Japan: women and work - Reports From Around the World: Asia and Pacific - Brief Article

WIN News, Spring, 2002

FROM JAPANESE WOMEN'

THE FUSAE ICHIKAWA MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION

21-11 Yoyogi 2-Chome, Shibuya-Ku, Tokyo 151-0053, JAPAN

e-mail: fitikawa@trust.ocn.ne.jp

website: http://www.ichikawa-fusae.or.jp

LOWER HOUSE PASSES CHILD-CARE LEAVE BILL

"On November 9, 2001, the House of Representatives, at a plenary session unanimously passed a bill to revise a law concerning child-rearing and nursing care for families.

The new System:

* allows workers to take days off for sick children

* prohibits employers from treating workers unfairly on the ground of taking days off to care for children or families

* restricts overtime work of workers with children under primary school age or families to care for

* raises the age of children whose parents are eligible to avail themselves of child-rearing support measures (from 0 to 3 years of age), and

* calls on employers to give due consideration when they transfer workers.

The new system will go into effect in April, 2002, but will be reviewed in 2005.

JAPAN

ONLY 2.2% OF CAREER-TRACK WORKERS FEMALE

According to a government survey released on October 5, 2001, female workers accounted for only 2.2 percent of workers being groomed for senior management at Japanese companies. The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry survey was conducted from October 2000 to March 2001 on 215 companies nationwide with career-track systems.

Among the 215 companies, 72.6 percent said that women made up less than 10 percent of career-track workers, while 13.1 percent said they had no women on career track programs.

The ministry said 14 our of the 215 companies had practices that infringed on the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, which was enacted in 1986 to prevent discrimination against women in the workplace. The violations included setting different career courses for men and women and hiring only men for career-track positions. The ministry advised these 14 companies to improve the situation, and urged all 215 companies to adopt positive action for women.

JAPAN

WORKING GROUP ON WOMEN AND PENSION SUBMITS REPORT

A working group to investigate pension system responding to the changing lifestyle of women, chaired by Takako Sodei and established in the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, submitted a report to Minister Chikara Sakaguchi. The report aims to realize a pension system in which women's contributions are duly considered.

The report presents six problems:

* to make a dual-income family a standard model

* to expand the application of employee's pension plans to part-time and short-time workers

* to revise class 3 insured system (wives of salaried workers are exempted from premiums...)

* to consider taking some measures addressing child-rearing period

* to consider division of pension at divorce and

* to correct imbalance of survivor's pensions between dual-income families and single-income families, and proposes concrete solutions.

Regarding class 3 insured system, the report makes six proposals. One of them proposes that husbands pay their wives' premiums, and another proposes that wives pay their premiums since half of their husbands' income is regarded as theirs.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CASE STUDY CONDUCTED

The Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office released the results of a survey on cases of spousal Violence based on interviews with battered women. The survey targeted 62 women who visited women's consulting offices and other facilities for help last year. The average age of those women was 41. The survey revealed that all suffered physical damage from their husbands - some life-threatening such as being almost strangled (37 women). Spousal violence included mental violence and verbal violence, social isolation and sexual violence. . ."