Japan's Population Crisis

JAPAN’S POPULATION CRISIS: DETERMINING THE

EFFECTIVENESS OF JAPANESE POPULATION POLICY

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A Thesis

Presented to the

Faculty of

San Diego State University

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In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

Political Science

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Christopher John Pirotto

Summer 2016

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DEDICATION

This thesis is dedicated to my parents. Thank you for all your love and support. I would also like to dedicate this thesis to my Grandpa Keith, the other educator and bike lover in the family.

ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS

Japan’s Population Crisis: Determining the Effectiveness of Japanese Population Policy by Christopher John Pirotto Master of Arts in Political Science San Diego State University, 2016

The focus of this thesis is to determine which population policies have been effective in Japan to combat the decreasing population and low fertility rate. This thesis begins with explaining why the fertility rate has decreased in the last several decades and why the population is currently decreasing. There are many reasons why the fertility rate dropped and continues to remain well below replacement level. These reasons include high opportunity costs for women if they get married, traditional gender roles and expectations, a labor industry not conducive to a fair work and family balance, individuals choosing to live independently, a weak economy and economic concerns, and a decline of desirable partners. This thesis then explores the various policies the government has implemented in response to these problems. These policies all have the main objective of increasing the fertility rate. I hypothesize that workplace oriented policies are more effective population policies than child-rearing related policies. Original interview and survey questions were created to test this hypothesis by testing the knowledge of population policies, determine how friendly work environments are towards new parents, and measure the level of confidence in job security for individuals who wish to take advantage of policies such as childcare leave. Data was collected across four different regions in Japan between December 2014 and May 2015. At this time literature and government studies have largely ignored the issue of how effective specific population policies are. It is the hope that this thesis can provide a glimpse into which policies are not being as effective as they potentially could be while at the same time providing a blueprint and encouragement for other researchers to ask questions similar to those in this thesis.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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ABSTRACT ...... v LIST OF TABLES ...... viii LIST OF FIGURES ...... x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...... 1 Research Questions and Hypothesis ...... 5 Significance of the Research ...... 6 Layout of the Study ...... 7 2 HISTORICAL DISCUSSION ...... 9 Tokugawa Period (1603-1868) ...... 10 Meiji Restoration to World War Two (1868-1945) ...... 12 Post War Japan ...... 15 Summary ...... 18 3 EXPLANATIONS FOR THE LOW FERTILITY RATE ...... 19 Women in the Workplace ...... 23 Role in the Family and Gender Roles ...... 24 The Economy and Education ...... 25 Summary ...... 28 4 POLICY RESPONSES ...... 29 Child Allowance and Tax Deductions ...... 30 Childcare Service Policies ...... 31 Healthcare for Children ...... 33 Maternity Leave and Childcare Leave ...... 34 Policies Targeting Employers ...... 36

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Immigration Policies ...... 39 Japanese Descendants ...... 40 Non-Japanese Descendants ...... 41 Immigration as a Solution ...... 43 Summary ...... 44 5 METHODS AND DATA COLLECTION ...... 45 Data Collection ...... 46 Data Analysis ...... 49 6 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ...... 50 Description of Participants ...... 50 Knowledge of the Population Problems and Child-Rearing Benefits ...... 53 Child Allowance ...... 56 Childcare Costs ...... 60 Healthcare Costs ...... 63 Workplace Related Results ...... 64 Maternity and Childcare Leave ...... 65 Workplace Environment and Equality ...... 72 Summary: A Comparison Across Various Policies ...... 75 7 CONCLUSION ...... 78 REFERENCES ...... 80

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LIST OF TABLES

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Table 1. Highest Education Obtained vs Percentage of Childless Individuals ...... 26 Table 2. Amount of Allowance Paid per Child ...... 31 Table 3. Description of Interviewees ...... 51 Table 4. Age Group Breakdown ...... 51 Table 5. Gender and Current Relationship Status ...... 52 Table 6. Participant’s Location in Japan ...... 52 Table 7. Highest Education Level Obtained ...... 52 Table 8. Current Employment Status ...... 52 Table 9. Gender and Current Employment Status ...... 53 Table 10. Number of Children ...... 53 Table 11. What is the Japanese Population Doing? ...... 54 Table 12. Does the Government Want People to Have More Children? ...... 54 Table 13. Name Something the Government is Doing to Encourage People to Have More Children...... 55 Table 14. Have You Heard of the Child Allowance? ...... 56 Table 15. Who is Eligible to Receive Child Allowance Benefits? ...... 57 Table 16. Do You Receive Child Allowance Payments? ...... 57 Table 17. If Yes, When did You Learn About Payments? ...... 58 Table 18. What do You Think Monthly Preschool Costs? ...... 61 Table 19. Is Your Child’s Preschool Run by the Government? ...... 62 Table 20. Average Monthly Medical Cost Per Child ...... 64 Table 21. How much Leave can Someone Take? ...... 66 Table 22. Gender and would you Take the Full Leave Cross Table ...... 66 Table 23. Gender and Would Your Career Status be Affected Cross Table ...... 67 Table 24. Gender and Would You Return to the Same Job Cross Table ...... 67 Table 25. Gender and Opposite Sex’s Career Status Cross Table ...... 68

Table 26. Gender and How Long of a Leave did You Take Cross Table ...... 69 Table 27. Were You Worried About Work or Co-workers While on Leave? ...... 70 Table 28. Was your Career Affected by Taking Leave? ...... 70 Table 29. After Leave did You Return to the Same Job? ...... 70 Table 30. Company Encouraging You to Have Children? ...... 73 Table 31. Gender and Company Supportive of Decision Cross Table ...... 73 Table 32. Feels or Felt Pressure to Work Longer Before Having Kids ...... 74 Table 33. Gender and Same Types of Jobs Cross Table ...... 75 Table 34. Comparison of Child-Rearing Policy Knowledge ...... 76 Table 35. Comparison of Workplace Related Policy Effects ...... 77

LIST OF FIGURES

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Figure 1. Japan’s population since 1950 with three different projections for the future population decline...... 2 Figure 2. Japanese total fertility rate since 1950 and projection until 2050...... 3 Figure 3. Percentage of unmarried individuals in Japan since 1980...... 4 Figure 4. Average age of first marriage in Japan since 1950...... 20 Figure 5. Changes in marriage and divorce rates since 1970...... 21

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Throughout the course of writing this thesis there have been many individuals who have helped me along the way. Above all I would like to acknowledge my committee chair, Professor Ronnee Schreiber, for providing valuable input and advice at every step of the thesis process. I would also like to thank my other committee members Professor Brian Adams and Professor Katheryn Edgerton-Tarpley for their amazing comments and input which helped strengthen this thesis. I would also like to give a special thanks to Tomoe Okumura for her kindness, love, and patience throughout the entire graduate school process. In addition, thank you for helping translate numerous times for this thesis. Also a big thanks to several other individuals including Harumi Takasaki for her English to Japanese translations and Tomoaki Ohashi for opening up his house to me while I was traveling and collecting data for this thesis. I would also like to thank Professor Bradford Lee at Fukui University of Technology for pushing me and encouraging me throughout the process and Professor Elliott Cooper at Fukui University for providing stylistic and proofreading help in the final days of this thesis while helping me improve my academic writing I also would like to thank the dozens of individuals who took time out of their day to participate in an interview or complete a survey, providing the valuable data used in this thesis. Finally, a big thanks to my dog Poe. Thank you for being right beside me every night I worked on this thesis.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Since 2009 Japan’s population has been declining. Current population projections, as seen in figure 1, show that the population will continue to decline for at least the next eighty years. Since 1975, Japan has also had a fertility rate which is below replacement level. A population, when controlling for immigration, that has a fertility rate below 2.0 will have a declining population. As figure 2 shows, the current Japanese fertility rate is well below replacement level. These two issues bring a wide range of other problems including: an aging society, a shrinking working population, caring for the elderly, pension costs, and an increasing national debt. Other problems such as tension with neighboring countries, domestic political pressure, and a weakening economy has created a difficult time for Japanese lawmakers.

Figure 1. Japan’s population since 1950 with three different projections for the future population decline. Source: National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. 2012. “Population Projections for Japan.” January. http://www.ipss.go.jp/site-ad/index_english/esuikei/econ2.html (July 13, 2015).

Figure 2. Japanese total fertility rate since 1950 and projection until 2050. Source: Smil, Vaclav. 2007. “The Unprecedented Shift in Japan’s Population: Numbers, Age, Prospects.” The Asia-Pacific Journal 5 (4): http://apjjf.org/-Vaclav-Smil/2411/ article.html (July 13, 2015).

Scholars have determined that the fertility rate, and in turn the population, declined because people are waiting longer to get married, or they are not getting married at all (Atoh 2001; Bardsley 2004; Jiro 1991). Figure 3 shows exactly what the scholars pointed out, the percentage of unmarried individuals aged twenty-four through thirty-four has increased overtime. In Japan, having children is strongly linked to marriage (Hara 2008). In Japan only two percent of children are born out of wedlock, which is much lower than any other industrialized nation (Anzo 2015). Lawmakers must not only face the problem of getting people to have more children, but also must find a way to increase the number of marriages in order to achieve that goal. There are a wide variety of reasons that the Japanese population is waiting longer to get married. These include economic reasons (Roberts 2011), an increase of educated women (Hara 2008), dedication to one’s career or company (Aono and Kashiwagi 2011), existing gender roles and expectations (Makita 2010), and higher expectations for a suitable spouse (Hara 2008). There is no one cause, therefore policymakers have tried to tackle the issue via a wide variety of policy solutions.

Figure 3. Percentage of unmarried individuals in Japan since 1980. Source: Matsuda, Shigeki. 2015. “Declining Birth Rates: Actual Conditions and Causal Factors of Japan’s Declining Birth Rate.” Child Research Net. February 13. http://www.childresearch.net/projects/birth_rate/2015_01.ht ml (July 13, 2015).

The population solutions implemented include economic incentives to have children such as the Child Allowance (Kodomo teate or Jido teate) or the dependent child tax deduction, both which make life a little more economically comfortable. There are also policies that help families with two working parents, such as the Angel Plan and the New Angel Plan, which increased the number of childcare facilities and the hours that those facilities are open. This allows working parents to have reliable childcare for their children while at work. Workplace discrimination and gender equality laws, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Law (EEOL) and The Childcare Leave Act, have also been implemented in order to motivate working women to take advantage of their maternity leave or childcare leave without fear of being fired or having their career negatively affected. On top of all of these policies, the government has also tried to have influence over the home life of married couples, calling on men via a 2008 White Paper on gender equality, to get more men involved in their family (Cabinet Office, Government of Japan 2008). Japanese men

spend only an average of thirty minutes a day helping around the house or with childcare activities (P. Lam 2009). A broad response by the government shows that they recognize there is not just one problem, but rather multiple problems that need to be fixed. However, each one of these policies implemented has a cost. In a society that is aging a large portion of the budget goes to taking care of the elderly and paying pensions. In fiscal year 2015 Japan had 32.7% of the national budget expenditures dedicated to social security (Ministry of Finance 2015). This does not include rising health care costs, which will only increase as the population gets older. A very important thing for the Japanese government to do is to cut wasteful expenditures (Harada 2012). Considering Japan’s current and future fiscal problems, it is necessary to determine the effectiveness of various population policies.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESIS The main questions that this study will attempt to answer are: Are individuals aware of the child-rearing benefits they will receive before deciding to have a child and have workplace equality, childcare leave, and job security laws created a work environment where employees don’t fear for their future career or for that of someone else. Since 1990 Japan has implemented a wide variety of population policies, which will be discussed in depth in chapter four, in order to address several factors which have played a role in reducing the fertility rate. I hypothesize that gender equality, workplace environment, and job security laws are more effective than child support policies such as the Children’s Allowance or Angel Plan. My reasoning for believing this to be the case is that workplace related laws force companies to behave a certain way, providing protection under the law. In order for child support policies to be effective individuals must be aware of the policies before deciding to have children, if they are not the child support policies are after the fact benefits that played no part in the decision making process to have children. In my personal experience from living in Japan for five years, I have never seen any advertisement, commercial, or openly public information about the child-rearing benefits available, which has led me to believe that child-rearing policies are not well known.

A possible explanation for my personal observation is that there have been problems with child support policies not meeting their intended goals. For example, in 2004 the government implemented The Children and Childcare Support Plan which attempted to eliminate waitlists for public daycare centers by 2007. However, to this day wait lists still exist. The policy currently in place is The Acceleration Plan for Reducing Wait-listed Children, which was enacted in 2013 and hopes to eliminate wait lists by 2017. On the other hand the Japanese government has been very open about encouraging individuals to take advantage of workplace childcare laws. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has publically stated that he encourages men to take advantage of childcare leave (Japan Times 2016) and has even encouraged companies to promote more women to top level executive positions (Japan Times 2013). It has been no secret that the government’s goal is to create a work environment which is equal and provides security for individuals, both males and females, to take advantage of childcare leave policies. While there is a dearth of literature around what types of population policies are more effective, some scholars have called child-rearing policies established with the goal of increasing the fertility rate as weak and indirect (Ozaki and Kaizuka 1994). For these reasons I expect to find that many childless individuals are unaware of child-rearing policies and also that parents were unaware of child-rearing policies before having children. I also expect that I will find that a majority of individuals do not fear for the security or future of their careers and feel secure in taking advantage of childcare leave policies that any individual, regardless of gender, can legally take advantage of without having their career being affected.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH There has been a lot of research done on the role of the Japanese woman in both the family and the workplace for both modern Japan and historic Japan. There has also been a lot research done on the current population trend, reasons for the population decline, and the types of policies being implemented in response. Despite all of this, very little research has been done on the effectiveness of the policies implemented to reverse the change. Now, more than ever, is not the time to implement policies that are ineffective. With the highest national debt in the world (Central Intelligence Agency 2015) Japan needs to be very smart with

which policies it implements. Policy implementation is not cheap, and the policies themselves often cost billions of yen of taxpayer money. If these policies are having no effect on their intended goal, than they could be cut and the money could be used elsewhere, or possibly on something more effective. Determining the effectiveness of population policies would require a large budget, a large survey, and thousands of man hours. Therefore the goal of this thesis is not to get a full understanding of the effectiveness of each population policy but rather to provide a little snapshot of what it may look like along with a blueprint for future studies. To date there has not been a large study done asking the questions this thesis proposes. Doing a survey similar to this thesis every year would be a great way to determine if knowledge of population policies is increasing over time, workplace equality is improving, or the family/work balance is improving.

LAYOUT OF THE STUDY In order to fully understand the reasons why policies were implemented and their desired effects on society it is important to do an in-depth analysis of the population history of Japan. Population policies are not new and have been around at least since the Tokugawa period (1603-1868). There have been times when there was a need to keep the population under control (Hanley and Yamamura 1977), and times where there was a need to expand the population (Bernstein 1991). These policies have portrayed women in a certain light. Therefore, it is important that this study does not ignore the role of the Japanese woman in the centuries before current day Japan, as they are often linked to her role as a mother, and the decision of whether or not to bear children. Chapter two will analyze the role of the Japanese woman along with population policies from the beginning of the Tokugawa period in 1603 all the way through postwar Japan. It will attempt to explain the population trends overtime, what caused them, and any population policies implemented along with reasons for implementing these policies. Chapter three will explain why the fertility rate decreased and why it is currently still below replacement level. Chapter four will be dedicated to discussing the population policies that were implemented in response to the decrease of the fertility rate. In addition to policy intended to increase the fertility rate, this chapter will also briefly examine immigration

8 policies since increasing the number of immigrants is another way to increase the labor force and population. Chapter five will provide information regarding the data collection and methods of the study. It will explain how, where, and from whom data was collected. Reasons behind the questions asked will also be explained. After that, an in depth analysis of original survey and interview results will be done in chapter six. Following that, a conclusion will wrap up the thesis.

