Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/18692729.2022.2032544
F. Waldenberger
{"title":"Message from the editor","authors":"F. Waldenberger","doi":"10.1080/18692729.2022.2032544","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2022.2032544","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":"34 1","pages":"1 - 2"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47779000","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/18692729.2022.2028229
P. Robinson, C. Sibala, Kiyohiko Ito, Vicki L. Beyer
ABSTRACT In Japan, contract workers have never been on par with regular workers in terms of pay or benefits for similar work. However, the disparity between contract workers and regular workers has seen a sudden and dramatic turn for the worse since 2018 when the unintended consequences of the 2012 amendments to the 2007 Labor Contracts Act took effect. Although employment numbers may appear consistent over time, in actuality, as of 2018, nearly all contract workers are being replaced every three to five years. This is because employers are choosing contract lengths that prevent contract employees from qualifying under the 2012 amendments for ongoing, long-term employment. Accordingly, being forced to change jobs every three to five years in Japan’s seniority-based employment system is causing contract workers to fall further and further behind their regular worker peers in terms of wages, as well as job security, even as they are performing the same work. This is striking because the purpose of the 2012 amendments to the Labor Contracts Act was to bolster employment security and provide more equality between regular and contract workers. Instead, as more and more employees lose regular employment and fall into contingent and contract work due to corporate downsizing, the marginalization of contract workers in Japan increases, and their numbers expand. This paper proposes an interdisciplinary explanation of the evolution of contract work in Japan since 2000, drawing on: 1) a case study, and 2) labor market data.
{"title":"The deepening divide In Japanese employment: The increasing marginalization of contract workers as explained by path dependence, vested interests, and social psychology","authors":"P. Robinson, C. Sibala, Kiyohiko Ito, Vicki L. Beyer","doi":"10.1080/18692729.2022.2028229","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2022.2028229","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In Japan, contract workers have never been on par with regular workers in terms of pay or benefits for similar work. However, the disparity between contract workers and regular workers has seen a sudden and dramatic turn for the worse since 2018 when the unintended consequences of the 2012 amendments to the 2007 Labor Contracts Act took effect. Although employment numbers may appear consistent over time, in actuality, as of 2018, nearly all contract workers are being replaced every three to five years. This is because employers are choosing contract lengths that prevent contract employees from qualifying under the 2012 amendments for ongoing, long-term employment. Accordingly, being forced to change jobs every three to five years in Japan’s seniority-based employment system is causing contract workers to fall further and further behind their regular worker peers in terms of wages, as well as job security, even as they are performing the same work. This is striking because the purpose of the 2012 amendments to the Labor Contracts Act was to bolster employment security and provide more equality between regular and contract workers. Instead, as more and more employees lose regular employment and fall into contingent and contract work due to corporate downsizing, the marginalization of contract workers in Japan increases, and their numbers expand. This paper proposes an interdisciplinary explanation of the evolution of contract work in Japan since 2000, drawing on: 1) a case study, and 2) labor market data.","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":"34 1","pages":"13 - 41"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41475934","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-29DOI: 10.1080/18692729.2021.2022573
U. Teichler
{"title":"Family-run universities in Japan: Sources of inbuilt resilience in the face of demographic pressure, 1992-2030","authors":"U. Teichler","doi":"10.1080/18692729.2021.2022573","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2021.2022573","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":"34 1","pages":"245 - 247"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44114331","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-17DOI: 10.1080/18692729.2021.2015846
Gabriele Vogt, Anne-Sophie L. König
ABSTRACT In light of its rapidly aging society, Japan is pressured to full-heartedly address the labor shortage in long-term care. Among the various policy options currently in discussion, government agencies and business sector representatives agree that robotic devices and information and communication technology (ICT) constitute a suitable countermeasure. However, during our research in Japan in 2019, we found that robotic devices and ICT are only reluctantly being introduced into long-term care facilities. Based on our field visits and interviews as well as supplementary document research, this paper discusses the potential that facility managers ascribe to robotic devices and ICT when it comes to alleviating the labor shortage in the long-term care institutions they run. Of particular interest is the question to what degree the usage of robotic devices and ICT could reduce the physical hardships and mental stress that staff in long-term caregiving experience. This paper will further our understanding of the labor situation in long-term care facilities and contribute to the research field of robotic devices and ICT in Japan’s labor market.
{"title":"Robotic devices and ICT in long-term care in Japan: Their potential and limitations from a workplace perspective","authors":"Gabriele Vogt, Anne-Sophie L. König","doi":"10.1080/18692729.2021.2015846","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2021.2015846","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In light of its rapidly aging society, Japan is pressured to full-heartedly address the labor shortage in long-term care. Among the various policy options currently in discussion, government agencies and business sector representatives agree that robotic devices and information and communication technology (ICT) constitute a suitable countermeasure. However, during our research in Japan in 2019, we found that robotic devices and ICT are only reluctantly being introduced into long-term care facilities. Based on our field visits and interviews as well as supplementary document research, this paper discusses the potential that facility managers ascribe to robotic devices and ICT when it comes to alleviating the labor shortage in the long-term care institutions they run. Of particular interest is the question to what degree the usage of robotic devices and ICT could reduce the physical hardships and mental stress that staff in long-term caregiving experience. This paper will further our understanding of the labor situation in long-term care facilities and contribute to the research field of robotic devices and ICT in Japan’s labor market.","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":"35 1","pages":"270 - 290"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46987376","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-06DOI: 10.1080/18692729.2021.1999885
P. Cave
young and middle-aged migrants’ trajectories, it provokes us to think about other young people’s lives in contemporary society. After all, not all individuals facing difficulties in postgrowth society decide to migrate to rural areas. Future research could approach this topic from a comparative approach, juxtaposing young individuals who remain in urban areas and those who remain in rural areas with those who choose migration. This could offer additional insight into people’s struggles in post-growth society and their ways to cope with them. Further, whereas this book includes both young and middle-aged migrants, the differences between those groups is only touched upon lightly. It would be interesting to further distinguish between the different age-groups in order to investigate if their struggles and values vary and how that may be rooted within the specific circumstances of their upbringing. To conclude, this book combines insightful narratives from the field with theoretical reflections on major issues of contemporary societies around the globe. The strong relation between the topics of individual chapters results in minor repetitions of some concepts and examples from the author’s observations. However, these reoccurring themes do not affect the overall reading experience. This book conveys its messages in a highly comprehensible manner and is suitable for scholars as well as students of Japanese society.
{"title":"Education and social justice in Japan","authors":"P. Cave","doi":"10.1080/18692729.2021.1999885","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2021.1999885","url":null,"abstract":"young and middle-aged migrants’ trajectories, it provokes us to think about other young people’s lives in contemporary society. After all, not all individuals facing difficulties in postgrowth society decide to migrate to rural areas. Future research could approach this topic from a comparative approach, juxtaposing young individuals who remain in urban areas and those who remain in rural areas with those who choose migration. This could offer additional insight into people’s struggles in post-growth society and their ways to cope with them. Further, whereas this book includes both young and middle-aged migrants, the differences between those groups is only touched upon lightly. It would be interesting to further distinguish between the different age-groups in order to investigate if their struggles and values vary and how that may be rooted within the specific circumstances of their upbringing. To conclude, this book combines insightful narratives from the field with theoretical reflections on major issues of contemporary societies around the globe. The strong relation between the topics of individual chapters results in minor repetitions of some concepts and examples from the author’s observations. However, these reoccurring themes do not affect the overall reading experience. This book conveys its messages in a highly comprehensible manner and is suitable for scholars as well as students of Japanese society.","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":"35 1","pages":"293 - 297"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48344801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-11DOI: 10.1080/18692729.2021.1988195
Gabriele Vogt
{"title":"Immigrant Japan: mobility and belonging in an ethno-nationalist society","authors":"Gabriele Vogt","doi":"10.1080/18692729.2021.1988195","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2021.1988195","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46139072","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-08DOI: 10.1080/18692729.2021.1989132
F. Coulmas
{"title":"Cultural manifold analysis on national character","authors":"F. Coulmas","doi":"10.1080/18692729.2021.1989132","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2021.1989132","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46399882","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-24DOI: 10.1080/18692729.2021.1985222
Anna Lughezzani
This book addresses a very important and yet understudied topic, the koseki, namely the registration system that documents the identity of the Japanese. Usually translated as household or family re...
