1/31 Paper prepared for the ”International Joint Workshop for Doshisha and partner universities”, March 1-2, 2012, Kyoto February 2012 Work in progress – comments welcome – do not quote Flexible jobs but polarised politics? The political consequences of expanding non-regular labour in Japan Steffen Heinrich Institute of Sociology / Institute of East Asian Studies University of Duisburg-Essen [email protected]Abstract: How political factors influence the incidence and scope of labour market reforms in advanced democracies has long been a popular research topic among politics scientists. Only recently, however, have scholars begun to consider the consequences of these reforms for politics itself. Studies on continental European countries suggest that policy preferences of non-regular and regular employees differ considerably and that this divide may constitute a new political cleavage which is intensifying the more people occupy non-regular jobs. In addition, this may turn into a strategic dilemma for political parties who struggle to respond to increasingly conflicting demands of core constituencies. The 2009 general election in Japan indicates that non-regular jobs and employment status-related welfare have indeed become salient for electoral politics, though word is still out whether this reflects the growing labour market dualism of the last two decades or is mainly due to the exceptional economic circumstances of the Lehman shock of 2008. This paper seeks to explore the role of employment status for policy preferences of workers and partisan politics in Japan. The paper consists of three parts: It first discusses the extent of institutional divisions between different employment statuses in Japan and how these may influence policy preferences in regard to employment regulation, welfare and state intervention from a theoretical perspective, drawing from economics, political science and sociology literatures. It will then analyse World Value Survey (WVS) and Japan General Social Survey (JGSS) data to understand the actual importance of status-related differences for preference formation in Japan. Third, it compares policy proposals during the 2009 general election with regard to employment to assess the relevance of labour market dualism for voter mobilisation. The study reveals that Japan confirms the pattern of labour market dualism found in several European countries yet it also highlights important empirical and theoretical differences. Keywords: Non-regular employment; party politics Japan, welfare, labour market policy; insider-outsider
Transcript
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Paper prepared for the ”International Joint Workshop for Doshisha and partner universities”, March 1-2, 2012, Kyoto February 2012
Work in progress – comments welcome – do not quote
Flexible jobs but polarised politics? The political consequences of expanding non-regular labour in Japan
Steffen Heinrich Institute of Sociology / Institute of East Asian Studies
Abstract: How political factors influence the incidence and scope of labour market reforms in advanced democracies has long been a popular research topic among politics scientists. Only recently, however, have scholars begun to consider the consequences of these reforms for politics itself. Studies on continental European countries suggest that policy preferences of non-regular and regular employees differ considerably and that this divide may constitute a new political cleavage which is intensifying the more people occupy non-regular jobs. In addition, this may turn into a strategic dilemma for political parties who struggle to respond to increasingly conflicting demands of core constituencies. The 2009 general election in Japan indicates that non-regular jobs and employment status-related welfare have indeed become salient for electoral politics, though word is still out whether this reflects the growing labour market dualism of the last two decades or is mainly due to the exceptional economic circumstances of the Lehman shock of 2008. This paper seeks to explore the role of employment status for policy preferences of workers and partisan politics in Japan. The paper consists of three parts: It first discusses the extent of institutional divisions between different employment statuses in Japan and how these may influence policy preferences in regard to employment regulation, welfare and state intervention from a theoretical perspective, drawing from economics, political science and sociology literatures. It will then analyse World Value Survey (WVS) and Japan General Social Survey (JGSS) data to understand the actual importance of status-related differences for preference formation in Japan. Third, it compares policy proposals during the 2009 general election with regard to employment to assess the relevance of labour market dualism for voter mobilisation. The study reveals that Japan confirms the pattern of labour market dualism found in several European countries yet it also highlights important empirical and theoretical differences.
Keywords: Non-regular employment; party politics Japan, welfare, labour market policy; insider-outsider
At first glance the notion that employment status could be a decisive factor for political
preferences of workers may not be obvious. It seems highly unlikely for instance that
female secondary wage earners (the majority of part-time workers – paato - in Japan)
and male temp agency workers (haken-shain) in manufacturing have much in common.
Moreover, non-regular employment often is a temporary mode of employment (e.g. until
a full time job is found) or is preferred simply because it allows avoiding long working
hours and the many social obligations connected to regular full-time jobs in Japan. Since
the burst of bubble economy and especially after the Asian crisis of 1997, however, more
and more scholars argue that non-regular employment has increasingly become a
substitute for regular jobs, causing a gradual erosion of working conditions especially
for young and female employees. Most recently, the financial and economic crisis in
2008 revealed that the growing non-regular workforce has been subject to drastic
downsizing in 2008 and 2009, much more so than workers with permanent contracts.1
The 2009 general election indeed provides some clues that labour market
dualism is politically salient in Japan: The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won a historic
victory on a policy platform that emphasised the need to battle inequalities in society
and in the labour market in particular. According to Rueda and others labour market
inequalities are particularly prevalent and political significant in countries that generally
In addition, many only then realised that non-regular workers are often not entitled to
unemployment benefits or social assistance in spite of working for several years. In
short, the global financial crisis demonstrated to a wider Japanese public that
employment status matters for two vital concerns of any salaried employee, the level of
social protection and employment security. Viewed against this background, the
assumption of diverging political interests between privileged regular workers and
disadvantaged non-regular workers no longer seems quite so far off.
1 For instance, within three months nearly two thirds of temp agency workers (including so called registered-type haken) lost their jobs. In many cases this also meant that all entitlements to company housing and other essential fringe benefits had to be given up. The high number of homeless former temp agency workers led a group of activists to organise a tent village (the ‘haken mura’ or temp agency worker village) in front of the Ministry of Wealth, Labour and Welfare in central Tokyo to demonstrate to the public the social hardships endured by laid-off temp agency workers and to encourage an official response by the government. The Japanese media reported intensely on the incident, see Shinoda (2009).
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offer a high level of employment stability (e.g. strict rules against dismissals, long-term
employment practices) and of social welfare (protection against social risks). Such
countries are prone to develop a distinct second tier of non-core jobs which are more
flexible but also less well integrated into systems of social security. Non-core workers
are often used to instil additional flexibility into a firm’s workforce while avoiding
fundamental changes to the status of core employees or standard employment practices
(Kalleberg 2003). Many countries in Western Europe fall under this category, most
notably Spain, the Netherlands and Germany where labour market reforms in the last 20
years have multiplied the number of people employed by temp agencies and/or who
hold fixed-term contracts. A similar tendency is observable in several East Asian
countries, e.g. South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. While often less strictly regulated than
European countries in the 1980s, here too labour market reforms have facilitated the
use and expanded the number of non-regular workers, such as the 1999 reform of temp
agency work in Japan.
This paper seeks to explore the impact of this expansion for contemporary
Japanese politics. For this purpose it will extend the literature that has so far only
analysed continental European countries which are known for their extensive welfare
states and high social protection for regular employees, to Japan, which features a
comparable pattern of labour market dualism and a strong work-welfare nexus, but
offers a very different context with regard to overall welfare arrangements and political
dynamics. The paper proceeds as follows: The next section will introduce and discuss
different insider-outsider models drawing from sociology, economics and political
science literatures. The theoretical insights are then put into the context of Japanese
labour market and welfare arrangements to derive a set of concise hypotheses with
regard to potential consequences for preference formation and partisan politics.
Hypotheses are then tested in two separate analyses. First data from the World Value
Survey (WVS) and the Japan General Social Survey (JGSS) is used to examine the
importance of employment status for preference formation. Secondly, a qualitative
assessment of how parties have dealt with issues of employment protection and social
welfare in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, comparing party manifestos for the
2009 election, will shed light on the actual relevance of insider-outsider divisions for
partisan politics.
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2. The political consequences of growing labour market dualism
The questions whether and why the preferences of different worker groups diverge has
attracted a lot of attention by scholars in recent years (Burgoon and Dekker 2010;
Emmenegger 2010; Häusermann and Schwander 2009; King and Rueda 2008; Rueda
2007). Most report substantial empirical evidence for a gap between preferences of
insider and outsider workers with regard to employment regulation but also with
regard to social policy and redistribution. A point of controversy in all political models of
insider-outsider labour markets however concerns the definition of labour market
insiders and outsiders. For Lindbeck and Snower (1988) insiders include basically all
workers in permanent jobs and the unemployed (looking for a job) constitute the
outsider group. While outsiders generally hope to become insiders at some point and
thus prefer lower thresholds (e.g. lower employment protection) which could increase
the chances of finding such a job, insiders want to maximise protection to secure their
attained status and thus prefer higher thresholds. As unions are mostly representing the
interests of insiders, they will promote employment protection in collective bargaining
and policy-making processes, thus effectively deepening the insider-outsider division.
More recent studies have portrayed non-regular job-holders as outsider workers
(part-time, fixed-term, employed by temporary work agency) because particularly in
conservative welfare states, where welfare and work are closely linked, non-regular jobs
usually offer considerably less employment security and lower levels of social protection.
Also, workers with permanent contracts and substantial fringe benefits may benefit
from a more flexible second tier of jobs as this can provide additional protection against
dismissal for themselves (e.g. firms are likely to dismiss non-regular workers first) while
outsiders prefer lower thresholds to insider jobs and a more equal provision of benefits
and welfare. This definition is usually justified on the basis that in many countries there
is now a much bigger group of non-regular employees than in the past and they now
constitute a substantial part of the overall workforce (e.g. more than half of all female
employees in Japan) yet face similar disadvantages compared to regular employees.
Who are the real labour market outsiders?
However, all social phenomena are multi-causal and complex and this certainly applies
to the position of individual workers. Emmenegger for instance has shown that
secondary wage earners often side with insider partners (Emmenegger 2010) even
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though personally they may face additional social risks and precarious working
conditions. Also, new forms of non-regular employment usually coincide with existing
socio-economic cleavages. For instance, most jobs for temp agency workers require little
or no previous job training. University graduates may be more likely to get fixed-term
contracts but may have good prospects of getting permanent contracts in the
foreseeable future. Hence, they may perceive their outsider status as temporary and
unproblematic. Also, there are several “new social risks” which can apply to workers
independent of their employment status: Deindustrialisation, for instance, may reinforce
divisions between those with sought-after skills and losers those with little or outdated
skills (see Kitschelt and Rehm 2006). Some also assume that there is a connection
between the stability of a job (or perceived insecurity) and political preferences which
could be linked to differences between prospering and shrinking industries (Burgoon
and Dekker 2010).
In addition, there are several other factors specific to Japan which need to be
taken into account. Life-time employment as the regular standard form of employment
certainly dominate the popular as much as the academic perception of Japanese
employment, yet many scholars caution that even in its heyday it may have covered only
about 40% of the total workforce (e.g. Ono 2007). For the remainder, employment
security and fringe benefits have been considerably less generous and stable throughout
their work life. There is also a traditional labour market segmentation in Japan that runs
along firm size (e.g. Estévez-Abe 2008; Rebick 2005). As in most countries, large firms
tend to offer considerably better working conditions and higher fringe benefits than
smaller ones. Yet in Japan this tendency is elevated by the fact that there is little
centralisation in Japanese industrial relations. This means Japanese differences in
working conditions are likely to be larger than in systems where bargaining on working
conditions and wages is centralised like in Scandinavian countries, and they should
become larger in times of economic uncertainty or recession.
While this study does not deny the socio-economic factors just described
influence preference formation, it will apply a definition following the nominal
categories of non-regular employment in Japan as close as possible. This can be justified
on the grounds, that recent reforms have led to a massive expansion of jobs that face
similar risks, which could mean that there is now a large social group which is politically
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aware of its common interests. Then again, it is likely that several cleavages just
described now coincide with non-regular employment status, e.g. labour market reforms
arguably have eradicated incentives to give for example non-skilled workers regular
contracts. Indeed, studies of non-regular employment have shown that non-regular
employment usually coincides with low pay, little job security and limited access to
welfare (see figures 1 and 2). Last but not least research on the importance of recent
dualisation trends for policy preferences in Japan and elsewhere in East Asia is still in its
infancy. It therefore seems sensible to first explore whether fundamental assumptions of
current scholarship on employment status hold for Japan before more theoretical
consideration are integrated.
The study will define all regular workers (seishain) with permanent contracts as
insiders, and part-timers (paato), temp agency workers (haken), workers on fixed-term
contracts (keiyaku) and/or in marginal jobs (arubaito) as outsiders. Although not all
non-regular work necessarily coincides with precarious working conditions (and not all
regular employment is necessarily secure), this approach is the best approximation for
assessing the political impact of the expansion of non-regular work in recent years.
Some labour market researchers may object that solo-self employment should be
regarded as an additional form of precarious non-regular employment, as many salaried
employees have been forced into self-employment due to outsourcing and cost
reduction strategies pursued by firms since the 1990s (e.g. Song 2010). On the other
hand, Japan traditionally has had a relative large group of self-employed which suggests
that this form of employment is particularly heterogeneous. For these reasons, they are
excluded from the analyses for now.