CHAPTER 2

HISTORICAL DISCUSSION

The role of the Japanese woman has changed dramatically over time. It has often been that her role is defined by what the government needs her to be. If there was a need for a higher population, the government often called on her to have more children or enacted policies to make her have more children. If there was a need for her to work or refrain from having children, that is what she was expected to do. The Japanese government has never shied away from the issue of reproduction. This chapter will explore what the literature says about the role of the Japanese woman and explain how it was tied to the population policies during that specific time period. This chapter will be split into three different time periods. First, the Tokugawa period (1603-1868). The Tokugawa period was a time of immense economic growth during a time of Japanese isolationist politics. Japan has also faced several famines during this time period which provides a great case study for population research, as in the case of the work done by Susan Hanley and Kozo Yamamura. During the Tokugawa period, Japan was ruled by the shogunate, which was a feudal military government. However, it was overthrown in 1868 and this was the start of the Meiji period and the Meiji restoration. The beginning of the Meiji period in 1868 will be the beginning focus point for the second section of this chapter. The Meiji restoration brought about a western type industrialization and a strong central government. It was a time of questioning old practices and trying new ones (Bernstein 1991). Individuals and families began to move to the city and begin work in factories as opposed to farms. The second section of this chapter will also cover the time period that takes Japan through the Sino- Japanese Wars, the Russo-Japanese War, World War One, and World War Two. This chapter will show that these wars had an impact on the role of the family, reproduction, and how Japanese women were viewed. The final section of this chapter will begin at the end of World War Two. The United States had a large occupation force in Japan after World War

Two and also had influence over the shape and direction of the new Japanese government. The influence of western type government, ideals, and policies had a large impact on gender equality and social norms.

TOKUGAWA PERIOD (1603-1868) During the Tokugawa period the shogunate established the first ever census collection. This was done via local temples and shrines (Hanley and Yamamura 1977). However, the earliest available population numbers from this census are not until the middle of the Tokugawa period in 1721. There are no figures available for the early Tokugawa period. There is still debate regarding specific numbers, however general population trends and patterns are widely agreed upon. This discussion will remain consistent by using researcher Hiroshi Kito’s Tokugawa period estimates. In 1721 he estimated that Japan had a population of 31.28 million individuals. For over one hundred years this number changed very little. In 1822, it was estimated to be at 31.9 million, researching a low of 29.9 million in 1792. At the beginning of the Meiji period, in 1872, it was estimated that there was a population of 34.8 million individuals in Japan (Kito 1996). From the middle to the end of the Tokugawa period, 1721 to 1872, the population changed very little. The complete lack of population growth during the middle to late Tokugawa period is commonly said to be due to several famines along with abortions and infanticide done by peasants. It makes sense that during hard times the mortality rate is naturally going to increase and couples are not going to want to reproduce and bring a child into the world. However, some literature disagrees that this traditional view is not enough to explain the lack of population growth (Hayami 1973; Smith 1977). The overall standard of living for almost everyone improved throughout the Tokugawa period, despite the famines, therefore there has to be something else preventing the population from increasing (Hanley and Yamamura 1977). Family during the Tokugawa period was very different from the modern Japanese family, largely due to social attitudes towards adoption and childbearing. Susan Hanley and Kozo Yamamura researched four specific villages over two generations in central Japan during the Tokugawa period and found that over fifty percent of families adopted a child (Hanley and Yamamura 1977). Adoption was used as a way to regulate the size of the family.

If a family was too big a child was given away, and if a family was too small it adopted a son or daughter. During this era a woman was expected to get married, however childbearing was not the woman’s primary obligation (Bernstein 1991). The role of the Japanese woman during this time was to be a manager of the house. They would manage the family farm, rice field, or in the case of middle to upper class families, servants. Raising children was done by grandparents, elders, servants, and or sometimes even other children (Uno 1991). There was a large sense of community, and it was everyone’s responsibility to look after children, not just the mother. With this sense of community came a sense of communal thinking. If something wasn’t good for the community it wasn’t done. This policy or cultural convention was enforced by the local land owners who, in a sense, were the local authorities. When times were tough it was the land owners who made sure their servants had food (Hanley and Yamamura 1977). Therefore an out of control population was not only bad for work production, but it also meant there were more mouths the land owners were responsible for. The role of the daughter-in-law was arguably the most important role of all for the Japanese woman. In Japanese history, and even today in many cultures, tension is often found between a wife and mother-in-law. Despite this additional stress in the household, elderly women in Japan during the Tokugawa period lived longer lives if their son married and had children. This can be attributed to the woman’s role of taking care of the husband’s parents (Cornell 1991). The role of Japanese women as caretakers was very important and as Cornell continues to argue, it was seen as part of womanhood to care for the husband’s parents. The practice of wives caring for their husband’s parents comes from the practice of marrying out, where women left their family and joined their husband’s family after marriage. The Confucian ideal of filial piety makes the relationship between child and parent very important. Filial piety is the reason why parents, elders, and ancestors were (and still are) very respected in Japanese society. It calls for children to take good care of their parents, especially when they can’t care for themselves. This is where the practice of a daughter-in- law being expected to care for the elder members of a household came from. The ideal of filial piety made it so caring for the elderly was expected, therefore the obvious person to fill

that role would be the younger women in the household, which due to marrying into the family were the daughters-in-laws. There was an obvious class system in Tokugawa Japan and while vertical movement to a different class wasn’t possible, there was still motivation to improve one’s economic conditions. Even the peasants had motivation to not have many children. Children cost money, so many peasants chose to give their children up for adoption or partake in abortions or infanticide in order to have a chance at a better life (Hanley and Yamamura 1977). As Walthall (1991, 60) put it, “Womb was…less significant than the ability to maintain the family’s fortune and reputation.” Population control was a rational decision based not on the famines and hardship because even during times of improved living condition proof can be found of rational population control. Hanley and Yamamura continued in their study to find that the last child of a family was often named Sue (meaning the last or end in Japanese) if it was a girl and Tomokichi (Tomo means stop) if it was a boy (Hanley and Yamamura 1977). It showed that even in times of prosperity, there was a rational decision to limit the number of children. Improving the family’s situation and improving the way of life often meant tough decisions such as abortion or infanticide were necessary. It was not done out of hardship, but rather by a rational decision based on the chance to have a better life. To conclude, Bernstein (1991, 4) says, “Women were thus valued as workers, wives, and especially daughters-in-law, not solely as mothers.” This shows that women had power by being the manager of the household, but were always doing work for their husband, mother-in-law, or the community. Never for themselves.

MEIJI RESTORATION TO WORLD WAR TWO (1868- 1945) In 1868 the Tokugawa shogunate was overthrown and a wave of western influence brought about the Meiji restoration. The Meiji period lasted from 1868 to 1912 and was a time to question previous customs and practices by experimenting with new ways. Therefore it was not surprising to see the roles of women come under question and change. With military expansion women were needed to fill new roles to support the war effort at home. This was also the era where the famous slogan good wife, wise mother (Ryosai kenbo) was

born and promoted by politicians in the new government, which was the first time that womanhood was linked with motherhood (Bernstein 1991). The good wife, wise mother meant that women were expected to learn household skills such as cooking, cleaning, and sewing while also raising children to be strong and smart. The goal was to educate children to be good citizens of the nation, and therefore future tools to be used for the expansion of Japan. The state’s view of the family and what a mother should be, turned the home into a very public place. It made women a civil servant of sorts. Proof can be found via the Meiji Civil Code of 1898, which enforced a national standard for families. The Meiji Civil Code made it so men were the legal household head, and made it so that only the household head (male) could enter into legal agreements. It also stated that in divorce cases the father was entitled to the children. If adultery was committed by the woman there were grounds for divorce, but not when adultery was committed by the man. Marriages also required approval from the household head in cases were any female was under twenty-five and any male was under thirty. The Meiji Civil Code clearly enforced the idea that the Japanese woman was subordinate to the Japanese man, and that the family was a male-centered authoritarian institution. In addition to the Meiji Civil Code of 1898, the Meiji Restoration brought about other laws denying women rights and cementing their roles as subordinate to the husband. The Meiji constitution and the Law of Election denied women voting right. This wasn’t overturned until 1946, after World War Two. The Law on Political Association and Assembly in 1890, and later the Public Order and Police Law of 1900, even denied women the right to attend political meetings or join political parties. Throughout this time period in the eyes of the law women were seen as unequal to men. They were not afforded the same rights as men, especially in the realm of politics. While many women accepted their role in society, some women were not as accepting. In 1919 the New Woman Association (Shin fujin kyokai) was created and called for abolishing the law which prohibited women from participating in the political process and joining political parties, and also called for suffrage for women (Molony 2000). Due to the push for equal civil rights and involvement in the political process, the Diet in 1921 amended the Public Order and Police Law of 1900, which had prohibited women from participating in the

political process. The new amendment still did not give women the right to vote or join political parties but it allowed them to participate in political meetings. After women were given the right to participate in political meetings new women’s interest groups arose and became more outspoken. The most influential, which continued fighting until women were granted suffrage, was the League for the Realization of Women’s Suffrage (Fujin sanseiken kakutoku kisei domei). While the majority of women chose to take the gradualist course, hoping for small gradual changes over time, some women chose to be more active and radical. Mikiso Hane (1982) gives the extraordinary example of Noe Ito who spoke out against many different issues including arranged marriages, capitalism, and working conditions. She did so by a variety of essays she wrote while working as an editor for the women’s rights magazine called Seito. She continued to speak out in different forms of media until she was beaten to death by military police in 1923. While Noe Ito’s death was tragic, her actions and the voice that women’s groups had during the women’s rights movement in the 1920s showed that some women did not accept their role in society and actively fought for their rights instead of waiting for society to change (Hane 1982). At this point in history, Japan was expanding and becoming a strong power in the East Asian region. The Sino-Japanese war in 1894 and 1895 was a great victory for the Japanese, as it eventually gave them the right to Taiwan without Chinese interference. The Russo-Japanese war in 1904 and 1905 was fought over interests in Korea and Manchuria, and the Japanese victory in 1905 eventually led to Japanese control of Korea. It was a period of expansion and military strength for the Japanese. In order to support the expansion into East Asia, the Meiji government called on women to support the state. Women were called on to work as nurses, care for wounded soldiers, raise money, and raise their children alone. While the men went off to work or fight, the women stayed behind to take care of the house and fill domestic war needs at home (Nolte and Hastings 1991). Bernstein (1991, 8) highlighted one of Nolte and Hastings findings when saying, “Japanese state policy place much more importance on a woman’s responsibilities as a wife [and as a kind of public servant] than on her function as mother.” The government quickly found out that asking women to leave the house led to a decline in the birthrate and an increase in infant mortality (Nolte and Hastings 1991). While

15 this didn’t stop women from fulfilling domestic war roles, the government began to put more of an influence on the good wife, wise mother slogan in order to raise the future children for the nation. This meant that a mother and wife should be educated in order to perform their home duties, including child-rearing, to the best of their ability. Schools began to teach skills necessary for taking care of a family, even as early as in elementary school (Bernstein 1991). The government also got stricter with birth control and population control methods. Abortion, which was banned by the emperor at the very beginning of the Meiji period in 1868, received much harsher punishments in 1907 in order to discourage women from having an abortion and in turn help increase the population. If a woman had an abortion, she could face up to a year in prison. The Japanese population rose from 34 million at the beginning of the Meiji period in 1872 to 52 million in 1915. As Japan became more involved in military conflicts and expanding their territory, a growing need for laborers was present. This was especially the case when Japan entered World War Two, when the vast majority of men were called on to serve their country. Women began to enter the workforce with their male counterparts. It was not only young, unmarried, or poor women, but also wives and daughters of middle and upper class families (Bernstein 1991). This created tensions and fear of what the future of the Japanese family may look like. Despite this, there was still a pressing need for women in the workforce (Nagy 1991). The idea of married women, who have children, working outside the house went against what the government viewed as an ideal family. Nagy’s study shows that women enjoyed the economic independence and opportunities to better themselves but still embraced (or were urged into) the traditional and social roles that were expected of them (Nagy 1991). This sets the stage for women who have self-confidence in their ability to be more than just a wife or daughter. Their increased access to education along with their work experience helped shape a new type of woman (Molony 1991).

POST WAR JAPAN Immediately following the war was a period of rebuilding. This period of rebuilding involved men and women working at whatever jobs were necessary in order to rebuild Japan. At the same time the government was also rebuilt. With the postwar American occupation came great American influence over the shape of the new Japanese Constitution,

government, and other institutions in Japan. In fact the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), General Douglas MacArthur, didn’t like the proposed constitution and ordered his staff to create an entirely new document which was, except for a few changes by Japanese officials, the constitution that was finally adopted. The entire Meiji Constitution along with the Meiji Civil Code, Law on Assembly, and many other government policies enforcing the patriarchal centered family were abolished, eliminating various barriers for women. Article 14 of the new constitution guarantees equality in the eye of the law and prohibits discrimination based on gender. The new Constitution also guarantees all adults, male or female, over the age of twenty have the right to vote, freedom of assembly, right to property, and the freedom to marry whomever. This is a drastic change from the policies implemented just a few decades earlier. The 1950s brought increased industrial and economic growth. With this, the image of the male salaryman, who was the breadwinner of the family, was born. With it came an image of an urban family with the male working for a large company and the female raising the kids and being a full-time homemaker (Vogel 1971). The image of having this family was desired by many women because the alternative was usually being a wife on a farm or marrying into a family that ran a shop (Imamura 1996). This would force her to work full- time on either a farm or in a shop. In order for someone to become a salaryman and have the salaryman life, they had to be educated. This is where the term education mother was created. It became the role of the mother to make sure her child was educated and a good citizen. The idea of mothers as an education mother came from the good wife, wise mother ideal from the Meiji period. The education mother played an important role as the family and school relied on her input (Allison 1996). And as Brinton (1993) pointed out, she also became important to Japanese economic growth. The image of a family living in a modern home with a full-time mother focused on the children’s education was what everyone at the time wanted (Brinton 1993). As the postwar decades progressed into the 1960s and 1970s there was no longer only one socially acceptable role for women. Several new socially acceptable norms were born through the portrayal of women in the media, in literature, and on television. Various media showed women playing golf with the guys, women becoming successful politicians, or traveling the world (Hastings 1996). The media helped show society that the Japanese

woman can be anything. They showed that women after childbearing years could not only take care of her husband and his parents, but also pursue her own interests. She was often portrayed as strong, standing up to her man, and very goal oriented (Awaya and Phillips 1996). Women began to abandon their roles as nurturers to pursue their own individual goals and interests. This included single women who opened up their own shops, restaurants, or bars in an attempt to avoid economic hardship while maintaining individual freedom (Long 1996). Throughout the 1960s and 1970s the rise of the Japanese economy along with urbanization brought about more supermarkets, convenience stores, schools, and other places that required a larger workforce. Part-time and full-time positions opened up for women and their role was no longer to be a good wife, wise mother, but included education, leisure, work, marriage, and child related activities (Imamura 1996). Despite the changing image and opportunities for women, they were often still alone in the childrearing process and there was still societal pressure for women to be dedicated mothers. An expectation for women to get married, quit their job, and raise children still existed. It was definitely not the norm for women to work full-time and raise children. In fact, women who did return to full-time work after having a child often found their work environment to more hostile, with an increasing pressure for them to quit and return to the house to concentrate on child-rearing duties (Ogasawara 1998). Fathers were often only present for a short period of time each day, spending an average of thirty minutes a day helping with household or childcare activities (P. Lam 2009). The absence of fathers in the child-rearing process made it so many women were not able to pursue their own interests until after the child-rearing process. Many women did reenter the workforce as part-time employees or pursue their own interests, but it wasn’t until after child-rearing was finished. Tracing the Japanese woman from the Tokugawa period to postwar Japan it was not until the decades after World War Two that women began to pursue their own interests. Postwar Japan gave women legal rights, increased access to education and job opportunities gave women financial independence, and the media helped to show women various things that they can do. For the first time in history women were not defined to a role that was decided by someone else for them, they were able to create their own role. The freeing of the Japanese woman from being bound to roles placed on her and allowing her to choose to her

own path helps explain the drastic demographic changes Japan experienced in the decades after the war. It helps explain the drop in the fertility rate, an increased age of first marriage, an increased age of first child birth, and the increase in the number of unmarried individuals.

