Nonregular Workers and Inequality in Japan
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15100343 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Charles Weathers (0000-0002-7490-8842, Partners In Care, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 143-148 |
| Publication date | 2009-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Science Japan Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1369-1465 • E-ISSN: 1468-2680 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ssjj/jyn067 |
| OpenAlex | W2058829173 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
Inequality and the rapid growth of the nonregular work force have become major social concerns in Japan over the past decade. The number of nonregular employees has risen rapidly, through economic growth and slump alike, since the early 1990s. New government figures put the proportion of nonregular workers at 37.8%, second only to the Netherlands among advanced democracies. During the same period, the poverty rate has grown alarmingly as well and now ranks a close second to that of the US. While the link between rising numbers of nonregular workers and rising poverty is unproven, the existence of such a link is now widely assumed among the public. In Japan, the division between regular workers (seishain) and nonregular workers (hiseiki shain) is especially sharp. Seishain are full-time employees enjoying good incomes and fairly strong job security, but expected (and in fact legally required) to submit to employer demands, notably for overtime and burdensome transfers, on pain of losing their jobs. Hiseiki shain, including part-time, contract, subcontract and agency temporary workers, generally earn about half of what regular workers earn and can be fairly readily dismissed, though they are not at employers’ beck and call. This division is frequently based primarily on status rather than economic rationality since many nonregulars do the same or similar work as regular workers. In addition, the number of young men stuck in low-paid jobs has soared in the past decade.
Agency (philosophy) · Business · Demographic economics · Economic growth · Economics · Government (linguistics) · Inequality · Job security · Labour economics · Overtime · Poverty · Sociology · Work (physics) · Employment and Welfare Studies · Engineering · Mathematics · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Social Policy and Reform Studies
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| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.36 |
| Citation span | 2012 - 2024 (13) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |