An Analysis of the Response to Womenomics in Japan Comparing Modern Gender Role Perception and Workforce Participation

Absztrakt (kivonat)

This paper attempts to show the difference between genders and whether future prospects and opportunities have changed for young women in Japan and if so how. The Japanese government introduced a policy set in 2013, “Womenomics”, as a long-waited answer for their aging society. An aging society is considered as Japan’s biggest challenge, because it has a major impact on both the population and the labor force. Therefore, the government wanted to boost economic growth by reducing the barriers in joining the workforce for women. Have gender expectations and gender norms changed in Japan since the last generation? Have the opportunities for employment and expectations of household labor improved to be more equal between the two genders? And if so, is it really the result of the Womenomics? It is this thesis’s first hypothesis that Womenomics does not appropriately seek to better the positions of women in the workforce, leaving gender discrimination an active force affecting women’s decision to choose between full and part time employment. Secondly, the numerical success of Womenomics can be attributed to other independent factors. As result of this paper’s research, Womenomics has appeared to boost the participation of women in the labor force. However, other factors, such as economic stagnation and rising cost of living may be accountable for this trend. Additionally, a significant portion of women are joining part-time jobs, due to the societal expectations of motherhood conflicting with a classical full-time structure. This paper will use a mixed methodology to showcase gender roles and their intersection with job opportunities in the Japanese society. Five interviews were made with Japanese exchange students studying in Hungary and their answers were compared to database and gender trends. The paper focuses on the students’ opinion about the generational change between their mothers’ and their own opportunity.