{"title":"Gender and the Koseki in contemporary Japan: Surname, power, and privilege","authors":"Anna Lughezzani","doi":"10.1080/18692729.2021.1985222","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2021.1985222","url":null,"abstract":"This book addresses a very important and yet understudied topic, the koseki, namely the registration system that documents the identity of the Japanese. Usually translated as household or family re...","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":"34 1","pages":"252 - 255"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44190646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-19DOI: 10.1080/18692729.2021.1971362
Kazuya Fukuoka
ABSTRACT In December 2006, the Japanese Diet passed a revision of the Fundamental Law of Education (FLE), which aimed at teaching a sense of community and patriotic feelings among school children. This move is a clear departure from the long-standing norm in Japan’s post-war education policy in which democratic control and egalitarianism were the two primary principles. As the new FLE emphasizes the importance of love of country, how could the principle be potentially embodied in the contents of teaching materials for moral education? This exploratory study questions how such principles might be embedded in the contents of teaching materials for moral education. There are two analytical foci of this study. First, through the analysis of a supplementary moral reader, Watashitachi no Dōtoku (Our Morals), directly written, commissioned, and distributed by the Ministry of Education (2014–2017/2018), this study reveals how the three underlying themes of the Revised FLE, including patriotism, public spirit, and international cooperation, are projected on the contents and narratives of Our Morals. Second, this intended image of Japan in Our Morals (concretized by the Ministry of Education) is also scrutinized against the backdrop of Japan’s contemporary multicultural challenges. This study attempts to encapsulate the manifestation of the government’s intentions observable in Our Morals and the findings of this study thus highlight the political (rather than educational/pedagogical) significance of Our Morals.
2006年12月，日本国会通过了《教育基本法》修订案，旨在培养学生的社区意识和爱国主义情怀。这一举措明显背离了日本战后教育政策的长期规范，即民主控制和平等主义是两个主要原则。新《法》强调爱国的重要性，如何在德育教材的内容中体现爱国的原则?本探索性研究探讨如何将这些原则嵌入到德育教材的内容中。本研究有两个分析焦点。首先，本研究通过分析教育部直接编写、委托和发行的补充道德读物Watashitachi no Dōtoku(我们的道德)(2014-2017/2018)，揭示了修订后的FLE的三个基本主题，包括爱国主义，公共精神和国际合作如何投射到我们的道德的内容和叙述上。其次，在日本当代多元文化挑战的背景下，《我们的道德》(由文部科学省具体化)中所描绘的日本形象也被仔细审视。本研究试图概括在《我们的道德》中观察到的政府意图的表现，因此本研究的发现突出了《我们的道德》的政治意义(而不是教育/教学意义)。
{"title":"Redesigning What is National: The Politics of Education and the New Moral Education Initiative in Globalizing Japan","authors":"Kazuya Fukuoka","doi":"10.1080/18692729.2021.1971362","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2021.1971362","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In December 2006, the Japanese Diet passed a revision of the Fundamental Law of Education (FLE), which aimed at teaching a sense of community and patriotic feelings among school children. This move is a clear departure from the long-standing norm in Japan’s post-war education policy in which democratic control and egalitarianism were the two primary principles. As the new FLE emphasizes the importance of love of country, how could the principle be potentially embodied in the contents of teaching materials for moral education? This exploratory study questions how such principles might be embedded in the contents of teaching materials for moral education. There are two analytical foci of this study. First, through the analysis of a supplementary moral reader, Watashitachi no Dōtoku (Our Morals), directly written, commissioned, and distributed by the Ministry of Education (2014–2017/2018), this study reveals how the three underlying themes of the Revised FLE, including patriotism, public spirit, and international cooperation, are projected on the contents and narratives of Our Morals. Second, this intended image of Japan in Our Morals (concretized by the Ministry of Education) is also scrutinized against the backdrop of Japan’s contemporary multicultural challenges. This study attempts to encapsulate the manifestation of the government’s intentions observable in Our Morals and the findings of this study thus highlight the political (rather than educational/pedagogical) significance of Our Morals.","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":"35 1","pages":"248 - 269"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41847703","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-24DOI: 10.1080/18692729.2021.1957543
Antonia Miserka
This study, written by Susanne Klien from Hokkaido University, contributes to research on rural areas and urban-rural migration by demonstrating new ways of thinking about rurality as a theoretical...
{"title":"Urban migrants in rural Japan: Between agency and anomie in a post-growth society","authors":"Antonia Miserka","doi":"10.1080/18692729.2021.1957543","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2021.1957543","url":null,"abstract":"This study, written by Susanne Klien from Hokkaido University, contributes to research on rural areas and urban-rural migration by demonstrating new ways of thinking about rurality as a theoretical...","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":"35 1","pages":"291 - 293"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/18692729.2021.1957543","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45485198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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