SUMMARY This chapter traced the role of the Japanese woman in society from the Tokugawa period all the way to postwar Japan. In the Tokugawa period women were seen as household managers and as faithful daughters-in-law, not necessarily as mothers. They were in charge of the rice fields, making sure everyone was fed, daily duties around the house, and care for the elderly. During the Tokugawa period women had a variety of roles, but it was always done for the betterment of someone else in mind. With the rise of western influence and industrialization during the Meiji restoration, the role of women changed. New laws implemented made women public servants with very little power in the eyes of the law. They were encouraged to raise children while helping to increase the economic and military power of the country by helping the war effort at home. It was a period of time where the state tried its best to control and maintain the social norms and expectation of women but understood that while at war many roles could only be filled by women (Nolte and Hastings 1991). It was also the time period where women’s rights groups spoke out against inequality and pushed for suffrage and equality. The postwar American occupation of Japan, brought equality and legal protection to women that they had never had before. Some women began to pursue work, hobbies, and other roles beyond just being a wife and mother. It was the first time the Japanese woman had freedom to marry who she wanted, vote, and pursue her own interests. With these changes came increased independence and eventually financial independence. With more women being able to pursue their own interests for the first time rather than those of someone else, it is no surprise that the average age of marriage and having children increased. These changes all had a significant impact on the role of women in modern day Japan, marriage rates, and the fertility rate.

CHAPTER 3

EXPLANATIONS FOR THE LOW FERTILITY RATE

In 1990 the Japanese media began to report that in the previous year, 1989, Japan’s fertility rate had reached a new low of 1.57. The media coined this as the 1.57 shock (Clark et al. 2010). The reason why the 1.57 shock was important, as opposed to the fertility rate at another point in time, is that the media didn’t catch on until the fertility rate hit 1.57. It also wasn’t until the media did this that the government began to take actions. While the fertility rate was below replacement level some years before 1990, it wasn’t until 1990 that the media and government began to talk about it. The concern was only strengthened when the fertility rate for the year 1990 dropped even lower to 1.54. The increased attention to the fertility rate caused the government to respond suddenly with the creation of the Committee for Creating a Good Environment for Having and Bringing up Children (Atoh 2002). In the months and years following the 1.57 shock the government began to introduce many different population policies that will discussed in detail in chapter four. In 1974, just sixteen years before the 1.57 shock, the fertility rate was just about at replacement level at 2.05. Even just five years before the 1.57 shock it was at 1.81, which still wasn’t low enough for the media to pay attention let alone for any policy change. The fertility rate continued to drop reaching a low of 1.26 in 2005. Since 2005 the fertility rate has continued to grow, possibly in response to population policies implemented after the 1.57 shock. In 2014 the reported fertility rate was 1.45 a 0.01 decrease from 2013, the first reported decrease since reaching the 1.26 low in 2005 (Organization for Economic Co- operation and Development 2016). Since the shock in 1990, researchers have set out trying to determine why the fertility rate decreased so dramatically in such a short period of time. While many scholars disagree about certain aspects, everyone agrees that the drop in the number of children being born is

20 clearly linked to the increased in the number of unmarried individuals as well as the increasing average age of marriage (Atoh 2001; Bardsley 2004; Jiro 1991). Japanese people are choosing to wait longer to get married, as can be seen in figure 4. Figure 5 shows that there has even been a decline in marriage rate over time.

Average Age of First Marriage in Japan 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2013

Male Female

Figure 4. Average age of first marriage in Japan since 1950. Source: Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare. 2013. “Average age at the first marriage by year.” http://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/database/db-hh/1-2.html (January 27, 2016).

Figure 5. Changes in marriage and divorce rates since 1970. Source: Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. 2015. “Statistical Handbook of Japan 2015.” http://www.stat.go.jp /english/data/handbook/c0117.htm (February 2, 2016).

The reason why marriage is strongly connected to having children is because the number of children born out of wedlock in Japan is only 2% (Anzo 2015). This is far lower than any other industrialized country. For example in the United States 41% of all births are to single mothers, 56% in France, 48% in the UK, 36% in Spain, and 28% in Italy (Pew Research Center 2014). There are several reasons why Japan has a much lower percentage of children born out of wedlock than any other industrialized country. Sawako Shirahase, a research at the National Institute of Population and Social Research argues that in Japan the decision to marry and have children are concurrent decisions. She goes on to say that in Japanese society marriage is a precondition to have children (Shirahase 2000). In addition, the open accessibility and widespread knowledge of how to use barrier form contraceptives have also help keep the number of children born outside of marriage low (Hertog 2009). Hertog also explains that while hormonal contraceptives have also played a part in keeping the number of unwanted pregnancies low, they require exams every three months in order to be obtained.

Abortion in Japan was illegal throughout the Tokugawa period, Meiji period, and World War Two. While many developed countries needed to fight for their right to legal abortions, Japan legalized abortion in 1948. Immediately after the war Japan experienced population growth and increased poverty. This led to the Japanese government passing the Eugenic Protection Law of 1948, legalizing abortion. During the immediate decade after the war Japan saw millions of abortions. In 1955 abortions peaked at about 1.17 million abortions, a little over fifty women per one thousand women aged fifteen to forty-nine (A. Goto et al. 2000). In the decades following the war Japan experienced economic growth and the number of abortions decreased, but access to them did not. For women born after 1955, those reaching childbearing age around 1970, the number of abortions actually increased. This trend has continued as teenage abortions have increased since the 1970s, eliminating many unwanted pregnancies. The reason for this is due to increased sexual activity in youth (A. Goto et al. 2000). While consent of both parties is necessary for an abortion, or the consent of parents in the case of a minor, abortion remains a legal and valid option for many. While it is unknown how much of an effect making abortion illegal would have on increasing the fertility rate, it is obvious that abortion has played a part in reducing unwanted pregnancies in Japan. In addition to societal norms and accessibility to contraceptives and abortions, the Japanese government also has a history of reinforcing the idea of a traditional family with married parents through legal discrimination. Up until a 2013 Supreme Court decision, children born to unmarried individuals were only legally able to receive half of the inheritance from their parents. In the same month the Supreme Court upheld a law requiring parents to notify city hall if their child was born out of wedlock or not (Jones 2014). For the wide variety of reasons discussed above, the number of children born to unmarried individuals remains very low. The remaining parts of this chapter will explore various reasons why Japanese men and women choose to postpone or not get married. There are a variety of explanations and they have all contributed to the marriage problem, which in turn directly impacts the fertility rate.

WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE This section describes general trends in the workplace, expectations of employees, and problems women faced in the workplace in the years leading up to the 1.57 shock in 1990. In the years directly before the shock the Japanese workplace environment played a role in an individual’s decision to not get married or to start a family. While the expectations and points raised may not have been present in each Japanese corporation, they have been attributed by scholars to have been the norm. It is the goal of this section to highlight what these issues were since they were addressed by policies that will be explained in the next chapter. Japanese companies expected their employees to be lifelong employees (Roberts 2011). It was expected that once you join a company you will not quit. Long hours, weekend work, and low starting wages were rewarded by high seniority wages (Ma 2010). This made quitting or changing jobs very costly. A lifetime expected employment system is very costly for female employees, especially during a time period when there was very little job security via public policy for expectant mothers. In Japan it was expected that women leave the workforce after childbirth to care for her child and take care of the family (Makita 2010). Maternity leave was only guaranteed for a short time before and after childbirth, but a few weeks after childbirth the employee was expected to return to work. In addition, overtime work was common, if not expected, and frequent relocation transfers also made it difficult to raise a family (Ma 2010). For several decades before the passage of the Child Leave Act in 1995, there was no policy that provided security or protection for parents when they needed to care for their children. The participation of Japanese women in the workforce looked like an M-shaped graph. Workforce participation was high until childbirth, and that is when participation drops off until the children are old enough for the mother to rejoin the workforce later in life (Nagase 2006; Stanley 2002). When women did rejoin the workforce after child-rearing, it was often as a part-time, or temporary worker (Tomita 1994). For women who did choose to stay in the workforce after childbirth they often returned to a hostile work environment (Ogasawara 1998). This was mostly due to coworkers looking down upon the employees using any type of leave after childbirth (Fried 1998).

In the decades after post-war Japan, female participation in the workforce increased and many women realized that they could live on their own, or with parents, and support themselves via their career. Many women began to realize the impact that having a child would have on their career, as well as their future lack of economic freedom, as childbirth would most likely force them to quit and rely on their husband’s salary. The expectations and dedication demanded by employers combined with hostile work environments for mothers, the opportunity costs of having a child, and lack of public policies protecting mothers led directly to many women leaving the workforce upon childbirth, waiting longer to have children, or forgo having children altogether (Rosenbluth 2007).

ROLE IN THE FAMILY AND GENDER ROLES Over the past several centuries, as explained in chapter two, care for the children and elderly has been the responsibility of the family, but more specifically it has been the responsibility of the woman (Mackie 2010; Maruyama 1999). This means if a woman marries into a family she will be expected to care for her parents-in-law (Mackie 2010; Roberts 2011). For many women in modern Japanese society, taking care of the elderly and the children, while maintaining a career is not possible. There would be no time to oneself and many women choose either a family or a career (Roberts 2011). The idea of sacrificing a career in exchange for caring for parents-in-law many not sound appealing to women, especially as the education level and job opportunities are improving for the average woman which is increasing the opportunity cost of having a family. There are multiple reasons why care for the elderly falls so heavily on the family. The first reason is that the traditional Confucian family is expected to provide support to the elderly (Makita 2010). This comes from the Confucian ideal of filial piety, which requires children to be kind to their parents and take care of them, just like the parents took care of the children when they were babies. This was, and still is, an important aspect of Japanese society. Tracing the role of women back to the Tokugawa period, chapter two showed that having a daughter-in-law was important to extending the life of the mother-in-law. In addition to tradition, the Japanese population is aging. With a low fertility rate, low immigration rate, and higher life expectancy, Japan is getting older. This means that the state would need to invest heavily for care of the elderly if it took on the responsibility. Therefore,

in order to control public expenditure the family is viewed as the best solution in caring for the elderly (Makita 2010). An explanation is that Japan does not import large numbers of domestic workers. Many other Asian countries, such as Singapore and Hong Kong, import domestic helpers to take care of the elderly, help with raising children, or help around the house (Mackie 2010). Doing this allows mothers to stay in the workforce while having their role at home delegated to a domestic helper. However, Japanese immigration does not allow for the hiring of domestic workers forcing the burden of caring for the elderly (amongst other things) onto the Japanese woman. The Japanese societal expectations for men when they get married doesn’t change. Men are supposed to continue with their career and provide financial support for the family. The expectations for women when they get married is to quit their job and dedicate themselves full-time to caring for the family (Makita 2010). Taking care of children, chores around the house, cooking meals, and other household duties have traditionally been the role of the mother. With husbands expected to work long hours at the office, there is very little additional help in the child-rearing process. Negotiation between traditional gender roles should not be restricted to education and the workplace, it is also needed with issues such as housework, cooking and leisure time (Makita 2010). In 1972 a survey was done to determine what term Japanese women identified with most. At that time the most common response was mother. However, when the survey was conducted again in 1991, the most common response was no longer mother, the top two were woman and person (A. Suzuki 1991). This survey shows that the way women view themselves changed dramatically in the years leading up to the 1990 fertility rate shock. Women began to believe that their main role in society no longer had to be that of a mother, but that there were other options they could pursue.

THE ECONOMY AND EDUCATION Japanese historians refer from 1991 to 2000 in Japan as the Lost Decade (Hayashi and Prescott 2002). This is because the Japanese asset bubble burse and the overall economic conditions of Japan suffered. This caused the number of underemployed individuals in Japan to increase. In 1991, right after the bubble burst, the unemployment rate was at 2.1%. The unemployment rate increased each year of the decade ending in 2000 (Statistics Bureau,

Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications 2016). Even today, the unemployment rate still hovers around 4% and it has not returned to the low levels during the bubble. Yuji Genda, a professor at the University of Tokyo, reported that while the overall unemployment levels increased during the Lost Decade it was really the youth who were affected. Youth unemployment rates increased to about 10% (Genda 2003). In addition the number of part- time workers increased, meaning that not only did more people lose jobs, those who did have jobs had fewer hours (Houseman 1995). During times of economic hardship it makes sense that people would refrain from marrying. Underemployed or unemployed potential spouses are not attractive partners to start a family with (Roberts 2011). Poor economic conditions have affected marriage and birth rates, even married couples are putting off having children or having fewer children because of economic conditions (Fukawa 2008). Toshihiko Hara in 2008 published her own results of a study using data from the Japanese National Fertility Survey (JNFS) and found that there is a correlation between education level and childlessness (Hara 2008). As can be seen in table 1, as the level of education increases for both men and women so does the percentage of childless individuals. Studies have also been done to show that obtaining a higher level of education decreases marriage probability (Wada 2004) and especially the marriage probability of women (Ono 2003).

Table 1. Highest Education Obtained vs Percentage of Childless Individuals Education level % of childless men % of childless women Junior High School 4.7 9 High School 10.1 8.8 Professional School 19.6 16.1 Junior College or Higher ng j 15.8 Professional School University 15.6 19.5 Graduate School 19.5 23.3 Data Source: Hara, Toshihiko. 2008. “Increasing Childlessness in Germany and Japan: Toward a Childless Society?” International Journal of Japanese Sociology 17: 42-62.

There is a body of literature that explores even further the topic of desired education levels for potential marriage partners in Japanese society. Raymo and Ishikawa (2005) stated that for Japanese women it is desirable to marry high-income, often well educated, men.

Arioka Jiro (1991) states in her article that some Japanese women prefer to marry men who have a higher education level than themselves because it is a chance to improve their quality of living. She goes on to state that with more women obtaining a higher level of education it has been particular harmful to the marriage rate of less educated men working in the agricultural and fishing industries (Jiro 1991). Another possible explanation for this is that because of social norms and expectations some men do not want to marry women who are more educated or make a higher salary than them. Therefore as the number of women who obtain a higher level of education increases it actually decreases the number of women with a desirable education level for some men. Whatever the cause of this effect is, it is possible to conclude that as a woman’s education increases so does her salary, and as salary increases so does the probability that she will not get married. However, this is the exact opposite for men, as salary increases so does the probability that they will get married (Shirahase 2005). While the education level of a potential partner is one reason why individuals may be abstaining from marriage, another explanation is available. In Japan there is a term called Parasite Singles. It refers to unmarried individuals who choose to live with their parents. The professor who coined the term, Masahiro Yamada, even blamed parasite singles for negatively affecting the fertility rate and increasing the average age of marriage (Yamada 1999). Yamada also cites that being a parasite single may be appealing because they have the ability to make luxury purchases since they do not pay rent or other expenses that those living independently would have. While some individuals are choosing to live rent free with parents, an increasing amount of individuals, especially women, are choosing to live independently. Tracing one-person household rates back to 1985, James Raymo was able to conclude that the number of women between twenty and thirty-nine who are choosing to live alone has increased each year and continues to increase. However the rate of independent men aged twenty to twenty-five has actually decreased over time, and the total number of men living alone started to decrease in 2005 (Raymo 2015). Thanks to more job opportunities more women are beginning to take advantage of their financial independence and are able to take care of themselves. Overall access to equal education and career opportunities for women combined with the economic decline, which has negatively affected

28 salaries and employment across the board, has created an environment where more people will abstain from marriage.