Why insiders and outsiders disagree
According to Rueda, employment status matters for the preferences of employees on a
range of issues. This includes redistribution, active and passive labour market policies
and employment protection. In all cases, he argues, the preferences of “insiders and
outsiders are fundamentally different” (2007: 212). With regard to employment
protection he follows Lindbeck and Snower who argue that insiders wish to maximise
employment protection as this secures their status with regard to employment but also
wages, while outsiders prefer lower protection as this effectively lowers the threshold
for getting an insider job (e.g. they may offer to work for a lower wage). With regard to
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spending on labour market policies, he argues that those who benefit are more likely to
support them. Insiders facing in general lower social risks, should therefore be more
critical of government spending on welfare, job creation and active labour market
policies. Outsiders, on the other hand, should show a clearer preference for more
spending as they are more likely to rely on such schemes at some point.
A similar argument can be made for redistribution and public welfare. Japanese
welfare arrangements resemble to some extent conservative welfare states in Europe
because the level of social protection and entitlements depends to a large extent on the
job an individual holds. Insider jobs privilege a specific group of workers with regard to
social protection while most outsider jobs do not offer social protection that matches
those of insiders. Palier and Thelen (2010) and others argue that even many of the
disparities currently discusses are not new, they have been reinforced through recent
welfare reforms. The gap between those who have contributed for some time to systems
of social insurance and those without sufficient contributions and thus benefits has
arguably widened. This may also be true for Japan where those outside generous
corporate welfare schemes face a relative rigid “residual” means-tested public welfare
system (see e.g. Abe 2003). Moreover, recent pension reforms have, as in most other
countries, strengthened the role of private provision which may elevate disparities
further.2
In addition to socio-economic preferences, it seems likely that structural
disadvantages experienced by non-regular groups of workers also impact how well the
feel integrated into . If Lindbeck and Snower are correct, the existing mechanisms for
participation and influence orkers are dominated by insiders. Not only do labour unions
tend to promote the interests of insider groups, outsiders may also not be adequately
represented in corporate bodies for labour-management consultations. This should
increase their dependence on public regulation and state intervention; hence they may
prefer a stronger state role in labour affairs, e.g. in setting and enforcing minimum
working standards and for distributing welfare entitlements more equally.
Partisan politics and labour market dualism
2 Coverage alone does of course not provide a complete picture of the entitlements an individual will receive. For example the public pension insurance in Japan was never intended to provide more than a basic pension.
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In Western Europe welfare policy and redistribution are strongly associated with social
democracy. The post-war period until the 1970s is often dubbed the golden era of social
democracy because social democratic parties then were relatively influential and
successful in expanding welfare policies and in implementing redistributive policies.
Although the degree of re-distribution varies considerably even across European
countries and such policies have not exclusively been backed by one party, generous
welfare and high employment protection are usually understood as core social
democratic policies. Since the 1970s however a “new politics of the welfare state”
(Pierson 2001) fuelled by austerity and globalisation has prompted social-democratic as
well as non-social democratic governments to implement unpopular reforms such as
welfare retrenchment and labour market “deregulation”. As a consequence, most
countries have liberalised temp-agency work and fixed-term employment during the
1990s and 2000s (OECD 2004), yet at the same time they have usually kept strict
dismissal regulation for standard employment.
Political scientists usually explain this conspicuous pattern with the political
strength of unions who have tried hard to protect their core constituency, which also,
even though it is gradually becoming smaller, constitutes a vital electoral basis for social
democratic parties. The “asymmetric reforms” (Miura 2001) of deregulating non-regular
employment while maintaining high employment protection for regular jobs, thus
appears like a political compromise between securing the continuous support of labour
and answering growing calls for enhanced labour market flexibility. Rueda (Rueda 2005,
2007), however, sees here a strategic dilemma because by furthering non-regular
employment, social democratic parties are effectively dividing their core constituency of
labour into two distinct groups with conflicting political demands. The larger this divide
becomes and the larger the group of non-regular workers, Rueda argues, the harder it
will be for these parties to mobilise across this divide. This matters because unlike
unions who may be able to survive by siding with insiders, political parties’ electoral
success crucially depends on their ability to mobilise voters across several cleavages.
Rueda cautions, however, that these cleavages are latent, that is, they may not matter
for the electoral decisions if there is not an imminent conflict polarising the positions of
workers. Indeed, in some countries “outsider jobs” can be relatively uncontroversial,
such as temp agency work in the Netherlands, which however is highly contentious in
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Germany and Japan (see Shire and Van Jaarsveld 2008). Therefore insider-outsider
divisions may not matter everywhere and all the time to the same degree. This means to
assess whether insider-outsider divisions are politically salient in a country, one needs
to address two aspects: first, are labour market issues important to voters and, secondly,
feel parties the need to respond accordinlgy e.g. by proposing specific policies to narrow
the gap between insiders and outsiders?
3. Socio-economic and political insider-outsider divisions in Japan
In order to apply the theoretical insights discussed so far to the Japanese case, the
severity and prevalence of insider-outsider divisions in Japan needs to be explored in
more detail. As has been pointed out earlier, the Japanese welfare arrangement differs in
many aspects to those prevalent in continental European countries (see also Esping-
Andersen 1990, 1997) and there are also specific factors which influence the position of
individual position of an employee. An even bigger difference is perhaps that Japan lacks
a powerful social democratic party which can claim to have successfully implemented a
policy of income re-distribution and welfare expansion comparable to Europe. On the
contrary, since the 1970s the LDP, the dominating political force between 1955 and
2009, has repeatedly stressed that European-style welfare is neither necessary nor
desirable for Japan. Instead it promoted the model of a “Japanese-style welfare society”
(nihon-gata fukushi shakai) in which social protection is achieved mainly through
corporate and private welfare provision, emphasising employment over entitlements.
Public spending on welfare still is low in Japan in international comparison although it
has increased noticeable in recent years. Some authors argue that policies such as public
works and high entry barriers to domestic markets therefore should be seen as
essentially social policies with the goal of ensuring high employment (Estévez-Abe 2008;
Kasza 2006) as this avoids the development of large groups depending directly on
welfare state entitlements.
Furthermore, the relative failure of socialist and social-democratic parties since
1955 is thus usually not explained with diverging preferences of Japanese workers or
labour market segmentation but with structural reasons such as doctrinal ideology on
parts of the JSP (Japan Socialist Party), an unfavourable electoral system, or with the
wide participation of the majority in economic growth. Yet, since the early 1990s the
situation arguably has changed fundamentally. Japan may now be much closer to the
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situation in several European countries because as high economic growth ended and
firms started to restructure, existing inequalities have arguably been reinforced, also
through reforms by Japanese governments in the 1990s and 2000s. Like in many
European countries these reforms led to more labour market flexibility but left
employment protection intact for regular employees.3
This is confirmed by studies of Japanese welfare arrangements. Abe (2003) for
instance argues that the Japanese welfare state in general is marked by a strong division
between “main-stream” and “residual” programs. Unemployment insurance and health
care, for instance, are main-stream programs following a social insurance logic aiming at
universal coverage of workers; social assistance and even unemployment payments, on
the other hand, are residual as entitlements are limited and generally means-tested.
