Seven years after the landmark 1986 Equal Employment Opportunity Law took effect here with the aim of guaranteeing working women equality with men in areas such as recruiting, training, promotion and compensation, young Japanese working women have found the promise far from the reality.
These women were employed in companies’ elite management programs and were known as sogoshoku, which means “on the career path.” These programs were created for women when the employment equality law was introduced, but many of these women have abandoned the program and their company.
Mariko Kohno, a managing director of a Tokyo company that offers seminars for working women, says that in some companies 80 percent of sogoshoku have left; in other companies, none remain. According to the 1992 survey by the Working Women Institute, a non-profit research organization, 47.8 percent of sogoshoku hired in 1986 had quit within five years.
Many of these women left for self-employment or for jobs with non-Japanese companies operating in Japan with more workplace equality than most Japanese companies, according to Rituko Kitamura, director of the Working Women Institute. Some women go to the United States to seek advanced business degrees.
Furthermore, staffers at universities’ career-placement departments have seen a dramatic decline in applications for the management programs, says Rie Matsushima, career placement director at Rikkyo University in Tokyo.
About 50 percent of companies with more than 5,000 employees have a management program for women, according to the Ministry of Labor’s 1992 survey. Only women are required to choose between the management program or traditional office work (called ippanshoku) when applying for jobs.
“I was overloaded, burdened with the expectations of my superiors without any support. It was a tremendous amount of pressure,” said Akiko Yasuda, 26, who quit a large bank two years ago.
Yasuda says the bank created the management program just as a public relations gimmick. “No mistakes were allowed and I also had to do ippanshoku, assistant work such as making copies and serving green tea, in order to maintain smooth relations with non-management course women. None of this was required for the male workers.”
“I was eager to work hard, but there was a limit to how much I could accomplish. Why only must women choose between management or non-management courses? It’s discrimination against women,” Yasuda said.
“Konna Hazuja Nakatta” (“It Shouldn’t Have Been This Way”), a book edited and produced by the Working Women Institute that compiles 300 management course women’s notes and letters, was recently published and attracted attention to sogoshoku women’s reality. The participants’ names were changed to protect their privacy. The following are excerpts from the book:
– “No challenging assignments were given. We had no role models and felt quite isolated.”
– “We may be treated more important than non-management women, but less important than men. Still not quite equal to men.”
– “Women are not fairly evaluated.”
– “The management course is not necessary when it has no substance. This work system limits women’s possibilities rather than encourages them.”
– “We want to continue to work. We won’t quit if a job is challenging.”
– “It is unfair to impose much higher demands on women than on men.”
Michiyo Nakatani, 24, who works at a manufacturing company, writes: “My boss goes out on business calls with his male subordinates almost every day. I am left alone in the small branch office with nothing to do except wash ashtrays and answer the phone. No matter how many different ways or times I have told my boss that I am willing to take on more responsibility, I have not been taken seriously. I have decided to marry.”
Nakatani’s case may be an extreme example, but Kaoru Kajiyama, 24, who works at a financial company writes: “Within one year (of entering the management course) I had a stress-related duodenal ulcer developing. I have wanted to leave the company many times, but hung on. Little by little the situation has improved. I can’t blame those who have quit. The problem is structural. I am angry with this system and the society.”
There are some success stories, but they are found mostly in small or medium-size companies, wrote women in the book. “There is no chance for women at a large corporation with an abundance of excellent male employees,” said Yasuda. “Unless the men change, nothing will be changed in this ultraconservative society.”
Though Kohno admits that some improvements have been made, the problem is that any improvements or changes depend largely on individual companies and bosses. The gap between management and working women is still large. According to the Tokyo government 1992 survey of 900 companies (and their female employees), 66.1 percent of companies felt improvement had been made in recruitment while only 22.5 percent of women who work at these companies agreed. As for promotion, 59.9 percent of the companies and 10.9 percent of the women thought improvement had been made.
Kitamura says even women who are satisfied with their current jobs say they cannot continue to work to the degree they do now when they become older or have children.
A 1993 survey by the Working Women Institute of 33 sogoshoku revealed that they spend 11 hours, 43 minutes a day in the workplace; 6 hours, 29 minutes sleeping; and 2 hours, 5 minutes commuting, which leaves 1 hour a day for chores, housework and free time.
“Unless society changes, there will be no improvement. This is not merely a women’s issue but one that relates to all working people in Japan,” said Kitamura.
Mami Nakano, an attorney, goes a step further. She says that the time has come to review the equality law, which contains no legal penalty for non-compliance. “The law encourages women to work equally with notoriously workaholic men. We need to change the whole work system; otherwise there will be no equality worth having between men and women.”