SUMMARY This chapter has shown that there are a variety of reasons why the fertility rate has declined. A simple explanation would be that individuals are waiting longer to get married, if they get married at all. Reproduction is linked directly to marriage, children are very rarely born out of wedlock therefore in this chapter it was also important to determine why individuals are waiting to get married. This chapter explored the literature to discover many reasons for this including high opportunity costs for women if they get married, traditional gender roles and expectations, a labor industry that is not conducive to a fair work and family balance, individuals choosing to live independently, a weak economy and economic concerns, and a decline in desirable partners. These are a wide variety of problems that must all be addressed in order to improve the fertility rate.

CHAPTER 4

POLICY RESPONSES

Since the fertility rate shock in 1990 there has been a wide range of policies implemented in an attempt to raise the fertility rate and help solve the Japanese population crisis. Policies include childbearing and child-rearing policies, whose goal it is to decrease the costs of having and raising children, which help reduce the costs and opportunity costs of having children. There have also been policies targeting gender equality and employers, attempting to make it easier for parents to have a career and a family. This in turn would encourage more people to have a family while having a career, preventing them from having to make a choice between the two. Policies regarding immigration, which is another way to increase population will also be explored in this chapter. All of these policies are in direct response to the fertility rate being far below replacement level. Shortly after Japan’s low fertility rate was announced the government created the Committee for Creating a Good Environment and Having and Bringing up Children, which was given the task of addressing the fertility rate. The government, via the Internal Affairs Council Room in the Cabinet Secretary, sent out a guideline with three things that need to be addressed in order to raise the fertility rate. These three things were support for the compatibility of family life and occupational life, improving the childcare environment and services, and improving economic support for childcare (Atoh 2011). These guidelines came directly from the Executive Branch’s Cabinet in direct response to the reported low fertility rate. The goal of this chapter is to explore the exact population policies that have been implemented in response to the drop in fertility rate and the declining population.

CHILD ALLOWANCE AND TAX DEDUCTIONS The Child Allowance Act (Kodomo teate or Jido teate) is a policy that provides direct monthly monetary assistance to parents. It was first established in 1972, and has been revised every couple years since (Clark et al. 2010), with the most recent change being implemented in 2012 (Chichibu City 2012). In 1972, when the policy was first implemented, all the way through 1985 the only recipients of this policy were parents who had three or more children. The changes throughout this time to the policy were only small increases in the amount of money received. In 1986 parents were able to receive the allowance for their second child until the age of two and until their third child graduated from middle school. These early policies were not intended to raise the fertility rate, but rather to provide financial assistance to large families (Social Security Administration 1972). It wasn’t until immediately after the 1990 1.57 shock that large changes to the Child Allowance Act happened. In 1991 the Child Allowance was changed so parents were able to receive benefits for all children, up to a specific age, and the monthly allowance amount was also doubled. Since 1991 there have been several changes such as increasing the maximum age of eligible children to receive the allowance. It is clear from the revision after 1990 that the Child Allowance Act became more important to lawmakers because the maximum age of children eligible to receive the benefits and the monthly allowance amount has only ever increased. It was these changes that shifted the goal of the policy from economically supporting large families to providing a financial incentive for individuals to have more children (Ma 2010). Today, as can be seen in table 2, parents can receive the allowance for all of their children until they graduate middle school. The current allowance for each child is either 10,000 yen or 15,000 yen ($94 or $141) per month, depending on the age of the child and what number child they are. There have even been recent calls by Japanese politicians to increase the amount even further. The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which is one of the two major political parties in Japan, stated on their political party platform in 2009 that they wanted the allowance amount to be increased to 26,000 yen ($244) per month for all children (The Democratic

Table 2. Amount of Allowance Paid per Child Age Classification Amount of allowance per month Age 0 ~ under age 3 ¥15,000 (for all children) Age 3 ~ end of elementary school ¥10,000 (first / second child) ¥15,000 (third child and above) Junior high school students ¥10,000 (for all children)

Party of Japan 2009). This increase has not yet happened, but it shows that there are still politicians in support of the policy. In addition to the Child Allowance, there are tax deductions available for parents. The national tax deduction for children under sixteen is 380,000 yen ($3573). If a child is between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two, you can deduct 630,000 yen ($5924). In addition to the national tax, which is twenty percent of an individual’s income, there is a local tax which is ten percent (K. Suzuki 2008). The deductions for dependent children at the local level is 330,000 yen ($3103). These figures have not changed since Kenji Suzuki calculated that for a parent with a dependent between sixteen and twenty-two, 171,000 yen ($1608) is saved each year thanks to tax deductions (K. Suzuki 2008). The dependent children tax deductions in addition to the Child Allowance allows for a good amount of monetary support for parents during child-rearing. They are monetary incentives to parents or potential parents to have children by reducing the economic burden of having children.

CHILDCARE SERVICE POLICIES As previously discussed in chapter three, a reason the fertility rate is dropping is because of the balance between work and family. The government has realized this and tried to solve the problem through a wide variety of policies which were implemented just after the fertility rate shock in 1990. In 1994 the Angel Plan was announced and was in effect from 1995 to 1999. The plan called for more support for parents who were employed. It helped provide counseling to couples, encouraged fathers to help with child raising, and created 2,300 daycare centers, and extended the hours of existing centers (Shinkawa 2012). The creation of daycare centers was intended to help families with two working parents have a place where their kids can be taken care of during work hours. This plan was made even stronger, and more expensive, when in 1995 the number of daycare centers was increased to 7,000 and the addition of

32 temporary drop-in centers and after school programs were also created (Boling 1998). In 1999 local governments were feeling the burden of the costs from the Angel Plan so it was revised by the national government into the New Angel Plan. The New Angel Plan was very similar to the Angel plan except that it provided more funding assistance from the national government. The next childcare service related policy that the Japanese government implemented was in December 2004. The Children and Childcare Support Plan attempted to tackle the problem of wait lists for public nurseries. There were too many children and too few nurseries to handle all the children. Working parents wanted to place their children into a nursery, but often couldn’t because of overcrowding. According to the White Paper published in 2005 by the Cabinet Office, the main goal of this specific policy was to allow all children on wait lists to enroll in a nursery, and to eliminate the waitlist completely by the end of 2007. The support plan also called for an increase of child support centers, raising the nationwide total to 6,000 (Cabinet Office, Government of Japan 2005). Shortly after the Children and Childcare Support Plan, the 2006 New Measures to Deal with the Declining Birthrate was implemented. This plan was a little less substance and more theoretical than other policies. It called for the reform of the entire Japanese society by calling on everyone to support mothers, who were rather isolated in the child-rearing process. It attacked the current work and life balance and attempted to get other family members, especially fathers, more involved in family life (Japan Times 2006). It called for a reform of working hours asking businesses to keep work hours reasonable and help their employees have a reasonable work and family balance. In 2010 the Childcare and Child-rearing Vision Policy was created to increase the capacity of licensed nurseries as well as increase the number of facilities with after-hour programs. The goal of the policy was to increase the combined capacity of all licensed nurseries to 2.41 million children from 2.15 million by 2014. It also planned to increase the number of infants in after-hours programs by 170,000 and the number of elementary school students in after school programs by 300,000, which was estimated to cost 700 billion yen ($6.58 billion), and that doesn’t even include the cost of hiring new childcare workers (Japan Times 2010).

Despite previous policies to reduce the wait list at nurseries nationwide, wait lists continued to be a problem. For the most part it was only in the large metropolitan areas such as Tokyo and Osaka that faced this problem. The nationwide wait-lists had decreased by over two thousand children each of the previous three years, but the wait-lists had not been eliminated completely. The government allocated more resources to solve this problem with The Acceleration Plan for Reducing Wait-listed Children in 2013. It also planned for an increase in capacity at nurseries by 200,000 by 2014, when peak enrollment is expected (Cabinet Office, Government of Japan 2013). 2014 brought about a new policy that was implemented to help care for children once they enter the public school system. The After School Child Comprehensive Plan was created to boost club activities for students aged six to eighteen. It called for help from not only teachers but also community members. It also provided a framework for Saturday school learning. Its aim was to increase the number of students attending afterschool and weekend care programs by 300,000 (Cabinet Office, Government of Japan 2014a). In response to the low fertility rate the government has implemented a wide variety of childcare services to help parents maintain a career while raising children. It is no secret that these policies have been implemented with the primary goal being to combat the declining birthrate. All policies are listed on the Cabinet Office, Government of Japan’s website specifically labeled as policies in response to the declining birthrate. There are in depth analyses of each new policy implemented and how the government expects the policies to help deal with the fertility rate, which are discussed in White Papers on the same webpage (Cabinet Office, Government of Japan 2014b). The government seems committed to providing and increasing childcare services because in April 2015 Prime Minister Abe established a new government organization to help support existing child service policies as well as plan for the future of childcare services.

HEALTHCARE FOR CHILDREN For Japanese residents at least seventy percent of healthcare costs are paid by insurance and a maximum of thirty percent of the medical bill is paid by the patient. Children up to the age of fifteen are eligible to have the remaining thirty percent paid by the local government via children’s medical subsidies, making healthcare for all children under fifteen

free. This requires registration at your local city, where each child will be issued a children’s medical care card. Showing this medical care card when receiving medical services makes the medical care entirely free for children. In addition to no healthcare costs, vaccinations are also free via coupons provided by municipal offices (Japan Healthcare Info 2016b). This is helpful for families, especially when children are young and pediatric appointments are necessary. Japan has had a history of having very good universal healthcare benefits, dating back to when universal healthcare was established in 1961. However, the expansion of children’s medical subsidies has been very recent. When it was originally created in 1993 it only covered hospitalizations for children under the age of one and outpatient services for children under the age of six. It has since been amended to expand services thirteen different times (Osaka City 2015). The most recent amendment in 2011 made it so all children are covered for all services until they graduate junior high school (Nagoya International Center 2014a). Despite healthcare being free, insurance payments are not. The amount of money paid per month for a child’s medical insurance is different depending on the city or employer. Enrollment in national insurance and payment for the national insurance plan is done via local cities and they determine the cost of the insurance. Private plans available through an employee’s employer are legally required to be available. The cost of insurance via employer will also change from employer to employer, however the out of pocket costs per month are similar to the national insurance plan. Shinjuku City, which is a ward in Tokyo, charges 33,900 yen ($319) per year for each dependent child (Shinjuku City 2015). Therefore in Shinjuku the healthcare costs and medical insurance costs for a child would be 33,900 yen a year. Nagoya City, one of Japan’s largest cities charges 39,604 yen ($372) per year for each dependent (Nagoya International Center 2014b). While the cost per year varies city to city, the costs are similar. Since insurance costs are the only medical related expenses an individual would need to pay for their child, a citizen living in Nagoya would therefore expect to pay only 3,300 yen ($31) a month for healthcare.

MATERNITY LEAVE AND CHILDCARE LEAVE Before 1991 maternity leave was only guaranteed for six weeks before the due date and for eight weeks after childbirth. For many women this was not enough time to care for

their newly born child and many women chose to leave the labor force and care for their child full-time. The lack of an extended childcare leave further cemented the social expectation that women were supposed to quit work upon having a child and focus on childrearing. Women who did return to work after their short maternity leave often did so to find a hostile work environment (Ogasawara 1998). In 1991, just one year after the fertility rate shock, the government enacted the Childcare Leave Act. This act did not change the current maternity leave time of six weeks before and eight weeks after childbirth, however it did add an additional childcare leave. This childcare leave can be taken by either the father or the mother, however it is very rarely used by fathers (K. Suzuki 2008). It allows one parent to take time off work until the child’s first birthday. The initial act also guaranteed twenty-five percent of the employee’s salary as long as the person taking the leave was employed for a year before giving birth. The salary is paid for via social insurance, which is federally funded. The Childcare Leave Act also made it so those who do not take the childcare leave are entitled to either part-time or flextime work with no overtime if they so choose. However, all of these childcare laws were only guaranteed if the employer had over thirty employees. In 1995 the Childcare and Family Leave Act was established forcing all companies regardless of how many employees they have to offer childcare leave. At the same time the amount of salary received while on childcare leave was boosted from twenty-five percent to forty percent, further increasing the government’s financial commitment. Since 1995 several other revisions have been made to further strengthen childcare leave. Late night work was prohibited for parents with preschool children in 1999 and overtime work prohibited in 2002. In 2005 the childcare leave was to be extended to one and half years if childcare was unavailable. It also forced employers to allow employees to take up to five days off a year to care for sick or injured children. In April 2014 the amount of money received via social insurance when on childcare leave was increased to two-thirds of the parent’s salary before childbirth. This income was also made nontaxable, making it very appealing considering the normal combined federal and local tax rate is thirty percent of one’s salary. Despite the government being active in promoting a strong childcare leave policy, there are still people who choose not to take advantage of the leave, especially fathers. In

June 2015 the Japan Times reported on a survey which was conducted at over 5,000 companies to find how many people are taking advantage of childcare leave. It was found that in the previous two years 86% of women who had given birth had taken childcare leave while only 2% of men did (Japan Times 2015a). Both of these numbers have risen slightly since the last survey in 2014, but it still falls behind government targets. By 2020 the government wants 13% of fathers to take advantage of the childcare leave. In comparison 90% of fathers in the United States take some type of leave. Despite 70% of those leave takers returning to work within ten days, there are still many more fathers taking advantage of leave in the United States than in Japan (Department of Labor 2015). The Japanese lifetime employment system, no extended childcare leave, and expectations of long working hours made it difficult for parents to maintain the commitment expected by their employer while spending ample time with their child. This is why full-time labor force participation dropped in women after childbirth and the reason why many individuals chose to focus on their careers for longer before deciding to start a family. By creating a childcare leave system that allows for a guaranteed year off of work, allows new parents to shift to a temporary part-time position, and also protects employees from unwanted overtime hours, the government created a policy that allows parents to maintain their commitment to their employer while allowing ample time for their family. This in turn helps create a work and family life balance that would not endanger the future career endeavors of a parent if they felt time with their child was important.

POLICIES TARGETING EMPLOYERS One of the first policies to target employers was the Equal Employment Opportunity Law (EEOL) which was implemented in 1986. This policy came before the fertility rate shock, but it is an important policy to be discussed and kept in mind while reading this thesis. The EEOL was implemented to create equal workplace opportunities and treatment between men and women, including assistance for reemployment after childbearing, and also to promote the status of welfare of working women (Gelb 2000). In short it stated that employers are not allowed to discriminate based on sex and employers should also provide equal opportunities in education, training, and promotions.