Figure 1 shows, however, there is also a disparity between different employment
statuses. For example, there is a clear gap between regular (permanent full-time) and
non-regular jobs across the whole spectrum of social protection. Furthermore, non-
regular employees are more likely to depend on residual state programmes as their jobs
tend to be less stable and wages considerably lower (figure 2). To some extent the gap
between workers can be explained with the principle of family insurance, that is, many
non-regular workers, in particular part-timers, are likely to be covered by the social
security arrangements of their spouse. These workers may thus prefer a job where they
do not have the obligation to pay social contributions themselves. Also, they may not
mind the comparatively low pay as higher pay may increase their tax rate.
Recent discussions in Japanese
media and academia about growing social inequalities in Japan (e.g. kakusa shakai and
waakingu pua) signal that socio economic issues have indeed become more politically
salient (see also Tiberghien 2011). So even if Japan lacks a comparable history of
redistributive policy and welfare expansion underpinned by a strong social-democratic
current, the nominal differentiation between different employment groups looks
actually very similar to what Rueda and others describe for Western Europe.
4
3 Although high employment protection in Japan initially was created through case law, consecutive governments have refrained from imposing legislation that would overrule or abolish the criteria set by courts.
This hints at
4 On the other hand, even secondary wage earners may prefer better access to entitlements and an autonomous welfare status. There is no consensus in the literature yet about which view dominates.
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potential relevance of household status, i.e. whether workers are primary or secondary
wage earners.
In domestic discussions about labour market dualism, it is often pointed out that
young workers and female workers are particularly disadvantaged in Japan. Young
workers are at a bigger risk to be affected by labour market disparities almost
everywhere, yet the formalised recruitment process of many Japanese firms may
constitute a particularly large penalty for the young in Japan. Typically, students spend
the last year of their studies mainly on job search to make sure they secure a job
contract before finishing their studies. In recent years the process and the competition
for jobs seems to have intensified as students tend to start even earlier than in the past
with their job hunt (shuushoku katsudo). Many seem to worry that if they fail they will be
judged second rate by employers and this will impact their whole working career, since
they may not be able to increase their wage parallel to their age, as is the norm in
traditional career jobs, and thus not be able to sustain a family. The growing worries of
young Japanese and the relevance of employment status is also confirmed by Shirahase
(2010) who finds that the probability of young workers identifying themselves as
middle class increases significantly once they hold a permanent work contract.5
Women have historically enjoyed relative high participation rates in Japan even
before the deregulation started in the 1990s. However, they seem to be more
disadvantaged than their peers in Scandinavia or the US when it comes to career
prospects and wage equality (e.g. Osawa 2002). Most jobs traditionally held by women
fall into the so called ippanshoku category (clerical-track) which offer very limited career
prospects and thus little wage hikes. Men on the other are much more likely to hold
sougoushoku (career-track) jobs, where wages typically increase with age. These
traditional differences between male and female employees seem to persist even now
(see for instance the basic survey on wage structure published by the MHLW in 2010
which shows that wage levels of female employment remains relative flat throughout
5 A recent study shows that the so called ‘lost generation’ of the 1990s, which particularly suffered under dramatically reduced job offers by firms, has closed the gap in regular employment that existed in the late 1990s with the generations before and after the Asian crisis. Yet, still fewer of them work in large firms so it is likely they on average earn less and enjoy fewer benefits. See the 2011/2012 edition of the bi-annual report “Labour situation in Japan and analysis”, p. 9. http://www.jil.go.jp/english/lsj.html (accessed in June 2011).
their work life). This means there may be a strong gender-specific pattern behind
preferences which may or may not coincide with outsider status as in other countries
(Robson et al 1999). Furthermore, female employees have long been seen as occupying
non-essential peripheral jobs and thus has have been more frequently been subject to
restructuring than male employees (e.g. Kezuka 1993; Osawa 2002). It comes as no
surprise therefore, that women are much more likely to occupy non-regular jobs (see
annex, figure 5).
Figure 1 Employment status and participation in social security programmes in Japan
Source: MHLW (2003): Comprehensive survey of employment diversification [Shuugyou keitai no tayouka ni kan suru sougou jittai chousa].
0%
25%
50%
75%
100%
Unemployment insurance
Health insurance
Social insurance (Old-age, disability and survivor
pension)
Corporate pension
Pension contributions
Bonus payments
Regular worker
Fixed-term employee
Temp agency worker
Part-time worker
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Figure 2 Annual income by employment status (Japan)
Source: Toda (2007), p. 27. Are there social-democrats in Japan?
If Japan lacks a powerful social democratic party at least nominally, this raises question
whether and how Japanese partisan politics may be affected by growing labour market
disparities. At least with regard to the reform process which has led to an expansion of
non-regular in Japan, several authors have put forward similar arguments, that is,
reform processes themselves have had a polarising effects as the interests of non-
regular workers were widely ignored by unions, employers and politicians (e.g. Miura
2001; Nakamura 2007; Yun 2010). It appears that unions suffering from ever lower
unionisation rates and exclusion from political decision-making, managed to protect
their members mainly by allowing deregulation of non-regular work. This is also visible
if one looks at decision-making and bargaining processes within firms: surveys suggest
that non-regular workers are hardly integrated into traditional labour-management
bodies and largely ignored by enterprise unions.6
6 For example, the Survey on Labour-management communication (roushi komyunikeeshon chousa), conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, shows that company unions show little interest in non-regular workers and collective bargaining rarely addresses their concerns.
Although Rengou, the largest umbrella
association for trade unions in Japan, has recently tried to rejuvenate the shuntou
process (spring wage offensive) by emphasising the working conditions of non-regular
employees, observers are very sceptical that this really mirrors stronger interests for
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Regular employment
(seiki no shokuin)
Part time employment
(paato)
Marginal work (arubaito)
Temp agency work (haken)
Fixed-term employment
(keiyaku)
More than 4 mil. YEN (>34.000 EUR)
3-4 mil. YEN (25.500-34.000 EUR)
2-3 mil. YEN (17.000-25.500 EUR)
1-2 mil. YEN (8.500-17.000 EUR)
Less than 1 mil. YEN (<8.500 EUR)
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the fate of outsiders, as the shuntou process has lost most of its relevance (Weathers
2008). In sum this means that outsider workers are not well integrated into the
traditional systems of decision-making and worker participation in Japan. This suggests
that they depend more on state regulation and intervention than insiders and thus may
support more state-run welfare rather than arrangements centred on firms.
