvhether “the men you ivork with really look on you as an equal or not?” American women replied by 59 to 29 percent that they are viewed as equals. The Japanese response pattern was diametrically opposite, Ivith 55 percent of the women saying they are not looked upon as equals and only 31 percent thinking they are.
Asked whether women’s opportunities are the same as those of men in various job-related areas, American women are much more likely than Japanese women to perceive equality for salaries-65 to 24 percent; for responsibility-74 to 37 percent; for promotion-60 to 18 percent; and for becoming an executive-49 to 15 percent. These perception differences correspond to variations in national behavioral patterns. In 1990, two fifths, 40 percent, of administrative and managerial positions in the United States were filled by women, up from 27.5 in 1981, as compared to only 7.9 percent in Japan, up from 5.3 in 1981.165 Clearly, women are gaining more rapidly in America than across the Pacific in the attainment of executive positions. And a report by the Japanese Ministry of Labor shows that “women made up just 1.2 percent of company division managers in 1991, not significantly higher than the figure of 0.8 percent recorded in 1981.

A 1991 survey of mothers of junior high school students in Japan and America found again that women in Japan are much more traditional than their trans-Pacific peers with respect to gender roles of adults and their treatment and expectations for their offspring. Thus over half, 53 percent, of the Japanese mothers agree that “Husbands
hould u.ork outside and lvives should take care of the family,” in contast to 39 percent of the Americans. Similarly, over three fifths, 61 percent, of the American mothers disagree with the statement: “Men were supposed to play a central role and women are supposed to support women,” a point of view rejected by less than half, 44 percent, of the Japanese mothers.

Japanese mothers are more disposed than Americans to vary their treatment of siblings according to gender. Just over half the former, in contrast to 38 percent of the latter, say “boys and girls should be raised differently.” More specifically, when asked: “What education level do you want your child to achieve?” Americans do not differentiate their expectations for sons and daughters; 83 percent want both to graduate from -university. Japanese mothers, on the other hand, vary anticipations according to the sex of their children. Sixty-seven percent want
their male offspring to go to university, while only 35 percent wish the same for females.“

Cross-national attitudinal and behavioral differences are linked conversely. Of the 38 percent of Japanese males who continue their education beyond high school, fully 95 percent attend four-year university among the one third of females who are in post-high school studies, “nearly two-thirds . . . go on to junior colleges and the rest study in four-year universities.” T he situation is reversed in the United States, where a larger proportion of college-age women (61%) of men (55%) are enrolled in tertiary institutions, more or less proportionally distributed by gender in different types of higher education. 169 Basically, as Mary Brinton has stressed, “a central purpose of women’s education in contemporary Japan is preparation for family roles.” More education does not lead to “a stronger career orientation.” University graduates are less likely to take a job upon graduation than junior college or high school graduates. Conversely, “the primary reason stated for enrollment in higher education among American women in 1980 was job preparation.”

The distinctive gender-linked attitudes and behaviors in Japan and America appear to be supported by friendship patterns. Both younger (18-24) and older (65 plus) Japanese are much more likely than comparably aged Americans to say that all of their close friends are of their sex. Among the youth, the ratio of Japanese to Americans to so report is 51 to 10 percent; among the aged, it is 57 to 32 percent. The dropoff between the generations in traditional behavior is clearly much greater in the United States. Over four fifths of American youth report having friends of both genders in 1977, 1983, and 1988; less than half of the Japanese do so, although the percentage has been increasing from 32 percent in 1977 to 49 percent in 1988.”

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