Some scholars have argued that this policy was in response to many western countries enacting similar policies and also in addition to the UN calling on equal rights for women. It was not necessarily a direct response to domestic issues in Japan (Mazur 1995). Other scholars have criticized the law saying that it lacked the ability to police employers and it provided no legal ramifications if employers didn’t follow the policy (A. Lam 1992). Following the passage of the EEOL many women’s groups and supporters of women’s rights began to speak up, wanting a stronger equal opportunity law. The Women’s Rights Committee of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations was a strong voice for advocating for change along women Diet members who were active within their parties and committees to call on change (Gelb 2000). In a 1995 government White Paper it was concluded that there was still discrimination in the hiring, placement, and treatment of female employees (Japan Times 1995). All the calls for change to the EEOL eventually led to it being amended in 1997. The EEOL was changed to The Law to Secure Equal Opportunity and Treatment of Men and Women Workers in the Sphere of Employment. In addition to prohibiting discrimination in hiring, placement, and treatment of female employees it also prohibits single sex job advertisements. It also forced employers to take steps to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace, protect workers when they bring complaints against their companies, and create a system to publically criticize companies who are discriminating. This law is the standard for equal treatment of women in the workforce and was meant to create a comfortable, safe, and opportunity filled workplace for women. Up until this point in time the Japanese government was creating policy which would be implemented and funded by the government, providing services or certain protections for parents. In 2003 the government created a new policy which asked for help from employers to solve the fertility rate crisis. The Act on Advancement of Measures to Support Raising the Next Generation of Children, or the Next Generation Law, was enacted. This law required employers with more than three hundred employees to submit plans to the government on how they would help raise the population. It also forces companies to officially recognize policies enacted by the government such as childcare leave or restrictions on overtime (Clark et al. 2010). Clark et al. continues to describe the law saying it also forces the companies to take responsibility in order to ensure their employees take more personal time, use their

38 vacation time, and are not overworked. This law was renewed in April 2014 for another ten years and it was even strengthened to include incentives for model plans submitted by companies. Companies who implement good measures will be publically recognized as a model company by the government (Cabinet Office, Government of Japan 2015). Immediately after the first Next Generation Law, the New-New Angel Plan of 2004, an updated version of the previous Angel Plan, publically called on local governments and businesses to help with childcare and help improve working conditions. It asked for, but didn’t fund, company provided childcare for their employees’ children (Cabinet Office, Government of Japan 2015). The next employer related policy came in late 2007 when the Charter for Work-Life Balance and the Action Policy for Promoting Work-Life Balance were enacted. These policies again were aimed at making sure employers were active and did their part to help raise the fertility rate. It created a certification system that allowed companies who met certain criteria to put a certification mark on their product, showing that their company was supporting the next generation. These policies also created awards to be given from the prefectural offices to companies who employed policies to create a good work-life balance (Cabinet Office, Government of Japan 2008). All of these employer based policies are aimed specifically at employers to make sure employees have the opportunity to start and maintain a family. The government tried to increase opportunities for women and create a safer work environment allowing for more upward movement within a company while ensuring careers would not be affected by having children. In theory these policies should help parents, especially women, have better job security and not allow them to be afraid of losing their job or being punished for taking care of their children. These policies should make it so parents do not have to choose between having a career or a family. In addition to this, it also makes the idea of starting a family more attractive. Literature as discussed in chapter three, shows that the work and family balance is uneven. It has also been shown that individuals are not starting a family because they want to focus on their careers first. The employer based policies were implemented with the purpose of helping individuals start a family, therefore increasing the fertility rate.

IMMIGRATION POLICIES Increasing the fertility rate is not the only solution to increasing a country’s population, another possible solution is to increase immigration. Therefore it is important that Japanese immigration policy is discussed in this thesis. Immigration is also a way to help countries maintain a labor force and provide a steady flow of tax dollars in order to maintain national budgets. Theoretically if Japan does not have any immigrants or emigrants the Japanese labor force would shrink, and so would the amount of income tax paid by citizens. This would be very damaging for the country which has the highest national debt in the world (Central Intelligence Agency 2015). The Japanese aging population has caused a decrease in the working population and unless Japan is willing to accept skilled foreign workers and young migrants in significant numbers the manufacturing sector will be greatly affected and Japan will no longer be a great economic and political power (P. Lam 2009). It is estimated that the productive population of Japan, individuals between fifteen and sixty-four, which was 81.64 million in 2009 will drop to 45.95 million by 2055 (Mackie 2010). In order to maintain the current levels of productive population, Japan would need to import 770,000 foreign workers every year (Shinkawa 2012). Shinkawa (2012, 1126) continues to state that, “A liberal immigration policy is necessary and could contribute to the national economy over the long run by building a multicultural society.” According to an interview in the Japan Times newspaper with Junichi Goto, an Economics professor at Keio University, there are very few academics who are opposed to a liberal immigration policy. Brining in low-wage unskilled foreigners would decrease labor costs along with prices for goods and services, and also boost consumption. He concludes that the benefits of bringing in foreigners far outweighs the negatives (Japan Times 2014a). At the time of the 1.57 fertility rate shock in 1990 the number of foreign residents living in Japan was 984,455 and in 2014 that number grew to 2,121,831 (Ministry of Justice 2016). When looking at the sheer number of foreign residents, it appears that the Japanese government must be doing something to increase the number of foreigners. It is important to look at Japanese immigration policy and see if the increase in immigration numbers is because of policy implemented to encourage an increase in foreign residents or if the

Japanese government has chosen not to actively pursue immigration as a solution to their population problem.

Japanese Descendants In 1908 the first ship carrying Japanese emigrants left Kobe, Japan and sailed to Brazil. The Japanese were bound for coffee plantations where it was their idea to work for a few years, save money, and then come home (McKenzie and Salcedo 2009). Japanese emigration to Brazil continued for a few decades but the highest rate of emigration was from 1925 to 1936 and again after the war from 1956 to 1960 (J. Goto 2007). It became clear that the get rich and return plan wasn’t very feasible and the Japanese population in Brazil stayed much longer than they intended. The population of Japanese descendants located in Brazil was estimated to be 1.2 million in 1987 (Tsuda 2003) and 1.9 million in 2006 (J. Goto 2007). In 1989, before the 1.57 fertility rate shock, there was estimated to be only 15,000 Japanese-Brazilians working in Japan. That number grew to 300,000 by 2006 (McKenzie and Salcedo 2009). In 1990, shortly after the fertility rate shock the Japanese government revised the Immigration Control Act to allow third generation Japanese descendants from Brazil. It allowed Japanese-Brazilian immigrants to enter Japan for up to three years without any restrictions to employment. The temporary immigration of Japanese descendants was a more acceptable way of dealing with the shrinking workforce than guest workers with no Japanese descent (Mackie 2010). They are Japanese individuals by blood but have spent their entire life in Brazil. Despite their ancestry, these third generation Japanese tended to have limited Japanese language skills and thus were relegated to unskilled occupations (Mackie 2010). A World Bank survey conducted of third generation descendants shows that only 19% could read Japanese and 35% could speak Japanese (World Bank 2015). Many were drawn to Japan because of the struggling economy in Brazil at the time, and the strong Japanese economy. Despite the low wages and unskilled labor they received in Japan, for some it was better than back in Brazil (McKenzie and Salcedo 2009). There was clearly a change in immigration policy which allowed for the mass migration of Japanese descendants however there is evidence that this policy experiment actually backfired. With the Lost Decade and the continuing struggles after that, it was the low skilled jobs that got hit the hardest. Especially in Aichi prefecture where the automotive

41 industry and the majority of their factories were located. A large portion of the workers who lost jobs, were Japanese-Brazilians (Yamanaka 2000). A large portion of the jobs during the beginning of the migration period were jobs that required little or no Japanese. However, around 1996, due to restructuring of Japanese companies, Japanese language skills became more important (Mori 2002). Having a responsibility to take care of the Japanese-Brazilians many local governments established funds to help Japanese descendants learn Japanese. The Japanese government allocated 1.08 billion yen ($10.1 million) to help educate the Japanese descendants (Japan Times 2009a). Local governments petitioned the national government for funds, and a good amount of tax dollars were spent on helping the Japanese descendants. In April 2009 the Japanese government realized that it had a problem on its hands and offered 300,000 yen ($2821) to each unemployed immigrant worker of Japanese ancestry, and 200,000 yen ($1880) for any family member to leave the country, under the condition that they will not return (Mackie 2010). As Mackie (2010, 79) states, “Two decades later (after the immigration reform) we are seeing the failures in planning for the long-term needs of the Nikkei (Japanese-Brazilian) communities.” The number of Japanese-Brazilians in Japan is currently decreasing every year as the number of third generation Japanese grow older. The Japanese government has not yet revised, and probably will not, the Immigration Control Act to include fourth generation Japanese descendants. The inclusion of Japanese descendants in the workforce was successful for a short period of time. However with economic trouble came difficulty for the Japanese descendants to find work. With the fourth generation being even more removed from their ancestors and more likely to not speak Japanese, there seems to be very little motivation to once again change the Immigration laws.

Non-Japanese Descendants The majority of immigrants in Japan, and currently coming to Japan, are those of non- Japanese descent. The decrease in the working population has created certain holes in the labor force that need to be filled. A constantly growing area of need in an aging society is the need for caretakers and nurses. In addition other high skilled jobs such as engineers and doctors are necessary to maintain the quality of the economy and healthcare system.

The Japanese government has recognized the need for caretakers and nurses and implemented programs with the Indonesian and Filipino governments in order to import nurses and caretakers. The agreement with the Philippines, the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement, was signed in 2006 and the agreement with Indonesia was agreed to in 2007. Both programs took a couple years from agreement to implementation. The programs require nurses and caretakers to come to Japan, train in a hospital for a while, and then if they wish to stay in Japan on a long-term basis they must take and pass a Japanese language exam. During the first year of the Indonesian program 208 workers came to Japan and the program with the Philippines admitted 1000 over the first two year period (Japan Times 2009b). However, there were reports of language problems and issues from the very beginning of the program (Mackie 2010). In the first year of the program only 104 individuals passed the exam, and in the second year (2009) only 379. However starting in 2010 the number of people who passed the test has been below 150 individuals each year (Japan Today 2015). The Japan Today news article went on to explain that in 2013 the Japanese government realized that there was a problem with the current system so it extended the test time by thirty percent and added hiragana writing over the Kanji in order to make the test easier. Despite these changes, in 2015 only 30 out of 311 test takers passed the test (Japan Today 2015). The Japanese government has allowed the nurses who failed another opportunity to pass the test. Japan recently also tried to attract more highly skilled professionals by creating a point system where foreigners are given points based on their work experience and education levels. If they receive over a certain number of points they are allowed to obtain a visa to reside in Japan (Immigration Bureau of Japan 2015). For example, an academic with a PhD, several published pieces, and a high salary would almost meet the number of points necessary. This was implemented in May 2012 and targets individuals who would qualify under advanced academic research, advanced specialized/technical activities, and advanced business management (Immigration Bureau of Japan 2015). A liberal immigration policy is not currently employed by the Japanese government. In fact, non-Japanese descendants who have been in Japan for generations have faced a lot of discrimination and have not even received the right to vote. In 1910, during Japan’s

expansionist era, Japan annexed Korea. This annexation caused the forced migration of thousands of Koreans to Japan in the 1920s. After World War Two some of the Koreans returned to Korea but many still remained in Japan (Tamura 2003). As the decades went by Korean descendants began to assimilate into Japanese life, identifying themselves as Japanese and not Korean. Despite this, Korean descendants still have not received the right to vote or in some cases, citizenship. They are individuals born in Japan and lead a life very similar to any Japanese citizen. There is still public and political opposition against giving them the right to vote and there are still right-wing organizations that openly harass and speak out against Korean descendants living in Japan. This problem has caused the United Nations to issue a human rights report expressing concern for the Koreans because of the harassment they endure (Japan Times 2014b). This shows that even after generations of living in Japan, certain groups are not openly welcomed into Japanese society, which is further evidence that a liberal open-gates type immigration policy is not possible in Japan

IMMIGRATION AS A SOLUTION The Japanese government is being very selective in who is being admitted to Japan. Past experiences have showed opening the border has not been successful in the long term. It was thought that Japanese descendants would be able to live, work, and thrive in Japan but there were obvious problems that the government overlooked. As such, it seems the government has abandoned this idea, and they have not renewed the legislation to allow fourth generation descendants the same right to a work visa as third generation descendants received. There has also been a few select programs to fill special holes in the labor force, but even these programs have their troubles and are not as successful as originally intended. The Japanese government has also recently tried to attract highly skilled, educated, and often rich individuals to Japan. However, this is a relatively new policy and it remains to be seen how it plays out in the long run and how many people apply for highly skilled visas. Japan has yet to open their doors wide and allow for mass migration of non-descendant, unskilled labor. As Shinkawa (2012) explained, 700,000 new migrants are needed each year to maintain the current population. The policies currently in place clearly do not have that figure as their intended goal. As Shinkawa (2012, 1125) argues, “The Japanese are reluctant

44 to accept a great number of foreign workers, the government is unlikely to open the door to unskilled foreign workers.” There are a wide variety of reasons as to why Japan will not open its doors to a significant amount of immigrants. A recent survey conducted by the Japan Times newspaper found that some of the most common responses in regards to fear of immigration are: fear of jobs going to foreigners, unsure if foreigners can transition to living in Japan, and fear of an increased crime rate (Japan Times 2014a). Recent remarks made by the Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga, are even more proof that Japanese immigration policy is not going to change in the near future. He stated that the government is not currently reviewing its immigration policy. He also started that Japan will continue to try and attract highly skilled workers along with foreign labor in certain specific sectors, such as ship building and construction for the 2020 Olympics (Japan Times 2015b). It seems clear that Japan is not pursuing an immigration policy that will attempt to solve their population crisis and has no immediate plans to do so.

SUMMARY The Japanese government has attempted to answer the population crisis and the fertility rate decline with a wide variety of policy solutions. Child-rearing policies that offer direct financial assistance, an increase in cheap childcare services, and reducing healthcare costs for children are all policies that have been implemented. These policies are very costly to the government but have been at the center of the policy response. The government has also attacked the family life and work balance by implementing policies such as childcare leave, which makes it easier to start a family while being employed. The government also turned to the private sector, asking companies for their plans to help solve the fertility rate crisis. Immigration as a solution has also been explored, but the policies have had their problems and the government doesn’t seem motivated to explore these policies into the future. Overall, many policies were discussed in this chapter and it is easy to come to the conclusion that the Japanese government is trying to solve its population problem and it is attempting to do so by implementing a wide variety of policies attempting to solve many different problems.

CHAPTER 5

METHODS AND DATA COLLECTION

The purpose of this study is to determine if current Japanese population policies are effective and meeting their intended goals. In order to do this a few questions need to be answered: are or were individuals aware of child-rearing benefits before deciding to have children and have workplace equality laws, childcare leave laws, and job security laws created a work environment where employees don’t fear for the future of their career, or for that of someone else. In order to answer these questions a few things need to be determined. First, it needs to be determined if Japanese citizens are or were aware of the benefits they can receive when having a child. It is not enough to just determine if they are aware of the policies, the level of accuracy in their understanding is also important. If an individual knows that they will receive support and assistance when having a child they would be more likely to have that child than if they thought they wouldn’t receive any benefits at all. If a large portion of the Japanese population is unaware, or has an inaccurate understanding of the benefits they could receive, then the policies are not having their maximum desired effect. Secondly, it is necessary to determine if policies directed at gender equality in the workplace, workplace environment, and job protection have accomplished their intended goals. Questions will be asked to help determine if individuals still feel pressure from their employers to not have children, not take childcare leave, or if individuals feel like their career progression would be hindered by having a family. It is entirely possible that despite the implementation of policies employees still feel like their employer doesn’t want them to have, or would not be supportive of, a family. It is also possible to find that men and women are still doing different types of jobs within a corporation, despite policies making it illegal to discriminate based on gender.