This uneven participation by worker groups may have important implications for
political parties, even if they do not resemble traditional European social democracy.
Since 1993 the Japanese party system has gone through a phase of re-alignment leading
to system with two dominant parties which increasingly compete on policy platforms
(which were virtually unknown before 2003). Unlike under the old SNTV-system where
even small percentages guaranteed representation, the new electoral system in use
since the 1996 general election encourages voter mobilisation across socio-economic
groups. This means parties have to appeal to a relative heterogeneous group of potential
voters and labour market dualism may make such efforts even more difficult. The
Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ, minshuu-tou) as the second major player in Japan’s
emerging two-party system is considerably closer to unions and traditional labour than
the LDP.7
The tiny social-democratic party (SDP, shamin-tou) and the Japan Communist
Party (JCP, nippon kyousan-tou) may be too small and their voter appeal too limited as to
consider them functional equivalents of social democratic parties in Europe. Moreover,
the Koumei party (CGP, which calls itself ‘New Komeito’ in English) which is said to have
been close to the interests of the lower middle-class (Song 2010: 1022) at least until its
re-formation in 1998, depends mainly on the organisational capabilities of the Sokka
Gakkai sect. Its outreach must therefore be considered limited.
Even if it is not a social-democratic party by name, it clearly targets the left-of-
centre vote and traditional labour. So it is most likely, that if a strategic dilemma exists it
should affect the DPJ more than the LDP.
Hypotheses
7 For instance, in the first DPJ-government aft the 2009 election, half of the DPJ’s cabinet members had a background in trade unions, see Heinrich (2010). However, the fact that the DPJ formed a coalition with the conservative Kokumin Shin-tou (“Nation’s New Party”), a tiny party led by LDP-defectors, and the left-wing Social Democratic Party at the same time, has invited criticism of programmatic blurriness.
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Based on the above two sets of hypotheses can be drawn up, one for preference
formation and the second one for partisan politics. First of all, if Rueda’s dictum of
fundamentally different preferences holds for Japan we can expect to find that
H1: Japanese insiders should have stronger preferences for employment security than
outsiders.
H2: Insider and outsider worker groups differ in their preferences in regard to social
policy. While insiders should feel already relatively well protected thanks to corporate
welfare and outsiders will show a clear preference for more public welfare spending as
they are likely to find public welfare inadequate.
With regard to the state role, most insiders should see their employer as the more
important institution while outsiders, lacking a comparable benefactor, should prefer a
stronger state role. We can thus expect that:
H3: Outsiders should welcome a more active role of the state in welfare matters since
they lack adequate representation and influence in industrial relations and enjoy fewer
corporate benefits if any. Hence, they will support redistributive policies more than
insiders.
With regard to partisan politics, it may be difficult to confirm that specific
political parties face a strategic dilemma. However, it seems likely that the global
financial crisis of 2008 and the recent debates on social inequality have made labour
market dualism a politically salient topic which has forced parties to address related
issues. This should be mirrored in the policy platforms proposed by parties for 2009
election as this was clearly influenced by the impact of the crisis. Furthermore, outsiders
may feel more disadvantaged due to the fact that they suffered more from adjustment
processes than insiders. Hence, with regard to partisan politics one can expect that
H4: The global financial crisis has increased the salience of labour market dualism and
also the polarisation between insider and outsiders as outsiders were more likely to
become unemployed and/or suffer from inequalities in welfare provision.
4. Employment status and policy preferences
For the sake of comparability with previous research and due to data limits, the
following analysis will use the same or at least similar survey questions. In particular
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questions on employment security, spending on labour market policies and re-
distributive policies have shown clear differences between insiders and outsiders in
European countries, so they are useful to establish whether a similar pattern is visible in
Japan at all. In addition, political alienation will be addressed as it seems particularly
important for understanding the political impact of a dual labour market structure in
Japan and how employment status interacts with other disparities. It must be stressed,
however, that none of the surveys allows to study potential rifts between insiders and
outsiders directly. For instance, to assess preferences for employment protection the
question “How important is employment security in a job for you?” is used, which is
likely to also reflect different motives for working and not only status and policy
differences. Identifying insider and outsider workers can also be very challenging as
most of the larger international surveys such as the ISSP and the WVS, do not provide
detailed information on employment status which can distort important differences. For
example, some part-timers may enjoy an insider-like status while some full-time
employees may hold fixed-term contracts and thus may consider themselves to be
“outside” of standard employment.
Perhaps because of such difficulties, research so far has shown a surprising lack
of interests for national differences. Given the fact that even Western European
countries vary greatly in terms of welfare arrangements, the even greater versatility in
terms of labour market arrangements certainly deserves more attention. Figure 3
demonstrates that such differences can be substantial. Using a simple definition whereas
all “full-time workers” are defined as insiders and all “part-time workers” (based on
WVS data) are considered outsiders; we find substantial and significant differences
between worker groups in Germany, in line with the findings in current scholarship. In
Japan, however, the situation seems to be very different: there is nearly no difference
between the worker groups. This could be interpreted as evidence that insider-outsider
divisions are generally smaller in Japan. Yet it could also be due to the fact that this
definition of insiders and outsiders is inadequate to capture the actual cleavage within
the depended employed workforce in Japan. For instance, many full-time jobs can be
non-regular (e.g. fixed term) while many part-time jobs can similarly stable as full-time
jobs. In order to study potential disparities closer to the actual categories, data from the
Japan General Social Survey (JGSS) will be used as it includes very detailed information
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on the employment status of respondents and other important variables, and also offers
a considerably larger sample than the WVS.
Figure 3 Preferences for redistribution (medians for 11-point scale, World Value Survey 2006)
Following Rueda, first the question of preferences in regard to employment
protection will be addressed first (table 1).8
In order to get a better understanding of how important employment status is
vis-à-vis other labour market attributes specific to Japan, the following variables are also
included: gender (since more than half of all female employees are employed in the non-
employment statuses in Japan, insiders are defined here as regular workers (excluding
executives) with full-time permanent contracts (常時雇用の一般雇用者). Outsiders are
created from the groups of temporary employment (which includes paato or part-time,
arubaito or marginal and naishoku or occasional jobs) and temp work agency workers
(派遣社員). The operationalisation of all variables is described in detail in table 7
(annex).
8 The JGSS has been conducted since the early 1990s and is usually conducted bi-annually. Changes in questionnaires make it necessary to include several waved in the analysis. For instance questions on employment security and spending on employment policies included only until 2003. For all other questions data from the latest available survey, conducted in fall of 2008, are used. This has the additional advantage that potential polarising effects of the global financial crisis should already be visible.
