世論 What Japan Thinks

Here is another very interesting survey from goo Research, a look at child-rearing and working. This is the second time the survey has been conducted, the first time being in December 2007, but I didn’t translate that one.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 29th of June 2010 exactly 1,000 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. All of the sample were working mothers with a child under six years old. 44.6% of the sample were in regular full-time employment, 9.2% contract or dispatch workers, 38.6% part-time or casual, and 7.8% were on a child-rearing holiday.

You might want to look at another recent survey from goo Research on diverse working styles.

As far as I am aware, my employer has all the systems mentioned below in place for both mothers and fathers, although not surprisingly very few of the fathers avail themselves of any of the benefits; one day off for the baby popping out and another one for the mother being discharged from hospital seems about the size of it on average. Although Q6 shows that the wives want their husbands to make use of more benefits, Q7 and Q8 show a high degree of satisfaction with their husbands’ efforts. Are women setting the bar too low or are they just accepting that Japanese working styles on the whole result in father never seeing the kid on weekdays?
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The first question one might have is what is diversity; the immediate thing that springs to my mind, at least, is having an anti-discrimination policy at work covering race, creed, gender and sexual orientation. However, in this survey into diversity management by goo Research only one and a half (“foreign” rather than “race”) of these groups appear.

Demographics

Between the 16th and 21st of June 2010 930 members of the goo Research monitor group employed in companies with more than 50 employees completed a private internet-base questionnaire. The sex and age splits were not reported, but 23.3% worked in manufacturing, 14.9% in service, food or drink, 10.5% for local or national government, 9.8% in retail, 9.5% in information or distribution, 6.8% in construction or real estate, 5.6% in finance, 4.3% in distribution, 1.6% in farming, fisheries, forestry, mining, or utilities, and 13.7% in other industry. 16.3% worked for companies with between 50 and 99 employees, 30.1% with 100 to 499 employees, 11.0% with 500 to 999 employees, 19.9% with 1,000 to 4,999 employees, and 22.7% in companies with 5,000 or more employees.

The company I work for does just about everything in Q1. I’m not sure about a specific older person employment scheme, whatever that might be, but we do actively hire staff in mid-career, not just new graduates. We’re extremely active recently in foreigner employment, and I’m surprised that our managing director’s recent writings on the matter have barely hit the Japanese newspapers and blogs, let alone the English-language sphere.

It’s interesting that diversity management here seems to be more about diverse employment patterns for existing staff, trying to allow for working styles other than the 9 to 5 10, work before family. As mentioned above, our company has generous paternity leave on offer, but even this year when two guys’ wives gave birth the guys took one day off for the birth and another for when she came out of hospital before returning to the same old 9 to 10 (pm of course) regardless of necessity.

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