In order to answer these questions it is necessary to get data directly from Japanese citizens. While Japan does conduct a National Fertility Survey through the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, the questions asked do not relate to the knowledge of population policies before having a child and also do not touch on workplace environment. Therefore, original questions were created, tested in interviews with six individuals, and then given to eighty-eight individuals via a survey. Three different types of questions were used. The most simple was a yes or no question asking if they had heard of a specific policy. The second type of questions tests their knowledge of the policy via multiple choice questions asking them to guess how much of a specific benefit they can receive. The third type of question used was a free response where I asked them to describe a specific policy. The survey covers several different types of policies therefore there was a need for a variety of different question types. All survey and interviews were conducted in public areas such as public parks and the area surrounding train stations. As stated earlier in this thesis, Japanese government, especially Prime Minister Abe, has been very vocal and open in encouraging Japanese citizens to take advantage of childcare leave laws, ensuring that jobs and careers are secure. The nature of the employer focused laws, as explained in chapter four, require employers to work on improving the work-life balance, follow job security and equality laws, and encourages employers to play a role in helping to increase the fertility rate. I expect that I will find that a majority of individuals do not fear for the security or future of the careers and feel secure in taking advantage of childcare leave policies and that individuals believe anyone, regardless of gender, can take advantage of workplace childcare leave policies without their career being affected. I also expect to find that many childless individuals are unware of child-rearing policies and also that parents were unware of child-rearing policies before having children. If all of this is found it would support my hypothesis which is that gender equality, workplace environment, and job security laws are more effective population policies than child-rearing policies such as the Children’s Allowance or the Angel Plan.

DATA COLLECTION Survey and interview questions were carried out from December 2014 through May 2015 in Japan. A broad range of individuals varying in location, age, gender, and appearance

were approached and asked to fill out a survey or be interviewed. Interviews requiring detailed answers were carried out first in order to determine the types of responses, evaluate if there is any confusion in the questions, and get a better understanding of what individuals may think in order to adjust the survey questions if necessary. Interviews were conducted with six individuals from two different prefectures varying in gender, age, and the number of children they have. A detailed description of the interviewees is provided in chapter six. Participants in this study were all over the age of twenty and permanent residents or citizens of Japan. Tourists or short-term residents were not included because the type of policies discussed in this study are aimed at those who choose to have a career or raise a family in Japan, which are long-term decisions. Individuals under the age of twenty were not included in this study because the legal age for being considered an adult or being able to vote is twenty. While it may not be illegal to survey those under twenty, it made sense to avoid any possible problems. Individuals older than fifty were not included unless they had children who were eligible to receive benefits discussed in this study. Participants were approached in public places such as parks and near train stations. In order to obtain responses from a wide variety of locations the place of surveying was constantly changed. Interviewees and survey respondents were chosen the same way expect for the fact that once I obtained an interview, I moved to a different area. Having an even number of males and females, and parents and non-parents, were ideal for the interviews therefore I specifically sook out someone who fit the criteria for my last interview. I was never present in one location for more than an hour. All individuals who were not engaged in some activity were asked to participate in this study. In an area of foot traffic, such as in front of a train station, every third person not actively engaged in something was asked to participate. Door to door surveying of individuals was not done and neither was surveying in private residences or shops in order to make sure participants felt safe and secure and allow them the opportunity to decline without the chance of any negative repercussion. Parks were chosen because they are frequent places for families to take their children to play. Train stations were also chosen as a place of surveying since working individuals often use the train for transportation. This gave me the best chance to obtain responses from both parents and full-time employees.

I introduced myself to each person who was approached. I asked if they would be willing to answer a few questions for a research project I am doing. If they said yes, they were presented with a consent letter in Japanese informing them about the nature of the questions ensuring them that their personal information would be anonymous. Once consent was obtained, questions were asked. There are a couple groups of individuals who were probably underrepresented by this study. The first group would be students. The choice to exclude anyone under twenty and not survey near college campuses yielded only one student being surveyed. Therefore future research done should take the student population into consideration because they make up a large portion of unmarried childless individuals. Due to budget constraints all research was conducted along the Hokuriku and Tokaido local train lines, therefore individuals outside of these areas are also underrepresented. That being said, I do not believe that results will be skewed or shaped as policies discussed in this study are national policies. Two different types of surveys were given. One survey was designed for people with children and one survey for those without children. Very similar questions were asked, and often the only change was past tense versus present tense. Individuals with children were asked about certain experiences they had and individuals without children were asked about what they would expect to happen to them in the same situation. All communication was done in Japanese including the survey. I speak Japanese at a high level but there was also translator available in case participants had any questions I couldn’t answer due to the language barrier. All participants were given a consent letter to read before any data was collected. The consent letter state who I was, what the research was being done for, and a general idea of the type of questions that would be asked. Once consent was received interviews began or the survey was conducted. While the number of individuals who participated in this study is rather small, I feel that this study can provide a layout for future studies to be done on larger budgets. My study aims to ask questions which are necessary to be asked in order to determine the effectiveness of current population policy. This study is preliminary but should not be disregarded based on the low sample size.

DATA ANALYSIS Since the majority of questions given to the participants of this study are simple yes or no questions or multiple choice questions, it make analyzing the majority of results as simple as counting the number of people who responded yes. There is no need for complex statistical equations to interpret the data collected in this study. Questions were designed to be as simple and straightforward as possible while providing the necessary response needed to answer the research questions of this study. Questions given in interviews were simple at first in order to get a very simple response but then respondents were asked to expand on their response via a follow-up question such as, “Why do you think this?” This provided for further clarification confirming that the interviewees understood the questions being asked in order to ensure survey questions could be answered without misunderstanding. In addition, it also provided quotes that can be used in this thesis to help provide possible reasons behind answers or possible explanations for certain behaviors. After all survey data was collected, the answers were looked at cumulatively via an SPSS dataset which was created. SPSS, originally named Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, is a statistical software which is used to analyze and interpret data. A majority of the questions were yes or no questions or multiple choice questions. This provides for simple data analysis where frequencies and cross tables can be used to answer the research questions. The specific questions asked, data collected, and findings will be discussed in the next chapter.

CHAPTER 6

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter I will analyze the results of the original survey data as well as the six interviews that supplement the survey data. This chapter is divided into three sections. The first section contains descriptions of the participants including gender, age, education obtained, location, marital status, and employment status for all individuals who participated in the study. In the second section I will analyze the participants’ knowledge of the population problem. It will also test participants’ knowledge of child-rearing policy benefits. The questions asked will determine whether participants are aware of the benefits they are receiving or eligible to receive. In the third and final section I analyze data regarding participants’ experience of workplace inequality and the environment at their current place of employment.

DESCRIPTION OF PARTICIPANTS The data in this chapter comes from interviews with six individuals as well as eighty- eight survey respondents. Individuals of varying age, gender, education experience, employment status, marital status, location, and the number of children they had were surveyed in order to minimize bias in my results. Due to the nature of the questions asked in this study a response may contain sensitive information regarding the respondent’s place of employment or the respondent’s identity. Therefore in order to obtain the least biased response possible all individuals surveyed or interviewed will remain anonymous. All individuals were made aware of this before they chose to partake in any interview or survey. For the purpose of clarity and to enhance understanding while reading this chapter all interviewees were assigned a pseudonym. In the Japanese language, first names with the last two letters ko are usually females. Therefore all females in this study were assigned names ending in ko, hopefully making it easier to distinguish between male and female while

reading this chapter. The three male interviewees were given three common Japanese male first names. A description of all the interviewees is given in table 3. The interviewee’s age, marital status, gender, number of children they have, highest education obtained, location, and employment status is included.

Table 3. Description of Interviewees Participant ID Description Kanako 30 year old unmarried female with no children. Technical school graduate from the Hokuriku region, full-time employee. Yuki 44 year old married male with three children. University graduate from the Tohoku region, full-time employee. Tomoko 39 year old married female with one child. University graduate from the Tohoku region, currently unemployed. Ren 29 year old unmarried male with no children. Technical school graduate from the Kanto region, full-time employee. Hiroki 33 year old married male with one child. High School graduate from the Tohoku region, full-time employee.. Momoko 27 year old unmarried female with no children. University graduate from the Hokuriku region, full-time employee.

I approached the survey participants and gave them a letter explaining the types of questions that would be asked and what the study was for. Having obtained consent, I gave them a two page survey. The first section shows the various breakdown of all 88 participants. No participants were under the age of twenty, because this is the legal age of adulthood in Japan. All individuals over fifty had children currently receiving benefits questioned in the survey. I was able to obtain a decent amount of observations from all different age groups, which can be seen in table 4.

Table 4. Age Group Breakdown Age Group 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-45 46-50 50+ Total Number of 11 12 22 17 17 4 5 88 Participants

The gender breakdown, as can be seen in table 5, was 40 males and 48 females. The majority of participants are married, with 18 married men and 28 married women. 21 single men and 16 single women along with 1 divorced man and 4 divorced women were also given the survey. A detailed description of relationship status and gender can be seen in table 5.

Table 5. Gender and Current Relationship Status Current Relationship Status Single Married Divorced Total Gender Male 21 18 1 40 Female 16 28 4 48 Total 37 46 5 88

Table 6 shows what region of Japan participants currently reside in. Respondents came from four different regions in Japan. Participants from the Hokuriku region are from Fukui and Ishikawa prefectures. Individuals from the Tokai region came from Gifu, Aichi, and Shizuoka prefectures. Participants from the Kansai region came from Kyoto and Osaka cities. The Kanto region participants came from Saitama and Tokyo.

Table 6. Participant’s Location in Japan Region in Japan Hokuriku Tokai Kansai Kanto Total Number of Participants 31 29 18 10 88

Table 7 shows that the majority of participants were university graduates or graduates from a specialized or technical school. About one-third of the participants had only graduated from high school. There were two individuals who had never graduated from high school and four individuals who had graduate degrees.

Table 7. Highest Education Level Obtained Education Level Degree Junior High High University or Graduate Total Obtained School School Technical School School Number of Participants 2 29 53 4 88

Table 8 shows the current employment status of the survey respondents. Of the 88 participants in the survey 67 were full-time employees, 7 were part-time, 13 were currently unemployed, and 1 was a student.

Table 8. Current Employment Status Employment Status Full-time Part-time Unemployed Student Total Number of Participants 67 7 13 1 88

Table 9 shows a cross tabulation between gender and employment status which shows a very important point in regards to the description of the respondents in this study. All the unemployed individuals were female. All but 2 of the 40 male respondents are full-time employees.

Table 9. Gender and Current Employment Status Current Employment Status Gender Full-time Part-time Unemployed Student Total Male 38 1 0 1 40 Female 29 6 13 0 48 Total 67 7 13 1 88

As table 10 shows, 47 of the 88 participants were not parents, this provides a good base of individuals in order to test knowledge of child-rearing policies. The remainder of the participants were parents, the majority of which had one or two children.

Table 10. Number of Children Number of Children Zero One Two Three Four Total Number of Participants 47 20 15 5 1 88

KNOWLEDGE OF THE POPULATION PROBLEMS AND CHILD-REARING BENEFITS The first type of questions asked to all participants was aimed at testing their knowledge of the current population crisis and seeing if they were aware of anything the government is doing to solve the problem. A logical first question to ask was if they thought the current Japanese population was increasing, decreasing, or staying the same. As table 11 shows, out of 88 respondents 76 were able to correctly answer with a response saying the population is decreasing. This is a very large majority and if the respondents in this study are a true sample of the Japanese population, the majority of the Japanese population understands that their population is shrinking. In response to my question about why he knows the population is shrinking Yuki told me, “I see it on the news often. (Prime Minister) Abe talks about it.” When the same question was given to Momoko she said, “I am not sure (how I know) but I think everyone knows.”

Table 11. What is the Japanese Population Doing? Response Increasing Decreasing Staying the Same Total Number of 6 76 6 88 Responses

When participants were asked whether or not they thought the government wanted people to have more children 74 of 87 respondents said that the government did and 13 individuals said the government did not want them to have more children or didn’t know the answer. The breakdown of these responses can be seen in table 12. One individual didn’t answer the question. As discussed in previous chapters of this thesis a number of policies implemented by the government are aimed at increasing the number of people having children. When Kanako was asked this question during the interview she responded that she was unsure and her reasoning provides an insight as to why some individuals are unsure if the government wants them to have more children. “I know the population is decreasing but Japan has no money. More children might lead to more debt. So I don’t know,” was her response. Ren, a married man in his twenties response that, “Of course. (The issue is) always on the news or in the newspaper.” How the media reports on this issue is outside the scope of this study, but if Ren’s claim is true, it provides a valid reason as to why the majority of respondents answered yes.

Table 12. Does the Government Want People to Have More Children? Response Yes No I don’t know Total Number of Responses 74 4 9 87

The follow up question given to all survey respondents was to name something the government is doing to encourage people to have more children. Two-thirds of the 88 participants were able to provide a specific policy or general idea of what the government is doing. As seen in table 13, 29 individuals were unable to list a specific policy or idea. Of those 24 individuals either left the question blank or responded that they didn’t know of anything. The most common response, which 26 individuals responded with, made reference to the Child Allowance policy by name, or referred to direct financial assistance. Other common responses included healthcare related assistance and responses related to childcare support. Eight individuals responded with something related to improving the family and

work balance, stating things such as childcare leave or increased support for mothers in the workforce. When asked what the government is doing to encourage people to have more children Ren stated that, “I don’t have children, but my co-workers can take time off work to attend school events or stay home when their kids are sick.” This refers directly to the childcare leave, which was implemented for exactly this reason. Hiroki responded with a common response among married individuals, “My family receives child allowance payments and we also don’t pay medical bills (for my child).” Not all interviewees were able to provide a valid answer. Despite responding that she knew the population was declining and that she thought the government wanted people to have children, Momoko couldn’t provide an example of something the government was doing. “I don’t know what the government is doing. Maybe…I don’t know,” was her response.

Table 13. Name Something the Government is Doing to Encourage People to Have More Children. Response Number of Responses Direct Financial Assistance 26 Medical Related Assistance 10 Tax Breaks 1 Childcare Support 10 Marriage 4 Family/Work Balance 8 Doing Nothing 5 I Don’t Know 24 Total 88

Up to this point it seems clear that the majority of Japanese citizens are aware of the population problem and have some knowledge of actions the government is taking to counteract the declining population. That being said, just being able to name one thing the government is doing doesn’t mean that respondents fully understand all policies implemented. It also doesn’t guarantee that they don’t fully understand the policy they named in the survey. The next logical step for this survey was to test the respondent’s knowledge of specific child-rearing policies to see if they were aware of such policies and if so, do they fully understand the benefits of that policy. It is important to answer these questions because a lack of knowledge means individuals do not have all the information available to them. Understanding all the child rearing benefits available would help individuals in their decision

to start a family or not. In theory, a person who knows they will be the beneficiary of lots of government support will be more likely to have a child than someone who thinks there will be little to no support.

Child Allowance The most common policy that individuals were able to name was the Child Allowance. This allowance provides direct financial assistance to families from a child’s birth all the way through to his or her junior high school graduation. Child Allowance is one of the oldest, and from my personal experience, one of the most well-known policies therefore this study asked respondents without children if they had ever heard of the Child Allowance. As table 14 shows, out of the 47 childless individuals, 33 responded with yes and 14 responded no. This means that 70% of individuals who are ineligible to receive the Child Allowance know that the benefits exist. However, 30% of individuals were unaware.