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may align themselves with their insider spouse), firm size (working conditions can vary
considerably) and age (younger workers may be more aware of the risks associated with
their employment status) and security of the currently held job (as a proxy for
Age Young workers (<36y) 53,0% 45,2% 1,8% *** Older workers (>35y) 60,5% 38,7% 0,8%
Sex Male employee 56,6% 41,7% 1,7%
** Female employee 54,4% 44,3% 1,3% * Statistically significant at the 0.05 level; ** at the .01 level; *** at the .001 level; “n.s.” = not significant. Source: JGSS 2000-2003.
Table 1 for the most part confirms what Rueda and other have found for
European countries. Japanese insiders show a stronger preference for job security than
outsiders. Notable differences are also visible with regard to age which, however, may
not be surprising as young workers tend to be more flexible as they usually do not yet
enjoy a high status with regard to corporate welfare and wages. The penalty that job
changers usually face in Japan due to the age- and firm-related structure of fringe
benefits does not yet apply to them. There also seems to be an effect connected to the
household status. Secondary wage earners among outsider workers apparently feel
stronger about job security than outsider with primary wage status which may be
related to the fact that the latter are under higher pressure to find a better job while the
former are interested in keeping their current job rather than hoping for higher pay or
better working conditions.
Also the second question on whether workers support spending on job creation
policies and unemployment, seems to confirm Rueda’s argument of different
preferences of insider and outsider workers (table 2). Outsider workers support more
strongly government spending than insider workers. Yet noticeable differences are also
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visible between workers with secure or insecure jobs, and young and older workers. The
latter observation is interesting as it suggests that younger workers apparently do not
believe they can profit from such policies while older workers are distinctly more
supportive. To explore such links, however, more in-depth and multivariate analyses
would be required which are outside the scope of this paper for now.
Table 2 Preferences for spending on employment policies (job creation and unemployment)
*** Female employee 2,7% 19,8% 77,5% * Statistically significant at the 0.05 level; ** at the .01 level; *** at the .001 level; “n.s.” = not significant. Source: JGSS 2000-2003.
However, table 3 suggests that there is a patterns linking attributes of labour
market discrimination to preferences for welfare spending, which however runs counter
to previously formulated expectations. If respondents are asked a more general question
about welfare and have to choose between higher taxes or higher welfare, those in
weaker employment positions tend to prefer lower taxes. The dual nature of Japanese
welfare arrangements which privilege a certain group of workers, may explain why
outsiders do not expect to profit in terms of public welfare and thus are more concerned
about pay/tax levels. However, this argument could also be reversed, as hypotheses H1
and H3 suggest: outsiders should support public welfare as they are more likely to
depend on it than insider workers. Then again, this finding may not be unique to Japan:
studies have also found for the US and other liberal welfare states that workers in less
stable and low paid jobs do not necessarily support more public welfare (e.g. Mehrtens
III 2004). The gap between this and the previous question suggests, however, that
preference formation is more complex than is commonly acknowledged in the literature
on labour market dualism. There may also be a connection to class. At least in
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continental Europe it is widely assumed that middle class voters benefit much more
from public welfare state arrangements than other voters. This may make them much
stronger supporters of expansive welfare than other classes, yet evidence in European
countries is mixed so far (see e.g. Marx and Picot 2011).
Table 3 Preferences with regard to welfare and taxes
Fully agree with statement A: Even if
taxes have to be increased, welfare
should be improved
Agree more with A Agree more with B
Fully agree with statement B: Taxes should be lowered even if welfare has to be cut as a result
Firm size Employed in small firm 19,1% 48,3% 25,1% 7,2%
** Employed in large firm 22,1% 54,4% 17,7% 5,9%
Age Young workers (<36y) 20,2% 46,9% 23,8% 9,0%
* Older workers (>35y) 19,6% 53,3% 22,1% 5,0% Sex
Male employee 21,8% 49,3% 22,2% 6,7% ** Female employee 16,0% 51,9% 25,2% 6,9% * Statistically significant at the 0.05 level; ** at the .01 level; *** at the .001 level; “n.s.” = not significant. Source: JGSS 2008.
As for preferences with regard to re-distributional policies, table 4 suggests only
minor differences between workers with different employment status. Again this allows
for different explanations. For instance, this may be related to the fact that the gap is
rather narrow because a societal consensus exists that more re-distribution is necessary.
Yet this challenges the commonly accepted idea that citizens in Japan view the state role
differently than most Europeans. For instance, Dore has famously argued that British
workers are more likely to turn to the state while Japanese workers would rather turn to
their employer.9
9 Cole sums up Dore’s argument in the following way: “In Britain, if the individual cannot survive, he turns to the politically defined community, not to the enterprise. National collectivist solutions were sought to problems of worker security and poverty. No comparative observations are made for Japan, but the presumption is that Japan represents a government-oriented economy, yet one in which employers accept their responsibility to secure the welfare of their employees.” See Cole (1978), p. 249.
Here, however, it appears that there is strong support for an expanded
state role and more state activity.
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Table 4 Should the government do more to close the gap between poor and rich families?
Strongly agree with statement: It is the responsibility of the
government to reduce differences
Somewhat agree Somewhat disagree Strongly disagree Chi 2 test (p)
Employment status Insider worker 39,3% 48,6% 9,3% 2,8%
** Outsider worker 44,8% 46,9% 5,9% 2,4%
Job security Insecure status 44,5% 45,6% 6,6% 3,3%
Firm size Employed in small firm 44,3% 45,0% 7,4% 3,4%
*** Employed in large firm 35,3% 51,3% 10,3% 3,1%
Age Young workers (<36y) 34,4% 46,6% 14,3% 4,7%
*** Older workers (>35y) 44,0% 48,6% 5,6% 1,8% Sex
Male employee 45,1% 43,6% 8,1% 3,2% ***
Female employee 40,5% 52,1% 5,7% 1,6% * Statistically significant at the 0.05 level; ** at the .01 level; *** at the .001 level. N.s. = not significant. Source: JGSS 2008.
With regard to redistribution preferences, the mixed evidence found so far
suggests clearly that Rueda and others likely miss important structural differences in the
Japanese labour market and, possibly, elsewhere as well. This is particularly true for the
issue of tax policy, which is a highly controversial issue in all countries, but arguably
particularly contentious in Japan - as the current but also previous discussions on tax
hikes imply. However, as the relationship between welfare, taxes and public attitudes
has not yet been studied in detail more research and theory-building would be required.
