B. Choi Jain

Starting Stories, Interests and Questions

日本の働く女性が家事育児をする大変さについて話したい。ドラマ「逃げるは恥だが、役に立つ」から見た印象深いシーンがある。女主人公のミクリは高学歴であっても就職に失敗し、男主人公の平匡と契約結婚して家事でお金を稼いできた。その後、彼女と恋に落ちた彼は正式に結婚するためにプロポーズしたが、彼女は有償だった家事が無償になることに不当だと感じて断る。このシーンで女性は仕事と家事の中必ず一つだけを選び、家事育児は当然女性がするものとする社会に不便を感じた。不況による世帯所得の減少と性平等認識で共働き夫婦は増えているが、女性の家事育児の負担は変わらない。働く夫の家事育児の参加時間は妻が無業の世帯においては75分、共働き世帯では84分となっており、妻の就労形態に関わらず参加時間は低調だという。₍₁₎私は働く女性の家事育児の負担を減らすためには家庭と会社内の改革が必要だと考える。

まず、家庭で男女に対する家事育児参加の評価基準ラインを合わせるべきだ。男は家事をしなくてもかまわなく、仕事を少し手伝うだけで家庭的な夫になれる。女は家事を一つでも疎かにすると主婦らしくない妻になってしまう。家事が上手でも当然やるべきことをしただけだ。従来の伝統的女性性が家事育児の参加において男はゼロからプラス、女はマイナスからゼロへ行く不公平なスタートラインを作ったからだ。そのため、共働き夫婦が仕事を分担する時、夫が簡単な仕事をして妻が難しい仕事を引き受けても、妻は自分の仕事が分担されたから楽になる立場に立つしかない。資料1(2頁参考）の共働き夫婦の家事育児への参加頻度を見ると、女はいずれも平均値が高いが、男は食事の後片付け,子供の食事や身の回りの世話、子どもの遊びや話しの相手がせめても高い。食事、洗濯、掃除に比べて簡単なことだが、これらも女より平均値が低い_。（２）つまり、男より女の方が家事育児の負担が大きいわけだ。結局、共働き夫婦が家事育児を分担すれば、一見すると公平に見えても仕事の強度と所要時間まで見ると女の犠牲がある。家庭内の男女評価基準ラインを同等に合わせるためには、家庭的な夫としての期待価値をさらに高めなければならない。そして、この期待価値は男が家事育児をするのがお手伝いじゃないく、家庭の一人として一緒にすべきことという認識を皆が持ってこそ上がる。

次に、共働き夫婦が家庭にいる時間を増やすために会社にいる時間を減らすべきだ。男女とも家にいる時間が十分にあってこそ家事育児が女に偏らず分担できるからだ。すでに政府は共働き夫婦の勤務時間を減らすために短時間勤務制度、育児時間制度など多様な政策を行ってきた。しかし、家計維持のために自分の勤務時間を減らせない場合や、勤務時間が短いと上司が残業を課せなくて短時間勤務を申し出るのが難しい社内雰囲気のため利用しにくい。実際に日本の会社は残業時間を含めた勤務時間が長い。メンバーシップ型雇用を行うため勤務契約書に定まった業務内容がないからだ。そのため、職員は様々な分野の業務をして業務量が多くなり、残業が生じる。そして、終身雇用と年功序列の影響で会社に長くいることを好む社内文化も残業の原因だ。日本は2016年の国際労働時間比較からみると、残業時間を除いた年間1713時間で22位だが、₍₃₎国内業種別残業時間が月平均14時間以上であることまで足すと、日本は世界的に勤務時間が長すぎる国となる。₍₄₎結局、会社が直接全体の勤務時間を減らさなければならない。これは会社の非効率的な内部運営システムをなくせばできる。何の成果もなく繰り返される会議、一つの案件を通わすために複数人が決裁すること、マニュアル化しすぎた業務手順、意味のない朝例などがある。こうした効率より規律を重視する業務環境で働くと、すぐに終わらせることさえ長く引きずり、残業が生じて退勤が遅くなる。ランダムで選ばれた米国の76社の企業のうち47%は、1週間に2日を会議のない日とした結果、社員の生産性が71%まで高まったという。₍₅₎つまり、無駄な業務を減らして生産性が高まれば、勤務時間を減らしても与えられた業務を解決できることがわかる。

【参考資料】

１）内閣府男女共同参画局『平成28年社会生活基本調査の結果から～男性の育児・家事関連時間～』5頁

２）千葉大学久保桂子教授 論文「共働き夫婦の家事・育児分担の実態」『日本労働研究雑誌』689号、2017年12月、23頁

３）OECD 経済協力開発機構『2016年国際労働比較』

４) 厚生労働省『毎日勤労統計調査 平成28年度分結果確報』

５）MIT Sloan Management Review『The Surprising Impact of Meeting-Free Days』 https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-surprising-impact-of-meeting-free-days/ 閲覧日 2022年3月27日

Additional thoughts from 1st class:

I was impressed by a classmate's opinion about the low number of female lawmakers in Japan. This is because when I traveled to Tokyo 4 years ago, I saw that there was only one woman in a panel of candidate's portraits. In Japan, women don’t have enough opportunities of social advancement in various fields including politics. I think this environment makes women passive in socio-economic activities and makes the burden of childcare and housework go to women. For example, my parents graduated from the same level of university in the same area. My father has been working for a company for over 20 years after graduating from university , while my mother gave up the job after getting pregnant of me. After I grew up, now she works part-time at a new job, but she still does housework alone. Because of the shortage of workers and the decline of the young people from the low fertility and population aging, the government wants more women to work and give birth to babies, but it does not have practical policy. I want to learn that what working women want in society, and how this leads to reducing the burden of housework and childcare for them.