Table 14. Have You Heard of the Child Allowance? Response Yes No Total Number of Responses 33 14 47

The majority of individuals understood that there is direct financial support available to parents via the Child Allowance, however I felt it was also important to ask them to provide details regarding who is eligible to receive the allowance. This will help judge if they have a true understanding of the policy. The correct answer would be that all parents are eligible to receive benefits for each child until they graduate junior high school. Childless participants were asked who is eligible to receive the benefits and as table 15 shows, only 5 of the 47 individuals answered correctly. It was very common to receive a response of I don’t know however several people thought they knew but were misinformed. One individual’s response said that only single parents were eligible while another individual stated that only married parents could receive benefits. A common response in the survey was the exact response Kanako gave during her interview, “I think until elementary school graduation,” she said regarding the maximum age of children who can receive benefits. Two individuals even responded that only children age zero to six are eligible for benefits. In reality all children until junior high school graduation can receive benefits. Many respondents acknowledge that

Table 15. Who is Eligible to Receive Child Allowance Benefits? Response Correct Incorrect Total Number of Responses 5 42 47

they have heard of Child Allowance, but in reality it appears that very few people actually know who is eligible to receive benefits. Childless participants were not the only ones who were asked about their knowledge of Child Allowance. The forty parents who participated in the survey were asked if they currently receive the child allowance payments and 28 individuals responded that they are current recipients. However, 11 individuals were currently not receiving it. This can be seen by looking at table 16. There was a spot on the survey for individuals to write why they were not receiving the benefit and the answers were varied but included: income too high, haven’t registered yet, and I don’t know why.

Table 16. Do You Receive Child Allowance Payments? Response Yes No I don’t know Total Number of Responses 28 11 1 40

The Child Allowance is not automatic, it requires registration at the city hall. This can explain why a few individuals were not receiving the benefits. The Child Allowance is available for the majority of parents but there is an income level that makes some parents ineligible to receive benefits. However, the income level is set high enough that the majority of parents are eligible. Income level was not asked in the survey, and in retrospect it would be useful information to have in order to determine if eligible parents are not receiving benefits. It would be interesting to explore this in a future study because the possibility exists that some parents are unaware of how to receive the allowance or unwilling to receive the benefits. It was important to not only ask if parents are current beneficiaries of the policy, but it was also important to determine when they learned about such policies. The Child Allowance is supposed to provide a financial incentive to have children, but if parents didn’t know about it before having a child, the Child Allowance is an after the fact benefit instead of an incentive. The 28 parents who responded that they currently receive benefits were asked when they learned about the policy and the results can be seen in table 17. Only 5 of

Table 17. If Yes, When did You Learn About Payments? Response Before having kids While Pregnant After having kids Total Number of 5 7 16 28 responses the 28 individuals were able to answer that they knew about the benefits before having children. The remaining 23 individuals didn’t learn about the Child Allowance until after they were already pregnant or had given birth to their child. “I didn’t know until my wife came home from city hall. She was already pregnant,” said Yuki in response to the question. One point that is interesting and seems a little contradicting is that the majority of childless participants claim to know about child allowance but only 5 of the 28 participants who actually receive the allowance didn’t know about it before pregnancy. The exact reason for this contradiction is unknown but I would hypothesize that it has to do with the level of knowledge about the policy. The majority of childless respondents were unable to accurately state who is eligible for benefits, but they claimed to have heard of the policy. Therefore the majority of parents could have been in this same situation before having a child. It is possible that it wasn’t until after having a child that they realized that what they knew about the Child Allowance was actually incorrect and they consider themselves as unaware of the policy until after they learned the truth about the policy. Another possible explanation for this contradiction could be that more people have become aware of the Child Allowance in recent years, whether that be because the media is reporting about it, the government is advertising it, more people receiving the benefits are telling their friends about it, or some other possible reason. I feel it is safe to say that if the individuals surveyed in this study are a true representation of the Japanese population, the majority of people do not truly understand the benefits they can receive from Child Allowance. I would argue that Child Allowance is not currently a good incentive to encourage individuals to reproduce because the majority of childless individuals do not fully understand the policy and the majority of current recipients were not aware of the policy until after having children. This does not mean that the Child Allowance policy cannot be successful. Programs similar to Japan’s Child Allowance policy have been implemented across many different countries and there is evidence from multiple programs that there has been a

positive effect on the fertility rate. For example, in 2007 Spain introduced a child benefit which gave direct financial assistance to all mothers giving birth after July 1, 2007. It was found that this program led to a significant increase in fertility due to an almost immediate reduction in abortion (Gonzalez 2011). The author also suggested that financial child benefits can be used in order to successfully increase fertility. Israel also implemented a child benefit policy which was studied by economists from the National Bureau of Economic Research in which it was found that Israel’s child benefit policy led to an almost eight percent increase in fertility. It was also found that the benefit had a positive effect across all religious and ethnic subgroups, showing that monetary child benefit policies can be used successfully across many different groups of individuals (Cohen, Dehejia, and Romanov 2007). Studies have also been done to show that an increase to existing child benefits can also lead to an increase in the number of births. When the United Kingdom significantly increased income support for families with children, it was found that this led directly to a fifteen percent increase in births (Brewer, Ratcliffe, and Smith 2008). In the 2010 Japanese National Fertility Survey (NES), which is conducted every five years, unmarried individuals were asked why they haven’t gotten married. Unfortunately this survey only asks unmarried individuals about reasons for not getting married and completely ignores reasons for not having children. It was found that for forty-three percent of men and forty-one percent of women, the most common response for both genders was that they didn’t have enough money for marriage (National Institute of Population and Social Research 2011b). It is also unfortunate that this question was not expanded on, but it can be assume that at least a portion of those respondents feel that they do not have enough money to support a family, therefore not enough money for marriage. This is proof that a large economic barrier exists for unmarried individuals, preventing them from getting married. There is also evidence in the same study that economic concerns are a large reason, if not the main reason, why married individuals choose to not have as many children as they would like to have. It was found that the main reason why the intended number of children is less than the ideal number of children is because child-rearing costs too much (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research 2011a). The survey asked married respondents how many children they intend to have, and how many they think are actually ideal to have. Sixty percent of all responding women cited that the reason they didn’t reach

their ideal number of children was that it costs too much to raise and educate children. The group of individuals who would be most likely to be unaware or misinformed about the Child Allowance would be those individuals without children because they would be the only group currently ineligible to receive the benefit. Of the married childless women surveyed who thought it was ideal to have at least one child, close to one-fifth cited economic reasons for not having their first child. This was the most common response besides physical or health reasons such as the inability to conceive, health reasons, or the belief that they are too old (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research 2011a). These various studies show that programs similar to Japan’s Child Allowance have been successful in a number of countries and also that the cost of raising children along with economic conditions are preventing many Japanese individuals from having their ideal number of children or even preventing them from getting married. The results of my study have showed that a majority of individuals are unaware or misinformed about the current Child Allowance policy. While there are many reasons individuals choose not to have children, it is clear from these studies that at least a portion of the population choose not to do so because of economic reasons and some of them could be potentially motivated by financial benefits to have children. Therefore, if a larger portion of the Japanese population were made aware or were properly informed about the Child Allowance an increase in the number of children born could be expected.

Childcare Costs Child Allowance is not the only child-rearing policy that participants were asked about. As explained earlier in this thesis the government has focused on a variety of childcare policies, providing cheap and reliable childcare for children so parents can work. It should be noted that the preschool system in Japan has both public childcare and private childcare. Public childcare is organized by local cities with support from the national government. The cost for a public preschool depends on an individual’s income, but on average the monthly cost is about 10,000 yen ($94) per child (Japan Healthcare Info 2016a). Private childcare is usually more expensive and run by private corporations or individuals. The monthly cost of a private preschool or kindergarten can be up to 80,000 yen ($752) a month per child, much higher than public run childcare. Participants without children were asked how much they

thought they could find childcare for if they had children. If participants had full knowledge of childcare benefits, they would know they can find childcare for as low as somewhere around 10,000 yen ($94) a month. In table 18, it shows that 45 childless participants answered this question. Respondents with children were not given this question because it is testing knowledge of prices and parents are likely to already know the cost of childcare. 6 individuals thought that preschool would be cheaper than what it would probably cost them. A total of 16 individuals, which is just a little over one-third of the respondents, answered that they thought preschool would cost over 5,000 yen ($47) but less than 20,000 yen ($188). This means that one-third of respondents have an accurate idea of how much childcare actually costs. 19 participants, over 40% of the respondents, believe that childcare is actually more expensive than what is available. “I think 30,000 yen ($282). But my friend pays 50,000 ($470) for his kid’s kindergarten” was Ren’s response when asked about what he thought the cheapest childcare available was. Why many people believe childcare is expensive was not a question asked in this survey however it can be speculated that they are not aware of the cost or availability of publically funded childcare and probably believe that private preschools or kindergartens are the route they must take if they have children.

Table 18. What do You Think Monthly Preschool Costs? Response Number of Responses Free 2 Up to 5,000 4 Up to 10,000 4 Cost in Yen per Up to 20,000 12 month Up to 30,000 11 Over 30,000 8 I don’t know 4 Total 45

Parents who have or had children enrolled in childcare were asked to answer a simple yes or no question answering if their childcare is or was subsidized by the government, meaning they attend a public childcare facility. In order to enroll in a public childcare facility registration is required at the city hall and this makes the connection between the childcare and government obvious. Private kindergartens or childcare facilities usually have enrollment

at the facility themselves, making it obvious that one system is government run and the other is not. 36 participants answered this question and the results can be seen in table 19. Close to half of the individual’s responded that they were taking advantage of childcare services provided by the government while the remainder answered that they were either unsure or were not. While there are obvious financial benefits in enrolling in a publically run childcare system, there may be some downsides that Hiroki pointed out when he responded to the reason why his child was enrolled in a private kindergarten. “I think the teachers are better. They teach my kids. At (public) daycare children only play,” he responded. Tomoko, who also has one child who attends a private kindergarten said, “(Public) daycare is all day. Kindergarten (private run) usually ends at 3. (The kids have) more time at home.” This survey did not ask individuals what kind of pre-elementary school education facility they would be comfortable sending their children to. If I were to do this study again I would ask that question and compare the cost of that versus what they thought they would need to pay for an education facility that they were comfortable with. If a majority of individuals would be comfortable sending their children to a public facility but thought the cost of that facility was much higher than the actual cost, then it would be a more accurate and detailed statement about the public’s perception of public childcare costs.

Table 19. Is Your Child’s Preschool Run by the Government? Response Yes No I don’t know Total Number of Responses 17 13 6 36

There are lengthy arguments to be made regarding enrollment in public versus private childcare facilities, but that is not the point of this study. The fact is, publicly subsidized and government run childcare is available, and a large number of people do choose to take advantage of those benefits. However, a large number of childless individuals seem to be unaware that either public childcare is available or that it is available for cheaper than what they believe.

Healthcare Costs As explained earlier in this study, healthcare costs are free but medical insurance is still necessary for each child and this must be paid by the parents. Childless respondents were asked how much they would expect a child’s health insurance and medical care costs to be each month. 45 of the 47 participants with no children chose to answer this question, however 8 of those 45 responded that they didn’t know. Since I do not know the exact insurance cost of each city and private company, I will be conservative and say up to 6,000 yen ($56) per month is a reasonable answer. It was shown earlier in this study that parents living in Shinjuku would expect to pay an average of 2,825 yen ($27) a month for one child’s medical payments and those in Nagoya would be paying 3,300 yen ($31) a month. Therefore I feel confident saying that anything under 6,000 yen ($56) a month is a reasonable answer. The results of this question can be seen in table 20. Five individuals thought that insurance and healthcare costs would be free, this is incorrect. While healthcare itself is free there is still insurance that needs to be paid. 16 individuals responded with the answer of up to 3,000 yen or up to 6000 yen. This shows that they understand the rough range of healthcare and insurance costs and also understand that it is not free. That being said, another 16 individuals believe that healthcare will cost them more than what the actual cost is. Over half of the individuals who answered the question with a response other than I don’t know have a misunderstanding of what medical and insurance costs are for children. During Momoko’s interview she answered with, “Maybe 10,000 yen ($94). Children are always sick.” However, this response shows that she doesn’t know that doctor’s appointments and medicine would be covered completely. It is possible many survey respondents think the exact same thing. At this point in the study I think the data has clearly shown that the Japanese population understands there is a population problem and they understand that the government wants more people to have children. The majority of individuals can even name a specific policy that the government has in place. However, there seems to be a lack of knowledge and misunderstanding surrounding specific policies. This is shown by many respondents claiming to have heard of the Child Allowance, but being unable to say anything specific about it. The majority of parents even responded that they had not learned of the allowance until sometime after conception.

Table 20. Average Monthly Medical Cost Per Child Response Number of Responses Free 5 Cost in Yen per Up to 3,000 7 month Up to 6,000 9 Up to 9,000 6 Up to 12,000 4 Over 12,000 6 I don’t know 8 Total 45

A lack of knowledge can also be seen in the expected costs of healthcare and childcare with a large portion of individuals believing costs are greater than what they actually are. The majority of participants thought childcare would cost them more than 20,000 yen ($188) a month when in reality the cost would probably be around 10,000 yen ($94) a month. Using very conservative figures it was also shown that a good amount of respondents believe that medical insurance and healthcare costs will be over 6,000 yen ($56) a month, when in reality it was shown that major cities charge somewhere around 3,000 yen ($28) a month. Determining exactly how much each child-rearing population policy has risen the fertility rate is outside the scope of this study. However, what this study has been able to do is show that some of the population doesn’t truly understand the benefits they can receive from the government after childbirth. If people of childbearing age knew more about the Child Allowance, knew how cheap medical expenses are, and knew access to cheap childcare was available, more individuals may choose to have children. The costs of raising children in Japan appear to be cheaper than what the general population believes. Therefore, I believe it is safe to conclude that child-rearing population policies have not yet reached their full potential.

WORKPLACE RELATED RESULTS In chapter three of this study it was shown via existing literature that part of the reason the fertility rate decreased was because of workplace conditions. This included a lack of a reasonable work and family balance, the expectations of lifetime employment, gendered roles in the workplace, and long hours were some of the contributing factors. The

65 government via a number of policies discussed in chapter four has made it clear that they want to create a good balance between family and work, encouraging citizens to have children while also maintaining a career. The government also implemented policies to promote gender equality in the workplace. These policies in theory would encourage women to maintain their careers while having families, instead of being forced or pressured into quitting upon childbirth. This would also make having children more attractive because women would not need to fear losing their job or having their career status affected. The survey given to the participants did not only include questions about their knowledge of population policies but it also asked questions about their current workplace situation, especially in relation to having children. It asks a wide variety of questions ranging in topic from childcare leave to the role of men and women in their company. For participants who already have children it inquired about their experiences taking maternity or childcare leave and how this affected their job, it also asked about their current workplace situation. The childless participants were asked about what their expectations would be in relation to their job if they decided to have a child.

Maternity and Childcare Leave The various types of leaves provided when a child is born were discussed in depth earlier in this study. Maternity leave is available for the immediate time before and after a child’s birth and childcare leave is paid leave up until the child’s first birthdate. Participants were asked various questions regarding their experiences with these leaves and in the case of participants without children, the expectations they have. Participants with no children were first asked how much leave someone can take when a child is born. The childcare leave allows for one year of leave, but technically mothers can start their maternity leave six weeks before the due date. With complete knowledge of the policies, we should expect to see the majority of answers being around one year. As seen in table 21, 43 participants answered this question and all but 7 answered as expected. This shows that the majority of participants who are not yet eligible to take any form of leave understand how long someone can take off for the birth of a child.