Last but not least, the question of political alienation shall be addressed. If
assumptions of a lack of political participation of lower income workers are correct, then
we are likely to find differences also based on employment status. This should be
underlined by discrimination that extends from the corporate to the national political
arena. And indeed, at least in 2008 the level of political alienation of outsider workers is
visibly higher than for insider workers. Young, female, and employees of small firms all
tend to be more sceptical about their political influence than those in large firms and
with permanent jobs. This seems to confirm H4 insofar as political participation appears
polarised, although it is not a direct confirmation that the global financial crisis is
responsible. However, viewed together these initial findings do not fully comply with
Rueda’s argument, that the preferences of insiders and outsiders are fundamentally
different. Rather, it appears that there is generally a high level of support for more
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welfare and public spending but that if faced with a choice workers with higher social
risks tend to reject more public welfare.
Table 5 Political alienation
Strongly agree with statement: People
like me have no say in what the
government does
Agree Disagree Strongly disagree Chi 2 test (p)
Employment status Insider worker 18,1% 36,2% 30,3% 15,5%
Firm size Employed in small firm 22,5% 36,7% 27,9% 12,9% * Employed in large firm 16,6% 37,3% 32,2% 13,8%
Age Young workers (<36y) 26,7% 38,6% 24,9% 9,7%
** Older workers (>35y) 19,4% 37,6% 29,2% 13,8%
Sex Male employee 18,1% 34,4% 32,2% 15,3%
*** Female employee 26,3% 40,0% 25,7% 8,0% * Statistically significant at the 0.05 level; ** at the .01 level; *** at the .001 level. N.s. = not significant. Source: JGSS 2008.
5. Partisan politics and the 2009 general election in Japan
As the previous section has shown, insider-outsider conflicts exist and are politically
salient in Japan; at the same time they do not fully resemble the pattern that has been
observed in Germany for instance. In contrast to Germany, however, employment issues
and social inequalities played a central role in the 2009 election campaign. Polls
conducted for the Nikkei Shimbun, for instance, show that shortly before the 2009
election employment was among the top three concerns for voters, and the second most
important concern for voters in their 20s (the other two topics being social security and
pensions, and the economy, see Nikkei, July 23, 2009: 2).10
10 In 2009 more than 40% of all survey respondents cited these issues. A note of caution is at order here, however as Japanese newspapers rarely publish any details on polls, e.g. the number of people surveyed. A comparison with the same Nikkei poll shortly before the 2005 election (Nikkei, August 28, 2005: 2) at least suggests that employment had not been a major concern before 2009 as it was not even among the top 5 concerns of voters.
This shows that employment
has finally become a salient political issue in Japan.
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The DPJ in particular made employment one of its central campaign issues. In its
electoral manifesto entitled “regime change” (seiken koutai 政権交代), the party
promised to „to re-balance the excesses of deregulation in order to improve the stability
of the daily lives of workers.“11 Among the specific policies the manifesto envisioned
were a general ban of temp agency work in manufacturing, a ban on temp agency work
with contracts of less than 2 months and “day temp agency work” (hiyatoi haken 日雇い
派遣), the implementation of a general principle that ensures equal treatment of temp
agency workers with “comparable” workers (派遣先労働者), and a provision which
would allow temp agency workers who have been employed beyond the legal limit for
such work, to declare themselves directly employed by the firm where they work. In
addition the DPJ promised to improve unemployment insurance (koyou houken 雇用保
険)12
11 Source:
, so that unemployed workers would be able to continue paying their premiums for
health insurance. And it promised to raise minimum wages to a national average of
1.000 Yen per hour. Perhaps even more dramatic than the statements in the manifesto
were meetings of three oppositional parties, the DPJ, the SDP and the People’s New
Party (PNP) in the first half of 2009, in which all three parties agreed to ban temp agency
work in manufacturing and to expand the safety net for workers once in power (Nikkei
August 18, 2009; Asahi May 13, 2009). According to media reports these meetings were
unprecedented in the more recent Japanese political history in that opposition parties
made relatively exact policy promises. The SDP and JCP manifestoes were particularly
strong on labour market dualism and reflected all major issues that had been discussed
in recent years such as the disparity society (kakusa shakai 格差社会), working poor and
mistreatment of temp agency workers. Both parties envisioned changes to regulations
governing fixed-term, temp agency and part-time employment in order to restore
http://www.dpj.or.jp/ (accessed in May 2011). The sudden salience of dualism is also visible in the fact that the DPJ did not refer to it in previous elections. The 2005 manifesto describes the gap between regular and non-regular employment mainly from a gender perspective which requires more child-care facilities. Source: http://www.dpj-kochi.jp/2005seisaku.pdf (accessed in November 2011).
12 “The financial basis of the unemployment insurance is to be strengthened in line with employment diversification.”
“worker dignity”, to facilitate the transition to regular jobs and to “stop the deterioration
of employment”.13
Although formally DPJ formally addressed dualisation a more thorough reading
reveals subtle differences. The LDP’s manifesto (改めます。伸ばします。) foresaw a
ban to “day temp agency work”
14, and a “revision of the temp agency law” yet it did not
specify whether this would require legislative changes. In contrast to the DPJ, however,
it emphasised a sound economic development and improvement of job placement
services. LDP politicians also became increasingly critical of re-regulation so that the
initially strong calls for reform of the temp agency sector within the LDP faded
noticeably until the election. The CGP very much followed the example of the LDP by
emphasising vocational training and placement as main elements of a “safety net” for
workers while not proposing any specific measures. Tellingly, on the question of temp
agency work in manufacturing, the CGP promised to review the issue within the first
year of government, “considering the opinions of stakeholders”.15
Although electoral manifestoes should be treated with caution when assessing
the extent of a possible re-orientation in labour politics as they are not binding and
completely ignore the fact that coalitional bargaining will inevitably lead to
compromises, it is telling all parties responded to issues of labour market dualism in
2009 and that a relatively clear divide between right-of-centre and left-of-centre parties
is visible. However, there seems to be no real dilemma for parties instead the three left-
of-centre parties seem to use them to underline their status as opponents of the
“Koizumi deregulations”. Nothing in the manifestos suggests that parties feel torn
between conflicting worker interests. Hence, there is little to support Rueda’s argument
13 Quote from the SDP „manifesto“: “パート・契約社員・非常勤・嘱託・派遣など有期雇用を正規雇
用 に 転 換 し 、 雇 用 の 劣 化 を 防 止 し ま す 。 ” Sources: http://www.sdp.or.jp/ and http://www.jcp.or.jp/ (last accessed in May 2011). The JCP’s manifesto also strongly mirrored issues connected to dualisation and entailed very similar proposals.
