Nagamine

Global Summit of Women 2004
Media’s Role in Depicting Women’s economic progress 　(May29,2004)
Yoshimi Nagamine 　
Deputy Editor, News Analysis and Commentary Dept.
THE YOMIURI SHIMBUN
mixx0012@yomiuri.com

　I am honored to be here, Global Summit of Women 2004 today.

I work for the Yomiuri Shimbun, one of the largest and influential newspapers in Japan（a circulation of 10 million）, more than 20 years. Before I was posted as a deputy editor of the news analysis and commentary department, as a staff writer I wrote many articles about women’s issues and labor issues and consumer problems in the feature section.

Let me have a brief introduction of a current situation of working women in Japan.

In 2000, the women labor force (the sum of the employed and the unemployed over the age of 15) was 27.53 million. This represents a consecutive decrease over two years, reflecting the decrease in younger population. Women account for 40.7% of the total labor force.

The women labor force participation rate was 49.3%. The women labor force participation rate was 76.4%). The women labor force participation rate by age groups formed an M-shaped curve, with the rates for women aged 20-24(72.7%) and 45-49(71.8%) at the peaks, and that for women at the child bearing and raising aged 30-34(57.1%) at the bottom.

With regard to the women labor forced participation rates by marital status, the rate for the unmarried stood at 62.2%, 49.7% for those who are married, and 31.0% for the divorced and/or the widowed. Although approximately half of the married women participate in the labor force, the women labor force participation rate for women with children under the age of three still remains as low as 28.0%. You understand how hard mothers with small children continue to work in Japan.

As for wages, (scheduled) salaries for women employees were 65.5% of those for men employees, if part-time workers are not included, in 2000. Even though the wage difference between men and women in still high, there is some improvement compared to the 62.5% of 1995.This gap is caused by such factors as length of service, academic background, field of employment, rank at work, working hours and others, out of which length of service and rank at work play a large role. In 2000, the average length of service at one company for women was 8.8 years. Although the length had been extended compared with 7.9 years in 1995, it was still shorter than that of men at 13.3 years.

In general, large companies in Japan used to focus on the labor force of the male full-time employees who support a family alone, and have maintained lifetime employment system , which caused the difference of man and woman's length of service. However, mobilization of employment marches on and the system itself is breaking down now..

The number of part-time workers has increased conspicuously in recent years. In 2001 women part-time workers accounted for 68.8% of the total part-time workers and 39.3% of the total women employees. Part-time workers play a large part in Japan’s economy, however, compared to regular workers there are problems with employment stability and benefits.

Though the women labor force participation rate has been increasing over time, research on marital life shows that men spend substantially less time on housework than women even when both of them are working. Furthermore, when asked about the burdens women feel towards marriage, “burden of housework” and “burden of managing both housework and a job” accounted for nearly 40%. As is evident from this research, married women still bear a great burden of housework.

You realize that in Japan one of the most important thing in women’s economic progress is reformation of male consciousness.

Let me introduce you 3 important laws, related to women’s progress in Japan.

Firstly The Equal Employment Opportunity Law came into force in 1986 and was revised in April 1999. In accordance with this law, discrimination against women at all the stages of employment management, from recruitment, hiring to retirement were prohibited. Equal treatment between men and women has steadily permeated into companies' employment management. Under the negative influence of the severe employment situation today, however, female students in the hiring process still face disadvantages. Also, it is observed that improvements in the actual situation has been delayed. For instance, the ratio of women who are in managerial positions is still low and has been at a standstill in recent years. There are also cases which show dismissals due to pregnancy and childbirth, as well as different treatment of women in comparison to men at retirement and in dismissals.

Secondly, The Basic Law for a Gender-equal Society came into force in June 1999. The purpose of this law is to promote the formation of a gender-equal society by laying out the basic principles, clarifying the responsibilities and stipulating provisions to form the basis of policies. For example, article 6 of "the Basic Law for a Gender-equal Society" stipulates, "Formation of a Gender-equal Society shall be promoted so that women and men can perform their roles smoothly as household members in home-related activities, including child-raising and nursing of family members through mutual cooperation and social support, and can thus perform activities other than these."

Lastly, The Child Care and Family Care Leave Law has been fully enforced since April 1999, and the family care leave system, etc., has uniformly become a responsibility of the employer. This law allows men and women workers to take up to three months off on request for care of family members by applying to the employer. In 1997, along with the removal of restrictions on late-night work by women workers, the Child Care and Family Care Leave Law was revised to establish the system of limitation on late night work for men and women workers engaged in childcare or family care. This revision has been enforced since April 1999. According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, in1999 the ratio of men and women who took child care leave was 97.6% for women and 2.4% for men. Compared to the 1996 ratio of 99.4% for women and 0.6% for men. The figures show an increase in the rate of men , though it still remains at a low level.

Now, I would like to comment on a recent approach of Japanese media, especially newspapers(we have 6 major national newspapers and dozens of local newspapers) to the problems of working women. There are five points.

　Firstly, the real images of working women appear in various pages. In the past women’s issues have been dealt with only on the page of women or life style. But today we have the regular page, called “working women” in the evening newspaper once a week, besides that the articles about working women appear in the page of politics, economy etc. In the latest economy page the case of the company　which tries to change a traditional ways-of-a-company by the increase of appointment of a woman in managerial position was reported. On the interview page, the woman who broke through the glass-ceiling and played an active part has taken up intentionally, for example, "the first female branch manager in major banks" etc. .In Commentary page of which I take charge women’s issues are taken up as the same rank of politics and economy. It is important to make working women appear in all pages of the newspaper.

　Secondly, the media dig up various troubles which working women have, and share them with readers. Letters and e-mails from readers are very precious. A two-way communication between readers and editors is important.

Thirdly, women’s grass roots activities are reported as much as possible. Within these activities, there are a lot of ideas and the way of thinking which lead to the social reform.

　Fourthly, media cooperates with a non-partisan female representatives and studies and solves the defect of a legal system. Such a cooperation leads to the law revision.

　Lastly, reformation of men’s consciousness. For example, The series of diary written by the man who took child care leave appear on website of the newspaper.

　One of the challenges today is reformation of consciousness of top management .

In Japan total fertility rate (which refers to the total of birth rates for women by age group in a given year) continued to decline, and after the historic low of 1.34 recorded in 1999, the rate was continuing the lowest levels in the post-war period. One of the main reasons for the declining birth rate is thought to be the results of the increasing rate of people who remain unmarried and continues trend to marry at a later stage in life. Moreover the number of couples who remain childless is increasing and the average number of children for married women is forecast to decline in the future. According to future projections, the total population will reach a peak in2006, after which it will begin to decline. It is forecast that by 2050 the population will have shrunk by more than 20% of its current level. Therefore, I emphasize in my commentary, if a company makes the most of women’s ability that company cannot survive in the future.

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