DeepL translation:I would like to talk about the difficulties working women in Japan have in doing housework and childcare. There is a memorable scene from the drama "Escape is Shameful but Useful. The female protagonist, Mikuri, failed to find a job even though she was highly educated, so she contractually married the male protagonist, Hiramasa, and earned money by doing housework. Later, he falls in love with her and proposes to officially marry her, but she refuses, feeling that it is unfair that her housework, which was paid for, is now free of charge. In this scene, the woman felt inconvenienced by a society in which women always choose only one of work and housework and in which housework and childcare are naturally assumed to be done by women. Although the number of dual-earner couples is increasing due to the decrease in household income caused by the recession and the perception of gender equality, the burden of housework and childcare for women has not changed. The participation time of working husbands in housework and childcare is 75 minutes in households where the wife has no work, and 84 minutes in dual-earner households, indicating that the participation time is low regardless of the wife's work status. (1) I believe that reforms are needed both at home and within the company to reduce the burden of housework and childcare for working women.

First, the evaluation standard line for housework and childcare participation for men and women should be aligned at home. A man does not have to do housework and can become a family man just by helping out a little at work. A woman who neglects even one household chore becomes a wife who does not look like a housewife. Even if she is good at housework, she has done what she should have done. This is because traditional femininity has created an unfair starting line where men go from zero to positive and women go from negative to zero in terms of participation in housework and childcare. Therefore, when a dual-earner couple shares the workload, even if the husband does the easy work and the wife takes on the difficult tasks, the wife has no choice but to take the position that her work is easier because it has been divided among them. Looking at the frequency of participation in housework and childcare for dual-earner couples in Reference 1 (see p. 2), women have higher averages for all of these tasks, while men have higher averages for cleaning up after meals, feeding and personal care of the children, and playing and talking with the children, at the very least. Although these are easier tasks than eating, washing clothes, and cleaning, the averages for these tasks are also lower than for women. (2) In other words, women bear a greater burden of housework and childcare than men. In the end, if a dual-earner couple shares the housework and childcare, there is a sacrifice for the woman when looking at the intensity and time required for the work, even though it may seem fair at first glance. In order to match the male-female evaluation reference line in the home equally, the expected value of the husband as a family man must be further increased. And this expected value can only be raised if everyone recognizes that men should not help out with housework and childcare, but should do it together as a member of the family.

Second, working couples should reduce the amount of time they spend at the office in order to increase the amount of time they spend at home. Only when both men and women spend sufficient time at home can housework and childcare be shared without bias toward women. The government has already implemented various policies to reduce the working hours of dual-earner couples, such as shorter working hours and childcare time. However, the system is difficult to use in cases where employees cannot reduce their own work hours to maintain the family budget, or because of the difficult atmosphere in the company, which makes it difficult for employees to request shorter working hours because their supervisors cannot impose overtime if they work shorter hours. In fact, Japanese companies have long working hours including overtime. This is because there is no fixed job description in the work contract because of membership-based employment. As a result, staff members work in a variety of fields, increasing their workload and resulting in overtime work. And the internal culture that favors staying longer at the company due to lifetime employment and seniority is another cause of overtime work. Japan ranks 22nd in terms of international working hours comparison in 2016, with 1,713 hours per year excluding overtime, but (3) if we add to that the average monthly overtime hours by industry in Japan is more than 14 hours, Japan becomes a country with too long working hours in the world. (4) In the end, the company must directly reduce overall work hours. This can be done by eliminating the company's inefficient internal management system. There are meetings that are repeated without any results, multiple people making decisions in order to pass a single case, overly manual work procedures, meaningless morning examples, and so on. Working in such a work environment that emphasizes discipline over efficiency, even quick tasks drag on for too long, resulting in overtime and a late departure from work. Forty-seven percent of 76 randomly selected U.S. firms have made two days in a week free of meetings, and as a result, employee productivity has increased by up to 71%. (5) In other words, if productivity is increased by reducing wasteful work, it can be shown that a reduction in work hours can still solve a given task.

4/ 19 homework

I was impressed by a classmate's opinion about the low number of female lawmakers in Japan. This is because when I traveled to Tokyo 4 years ago, I saw that there was only one woman in a panel of candidate's portraits. In Japan, women don’t have enough opportunities of social advancement in various fields including politics. I think this environment makes women passive in socio-economic activities and makes the burden of childcare and housework go to women. For example, my parents graduated from the same level of university in the same area. My father has been working for a company for over 20 years after graduating from university , while my mother gave up the job after getting pregnant of me. After I grew up, now she works part-time at a new job, but she still does housework alone. Because of the shortage of workers and the decline of the young people from the low fertility and population aging, the government wants more women to work and give birth to babies, but it does not have practical policy. I want to learn that what working women want in society, and how this leads to reducing the burden of housework and childcare for them.