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Pandemic magnifies household gender roles in Japan "Latest figures show that women earn on average 44% less than men while also spending five times more time on housework and child care." This article looks at the share of domestic work and childcare done in Japan and compares it will other countries, considers how attitudes to domestic gender roles are changing ,discusses how the domestic labour gender gap affects women's employment opportunities. Japan Times, 21 Jun 2021.
Stuck at Home, Men in Japan Learn to Help. Will It Last? "The coronavirus pandemic is exposing like never before the severe disparities in how Japanese couples divide household work." As well as explaining how little housework and childcare men in Japan generally do, this article includes a number of stories that show the Covid pandemic has affected the domestic division of labour in a number of families. New York Times, 16 May 2020.
Wives Do Seven Times As Much Housework As Husbands in Japan While women are increasingly joining the workforce in Japan, wives still do much more housework than husbands. nippon.com, 30 Sep 2019
Why is the Gender Gap in Time Spent on Housework Still So Wide? From the 2015 NHK Japanese Time Use Survey. Includes lots of data on different aspects of this issue. Public Opinion Research Division, NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, 2017. Full Japanese report here.
Gender parity in parenting "The challenge to social norms triggered by the free fall in Japan's birth rate has recently opened the door a crack in the political realm. A few male politicians wanting more time with their children are calling for flexible gender roles that allow men to take parental leave too." The article focuses on childcare leave for politicians. NHK World, 16 Jan, 2020.
Two Men in Japan Dared to Take Paternity Leave. It Cost Them Dearly, They Say. On paper, Japan has one of the best paternity leave policies in the world. In practice, very few men — less than one in 16 — take advantage of their legal right, often because they fear retribution. Now two men in Japan who did take time off to care for newborns are suing their employers, saying the companies punished them with demotions and pay cuts after they returned from paternity leave. New York Times, 12 Sep 2019.
女性のライフイベントfrom Waffle –Power point resource about women’s life events & careers.
Japanese Men Come In Low on Shared Housework Survey Japan has one of the worst rankings for sharing housework equally between men and women, a recent study by the OECD has found. Tokyo Weekender, April 15, 2014
These 5 countries are crushing the whole gender equality thing at home Gender equality isn’t just about women working more paid hours or doing less housework. It’s also about men cutting back their work hours to pitch in more around the house. Countries that have lighter workweeks, in fact, tend to have a more equal distribution between men and women in the home. PRI, 10 Apr 2014.
House husbands gaining acceptance in Japan as gender stereotypes ease Japan Times, 26 Apr, 2016
Sharing housework between husbands and wives: how to improve marital satisfaction for working wives in Japan IZA Journal of Labor Policy, December 2016
Osaka zone a litmus test of foreign worker policy This article looks at the plan to create a zone in Kansai to accept foreign domestic workers to allow Japanese women to go out to work. It explains criticisms of the plans, from Solidarity Network for Migrants Japan and Asia-Japan Women’s Resource Center, including that it may not help poorer women who need it most, and that it may lead to trafficking of women and abuses of the human rights of the migrant women who come to Japan. Japan Times, 20 Jul, 2014.
Can Foreign Housekeepers Help Japanese Women Shine? This article mainly discusses this issue form the perspective of Japanese women and whether foreign domestic help will be financially affordable for Japanese families. It also explains the system of employing foreign domestic workers. Nippon.com, 18 Feb 2016.
Foreign workers set to engage in homemaking services in Japan after lifting of ban A longer article that explains the system and background to it, and looks at it form the perspective of Pasona, one of the employment agencies, Filipino domestic workers who have come to Japan and Eriko Suzuki, a professor at Kokushikan University, who says the plan may lead to human rights violations against foreign workers and other action should be taken first. Mainichi, April 8, 2017.
Global Migration of Foreign Domestic Workers: Housekeeping in Japan BA Honours Thesis by Loh ling Yin Queenie, Natiojal University of Singapore, 2017?
Foreign domestics seen as aiding working mothers Shortage of helpers keeps career women with kids out of workplace This article argues the advantages of allowing women from Southeast Asia to work as domestic labour in Japan, as well as looking at resistance to this in Japan. Japan Times, 24 May 2014.
Japan: The worst developed country for working mothers? This article discusses reasons why returning to work is so difficult for Japanese mothers and looks at economist Kathy Matsui's arguments about the economic need for Japan to enable more women to enter the workforce. BBC News, 22 Mar 2013.
Japan Cries Out for Daycare Tokyo makes the childcare shortage worse by trying too hard to fix it. Wall Street Journal, 7 Aug 2013.
Maternity leave, day care still elude many working mothers Working moms face high hurdles in efforts to return to workplace. Japan Times, 18 Jun 2013.
Japanese leader Abe wants more women to work. So he’s got big plans for day care Washington Post, 1 Aug, 2014.
Childcare not the only cost for working women in Japan An article by Mark Fabian that argues that expanding day care for children and allowing foreign women to work as nannies will not be enough to fully increase the number of women in full-time work. East Asia Forum, 16 September, 2014
Chiba looks to boost ranks of male day care workers Japan Times, Apr 4, 2017
かながわのパパサークル、NPO法人、情報サイトFrom パパの味方 (神奈川パパ応援ウェブサイト)
最近だと国際女性会議においても「WAW! with Men（男性と一緒に作るWAW!）固定観念から自由になろう」と言ったテーマを設けるほど、男性にも積極的に参加していただこうという取り組みがされています（新型ウィルスで延期/中止になってしまったようですが）