Японские исследования (Mar 2021)
Womenomics: achievements and problems
Abstract
Womenomics , which aimed to create conditions to increase the participation of women in the economy, can be assessed as a fairly successful direction of Abenomics , the economic policy of Prime Minister S. Abe. Thanks to a number of measures taken by the government of S. Abe, in the period of 2012-2019, the number of working Japanese women increased by almost 3 million, in particular, due to the expansion of employment among women of the most problematic ages (25 to 44 years old). While in 2012, among the latter, about 2/3 worked, in 2019, the share was already more than 3/4. At the same time, there have been some shifts in the employment model of these women. Namely, among them, the proportion of permanent workers has increased and the proportion of non-permanent employees has decreased. There was also a massive entry into the labor market of “housewives with experience”, i.e., women aged 45-54 years, and although most of them became non-permanent workers, a slight increase in the share of those permanently employed occurred in this group as well. It seems that further efforts to improve conditions for women to combine work and family responsibilities will not only increase their participation in the economy, but also lead to an increase in the fertility rate. This is especially important since an increase in fertility due to an increase in the proportion of married women among the young Japanese still seems problematic. Although the coronavirus pandemic as a whole had a negative impact on female employment, leading to a decrease in its scale, as the economy returned to normal, the situation began to improve, and, by the autumn of 2020, among the problematic ages (25-44 years old), the influx of women to the labor market not only compensated, but even exceeded the outflow caused by the pandemic. At the same time, compared with the pre-crisis level, the share of permanent workers among them even increased. It can be supposed that the impetus given by the pandemic to the development of various kinds of flexible forms of work, including the field of permanent employment, may generally have a beneficial effect on the possibilities for women to combine work and family responsibilities.
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