14 “In particular, we plan for non-regular workers in unstable employment environments a ban on „daily temp agency work, to promote a change toward permanent employment, and a ‘revision of the temp agency law’ to create a better work environment. In addition we prepare an ‘employment safety net’ which concerns, among other, vocational training as well as placement.” Source: http://www.ldp.or.jp/ (accessed in May 2011).
15 Instead of “day temp agency work” the manifesto singles out registered-type temp agency work: “With regard to the equal treatment of regular and non-regular workers, the manifesto promised better protection for non-regular workers through better access to “social security”, mentioning pensions, health insurance and unemployment insurance. Source: http://www.komei.or.jp/ (accessed in May 2011).
of a strategic dilemma faced by parties targeting salaried employees particularly in the
lower income range. Yet, this does not necessarily mean that insider-outsider divsisions
do not exist in Japan. Rather the present Japanese political situation and in particular the
economic situation of 2009 seem to emphasise mutual interests (such as a better safety
net) instead of issues which could potentially divide and polarise groups of different
employment status. This is also underlined by the fact that insiders are even more likely
to support higher taxes. It may only be once issues with more potential for polarisation
are put on the political agenda (e.g. employment protection for regular workers), that
the latent conflict between employment groups will finally become visible. So contrary
to H4, it looks like the crisis has, if at all, narrowed the latent gap between insiders and
outsiders at least temporarily. On the other hand, the LDP and New Komei-tou have
since resisted all attempts at re-regulation of non-regular work, which suggests, that
polarisation may gradually unfold.
6. Preliminary conclusions
Purpose of this paper has been to investigate whether the massive expansion of non-
regular employment in Japan has had a structural (read lasting) impact on preference
formation of voters and thus for partisan competition and labour policy-making or is
likely to develop such an influence in the foreseeable future. It has demonstrated that
the issue of labour market regulation has indeed become politically salient in recent
years which is most visible if one considers the intensity with which the DPJ-led
government has addressed the issue even though it did not fulfil many of the legislative
promises it had made during the 2009 election campaign. Yet, this paper also suggests
important differences to European countries and, most importantly, a much more
complex formation process of preferences than is usually recognised in the literature.
For instance, salience is important as labour market regulation has not been an issue of
major concern for Japanese voters. Moreover, among younger voters, clearly one of the
most concerned groups with regard to labour market dualism, this does not lead to a
major re-orientation with regard to welfare policy or redistribution. If at all, they seem
to support less spending and less redistribution than other groups. For these reasons the
dilemma for governments may thus be rather small despite the existence of clear
disparities.
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In more general terms, it is interesting to note that there is little evidence for
fundamentally different preferences between worker groups but rather moderate
differences in the strength of preferences. Some may interpret this as a sign that the
Japanese way of labour market dualism is much less problematic than that found
elsewhere or that present scholarship or the massive media attention for social
inequalities is simply exaggerating. Yet given the experience in other countries it is more
likely linked to the fact that insiders and outsiders actually have similar expectations vis-
à-vis the Japanese state, preferring more state-centred intervention to make up for
growing instability on the labour market. As the Japanese state is so far much less visible
in welfare provision than say in Germany but the stability of employment and corporate
welfare have become increasingly uncertain in a similar manner as in other advanced
countries, more publicly-run welfare may be in the interest of all workers. At the same
time, there is a clear bias toward low taxes especially among disadvantaged workers, so
the issue of consoling more welfare with low taxes may constitute a much bigger
strategic dilemma for Japanese parties. This point would certainly justify more in-depth
research.
A second interesting observation concerns the different degree of political alienation.
The Japanese case indicates that status-centred employment mechanisms may have a
lasting impact on the integration into the political system. It seems clear that male
employees in secure jobs in large firms feel more confident about their political voice
than workers in smaller ones. This may have to do with the fact that they have better
informational and financial resources that help them to form preferences while for
outsiders information and opportunity costs are considerably higher. This suggests that
much more theoretical and empirical work is required about when and how differences
between labour market insiders and outsiders become relevant. Since social democracy
has never been a strong movement in most developed East Asian countries, a better
conceptualisation of the impact of non-regular expansion on partisan politics is needed.
This too points to several promising future research perspective on in East Asia, Europe
and across regions.
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7. Annex
Figure 4 Employment regulation in selected OECD countries (1985 to 2008)
Source: Own compilation based on the OECD’s EPL (employment protection legislation) indicator (OECD 1994, 2004; Venn 2009). Latest available data in bold. Higher numbers indicate a higher level of protection/regulation. The figure compares the oldest with the most recent data available. Note that the direction of reforms within this period has not been linear in all cases and that additional provisions that apply to collective dismissals have only been integrated since 1998. Also, in earlier versions of the indicator Japan’s level of regular employment protection was assessed closer to that of Germany both in 1985 and in the 2000s. See annex A for details on the indicators’ components and a critical assessment. Figure 5 Regular and non-regular employment in Germany and Japan (percentage of employed persons)
Note: Percentages are indicative only. The Japanese survey asks respondents how employers refer to their employment status. This and the fact that many employees do not have a formal work contract make a certain level of misinterpretation likely. In Germany, overlaps between different forms of non-regular workers are not addressed in official statistics. While part-time, marginal and temp-agency employment can be identified reasonably well, overlaps between them remain under-researched. The data has been adjusted for overlaps (i.e. subtracting all marginally employed part-time employees from the part-timer group) based on a special investigation of the Mikrozensus. Direct comparisons between different forms of employment across countries should be done with caution, see text. Data for Japan is from 2009 and 2008 for Germany. Sources: MHLW (2010): Labour Force Survey [roudou ryoku chousa] and Mikrozensus as cited in Statistisches Bundesamt (2009): Niedrigeinkommen und Erwerbstätigkeit.
82,2%
46,3%
2,9%
32,4%
5,7%
7,7%
1,3%
3,5%
5,8%
6,8%
2,2%
3,2%
0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
Men
Women
Japan
Regular worker (seiki no shokuin/juugyounin) Part-time (paato)Marginal employment (arubaito) Temp agency worker (hakenshain)Fixed-term employee (keiyakushain) Other non regular
Primary wage earner: Own income is largest source of income (2000-2003: own income was ticked but not income of spouse) Secondary wage earner: Spouse/partner's income is largest source of income (for 2000-2003: spouse’s income was ticked but not own income)
Firm size Small: employers with less than 299 employees Large: Employers with more than 299 employees
Employment (in)security
Secure workers Those who chose "unlikely" or "very unlikely" to question on likelihood of dismissal within the next 12 months Insecure workers: Those who chose "likely" or "very likely"
Young workers
Young workers: workers with either an outsider or insider job not older than 35 years Older workers: workers with either an outsider or insider jobs older than 35 years
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