Table 21. How much Leave can Someone Take? Response Number of Responses Up to 3 months 1 Up to 6 months 6 Up to 1 year 26 More than a year 10 Total 43

The next question, which is shown in table 22, asked respondents with no children whether or not they would take the entire leave granted to them, whether that be paternity, maternity, or childcare leave. 43 participants answered this question and 10 individuals said they would take advantage of the entire leave, but 33 said they wouldn’t. In Kanako’s interview she said she probably wouldn’t take the full leave and her response provides a possible explanation as to why many people wouldn’t want to take the full leave. “It would be nice (to take the full leave), but I wouldn’t want someone doing my work,” she said.

Table 22. Gender and would you Take the Full Leave Cross Table Would you take the full leave? Yes No Total Gender Male 4 20 24 Female 6 13 19 Total 10 33 45

The results of this question show that the majority of individuals do not feel comfortable taking the entire leave granted to them. This question confirms my personal experience of working five years in Japan and seeing several male coworkers take only one day off when their child was born, or not take any days off at all. For some reason there is an urge to return to work, whether that is out of fear for one’s career status, love for the job, or not wanting co-workers to do their your own work, it is unknown from this question alone. The next questions given to participants without children was again related directly childcare leave. It asked participants if they were to take childcare leave would their current job status be affected negatively. In a perfect society it would be expected that any person, regardless of gender, should be allowed to take advantage of the childcare leave benefits. The leave is legally guaranteed by the government, and guarantees that their career or job status

wouldn’t be affected negatively. Their job should be the exact same when they return and their future promotion chances should be unaffected. In table 23, it can be seen that over half of the forty-five respondents said that they think childcare leave would negatively affect their career. It is not only one gender that fears their career status would be affected but rather both genders had at least 50% of individuals responding that they fear their career status would be affected. Ren gave a valid reason one that which the policy was hoping to prevent, “I am a man. I would be fired,” he said while making the Japanese hand gesture for being fired. Kanako said she felt her job would be safe and not affected and when asked why she said, “It’s normal (to take leave), I think there would be no problem.”

Table 23. Gender and Would Your Career Status be Affected Cross Table Would your career status be affected if you took leave? Yes No Total Gender Male 14 11 25 Female 10 10 20 Total 24 21 45

A follow-up question was given to the same participants to see if not only their career would be affected but if they thought they would return from leave with the same job. As seen in table 24, out of the 44 respondents who answered this question, 7 men and 7 women believed that they would return to a different job. It is not known whether the job they would be returning to would be seen as a demotion or not, but I feel it is rather safe to say that it would probably not be a promotion or a positive job change.

Table 24. Gender and Would You Return to the Same Job Cross Table If you took leave, would you return to the same job? Same Different Total Gender Male 17 7 24 Female 13 7 20 Total 30 14 44

All respondents, regardless of if they were a parent or not, were given the question of whether or not they felt someone of the opposite sex would have their career negatively

affected by taking childcare leave. The responses are shown in detail in table 25. I think this question is rather important because it allows respondents to think not about their place of work, but rather Japanese society as a whole. 79 participants answered this question and 46 responded that they felt a member of the opposite sex would have their career affected negatively. 58% of respondents felt that someone’s career would be affected if they took legally guaranteed leave. Ren, who thought he would get fired if he took leave said, “Women would be okay. They need to take care of children.” While this comment does show the existence of gender roles, it also does show that there are people who believe taking childcare leave is normal.

Table 25. Gender and Opposite Sex’s Career Status Cross Table Would a member of the opposite sex’s status be affected if they took leave? Yes No Total Gender Male 22 17 39 Female 24 16 40 Total 46 33 79

There is no way of knowing how these questions would have been answered a couple years ago, let alone before policy implantation, however I personally feel it is discouraging that there are still employees who feel their career, or someone else’s, would be negatively affected by childcare leave. What can be learned from this data is that there is still room for improvement. Workplace pressure and fear of someone’s career being affected by having children was shown in chapter three to be one of the reasons the fertility rate decreased. Today if over half the population still feels their job status would be negatively affected despite policy implementation the problem has not been solved. It is possible the workplace environment has improved with policy implementation, but there is still room for a lot of improvement. Participants with children were asked about their firsthand experience with childcare leave. Therefore a logical first question would be to ask if the parents took childcare leave when their child was born. It is not a surprise that all the fathers surveyed did not take any childcare leave. However it was rather surprising, as table 26 shows, 12 of the 22 mothers

chose not to take any childcare leave. Only 5 of the 22 decided to take almost or all the childcare leave. Childcare leave is traditionally one year but recent legislation, explained earlier in the study, allow for a longer leave in certain situations, hence the option for respondents to choose over 1 year.

Table 26. Gender and How Long of a Leave did You Take Cross Table Gender Male Female Total How long of a leave Didn’t take 14 12 26 did you take? Up to 3 months 0 3 3 Up to 6 months 0 1 1 Up to 9 months 0 1 1 Up to 1 year 0 3 3 Over 1 year 0 2 2 Total 14 22 36

I find it interesting that the majority of mothers did not take full advantage of the paid leave. There a few possible explanations as to why this may be, and discovering the exact reasons would require more research. In order to be eligible for childcare leave individuals must be a full-time employee with the same company for at least one year. Whether or not all participants who didn’t take the leave were eligible or not is unknown. The employment status of respondents at the time of childbirth is unknown therefore it could also be possible that the mothers chose to quit their jobs before the birth of the child. This was Tomoko’s case who is currently an unemployed mother. “I didn’t take any leave. I quit my job when I was pregnant,” she said. When pushed a little further to ask why she quit her job she said, “(I want) to be with my child.” It is also important to ask the ten mothers who took advantage of the childcare leave about their experience while employed but not on leave. Two questions were asked about their leave. The first was whether or not they were worried about their work or co-workers while taking leave. Being afraid of what co-workers think or worrying about work could cause individuals to end their leave early. As table 27 shows, 6 of the 10 participants responded with a confirmation that they were worried about their work or coworkers during their leave.

Table 27. Were You Worried About Work or Co-workers While on Leave? Response Yes No Total Number of Responses 6 4 10

The second question posed to the ten mothers was whether or not the childcare leave affected their career status. Previously discussed in this chapter was the speculation of career status being negatively affected by childcare leave. There were a large number of respondents who thought their job status or that of someone from the opposite sex would be negatively affected if childcare leave was taken. However, as table 28 shows, in reality only 2 of the 10 individuals responded that they felt their career status was hurt and 8 individuals didn’t think their career status was affected. In a perfect society the number of individuals who were negatively affected would be zero. The sample size of this study is small so it is difficult to draw any conclusions but it is possible to speculate from this data that while there is fear about job status being affected, in reality it doesn’t.

Table 28. Was your Career Affected by Taking Leave? Response Yes No Total Number of Responses 2 8 10

Another question was asked to these ten individuals to test to see if taking childcare leave affected them negatively. They were asked if the job they returned to was the same job as when they left. Table 29 shows that only 2 of the 10 individuals responded that their job was different, however it was neither of the two participants who felt their career status was negatively affected. Whether or not these job changes were lateral or a demotion is unknown. The industry that respondents work in is also unknown. Childcare leave seems to be in an interesting place in current Japanese society. While it is legal for employees to take full advantage of the leave, a large number of individuals feel there would still be negative repercussions despite the laws protecting against that happening.

Table 29. After Leave did You Return to the Same Job? Response Same Different Total Number of Responses 8 2 10

This study showed that over half of the participants without children were worried about how their future career status would be affected if they took childcare leave. If this survey sample size is a true representation of the Japanese population it is safe to conclude that the majority of individuals fear taking childcare leave. This in turn would have negative effects on the fertility rate and it would also mean the policies have not been effective in changing the way employers’ view employees who take childcare leave. Despite the majority of individuals surveyed being aware and having a full understanding of current maternity leave and childcare leave laws, there still seems to be many people who are afraid to take advantage of the leave laws. In February 2016 the Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, called on men to take a more important role in childcare. Calling specifically on men to take advantage of the childcare leave and allowing mothers to return to work if they want to (Japan Times 2016). It is no secret that the government wants individuals to take advantage of leave laws, promising job security. However, the results of this study have shown that there are still individuals who do not believe the message that government is putting out there. Japanese citizens still show hesitation and worry in their decision to take leave, they believe their job is not as secure as policy and government promises it to be. There are several possible explanations for the reason why policies and messages put out by the government do not match up with the beliefs of job security from employees. For example workplace pressure or hostility from superiors or co-workers. As discussed in chapter three, before any policy was implemented women who returned to work after leave often did so to a hostile work environment (Ogasawara 1998). While policies provided job security there were no policies that prevented people from looking negatively upon someone who took childcare leave. It is possible that individuals believe their relationships with their superiors or co-workers would be affected if they took childcare leave. Another explanation, specifically for males, is that it is possible that no one in their company has ever taken advantage of childcare leave. With only two percent of males with newborns using the leave it is very likely that they would be doing something no one in their company has ever done. Implementing policies alone will not change the attitudes and behaviors of individuals overnight. It is possible that as more time goes by more individuals will be confident that

their job is secure and their career will not be affected by taking leave when their child is born. Looking back at how this analysis was done I feel it would have been important to ask questions related to knowledge of a few more specific work related policies such as being allowed to work part time instead of taking childcare leave or knowledge of overtime restrictions to parents with children in nurseries. While the vast majority of respondents understood that maternity leave was allowed maybe they didn’t know there were other options available for new parents. It could be the case that they believe the only choice is to take the leave or not. If employees are afraid their employer would look down upon them by taking leave, a part-time job for a temporary amount of time might seem more appealing. If this is the situation increasing awareness to such policies could help improve the effectiveness of such policies.

Workplace Environment and Equality From the amount of policies implemented targeting gender equality and the workplace environment, it would seem on paper that the average Japanese corporation would be supportive of someone’s decision to have a child. However, it is not guaranteed that these policies are actually having effect on job equality and the workplace environment within companies. It is possible that companies are discouraging their employees from having children despite laws against it. It is also possible that the types of jobs in companies are still very gendered, as discussed in chapter three. Answering these questions in depth is very difficult to do via a survey however data can be collected to see if these problems exist in workplaces despite policies prohibiting it. The New Generation Law, which was discussed in chapter four, requires corporations to create plans telling the local government how they are doing their part to help solve the population crisis. I was curious to know if any of the participants were aware of anything their company was doing to help their employees have more children. Arguably a company that is visibly supportive of their employees having children, would create a safe work environment where a parent would not be afraid to have children. Therefore, in the survey given to all participants without children I asked if their company was doing anything to help increase the population or encourage the participants to have children. As seen in table 30, 44

participants answered the question and of those only 18%, or 8 individuals, said their company was doing something to encourage them. While a no response doesn’t mean the companies are not doing anything, it just means they may not be as visible or as open as other companies. Momoko provided a great response as to why she felt her job wasn’t encouraging her to have children. “I would need to miss work. I don’t think my company wants that,” she said.

Table 30. Company Encouraging You to Have Children? Response Yes No Total Number of Responses 8 36 44

A company that is not visibly encouraging their employees to have children doesn’t mean that a company is not supportive of their employee’s decision to have children. Parents were asked if they felt their company was supportive of their decision to have children. This is a very open ended question and a no response could be given because of a wide variety of reasons. An interview with respondents who answer no would be a good way to understand exactly why they felt their company was not supportive of their decision to have children, but that is a job for future research. As table 31 shows, only 9 of 31 respondents said they felt their company was not supportive of their decision to have children. While a response of zero is deal, nine doesn’t seem too unreasonable until gender is factored in. 7 of the individuals who felt their company was not supportive were mothers. This means that 41% of mothers felt their company was not supportive of their decision to have children. It appears to be more acceptable for men to have children as only 2 out of 14 men felt their company was not supportive of their decision. Yuki, a father of 3, said, “I can go to school events during the week. I’ve never had a problem,” when asked how he knows his company is supportive of his family.

Table 31. Gender and Company Supportive of Decision Cross Table Was your company supportive of your decision to have children? Yes No Total Gender Male 12 2 14 Female 10 7 17 Total 22 9 31

A possible explanation for women feeling that their company was not supportive of their decision to have children is that employers assume that mothers are not going to be as committed to their job after having children. Whereas the employers feel that the work patterns and behaviors of men, maybe because of cultural norms, will remain unchanged after having a child. The employers don’t worry much about the effect of having a child on a male employee but they do for the female employees. Earlier in this study it was discussed that there has traditionally been a demand required by companies for their employees be fully committed to their job. This often means that there is pressure put on employees to work hard for their employer, putting in long hours. Literature in chapter three showed that this can often force someone into putting off marriage or starting a family. I asked all participants whether or not they felt there was pressure before they had children, or current pressure for those who have no children, to put off having children for the sake of their employer. As table 32 shows, of the 78 respondents 16, or 20%, acknowledged that they felt some sort of pressure and the remainder 80% stated that they felt no such pressure. None of the interview subjects said they felt any type of pressure but Hiroki did say he felt a different type of pressure, “I felt pressure. My boss told me many times to get married.”

Table 32. Feels or Felt Pressure to Work Longer Before Having Kids Response Yes No Total Number of responses 16 62 78

Gender inequality in the workplace has been a major issue for the Japanese government to tackle. As described earlier in this study men and women have traditionally done different types of jobs. There has historically been the assumption that women are going to have children so they should be given jobs that require little education or training. Workplace equality laws have been important for the government and are important to increasing the fertility rate. All participants were asked if the men and women in their company did similar or different types of work. It is entirely possible that a respondent works in a field that is traditionally exclusive to one gender, for example military or construction, and these outliers are impossible to take into account because the type of work for each respondent is unknown. That being said, the data is not invaluable.

All full-time employed participants were given this question, but as shown in table 33, only 73 answered the question. 42 respondents, or 57.5%, answered that men and women do the same type of work at their company and the remainder 31 individuals responded that different types of work are done by different genders. There is very little difference in responses in relation to gender.

Table 33. Gender and Same Types of Jobs Cross Table At your workplace do men and women have the same types of jobs? Same Different Total Gender Male 21 17 38 Female 21 14 35 Total 42 31 73

Without similar historical data it is difficult to know how much gender inequality in the workplace has increased over time. Questions asked in this survey could help track how comfortable employees are in the workplace and how secure they feel in taking advantage of policies they are entitled to. This would help track the overall effectiveness and success of workplace oriented policies creating a workplace environment that is parent friendly.

SUMMARY: A COMPARISON ACROSS VARIOUS POLICIES In order to fully address my hypothesis that laws aimed at addressing issues in the workplace are more effective than child-rearing policies it is important to look at several specific survey questions side by side. It is important to understand which policies have the highest rates of unawareness, misunderstanding, or effectiveness. In order for a child-rearing policy to be effective individuals need to have accurate knowledge of the policy and the benefits it provides before making the decision to have a child. If this is not the case, child- rearing policies are no longer incentives to have children but rather, for a lack of better words, a welcomed surprise. In order for workplace policies to be effective, knowledge of the policy doesn’t matter as much as the confidence the employee has to take advantage of the policy. Therefore questions regarding their confidence in the policy were asked, and not whether or not they knew about the policy.

In order to answer this question I classified respondent’s answers to various questions as positive or negative. In the case of child-rearing policies a positive response is classified as someone who has shown no misunderstanding for a specific policy. Since in the case of workplace related policies questions were asked in the form of yes or no questions or same and different questions, with some negatively worded questions such as, “Would your job be affected by leave?,” a positive response is one that shows the policy is working by providing equality or confidence that one’s career would not be affected by taking leave. Whereas a negative response in one that shows the policy is not effective because of some inequality or concern about job security. Earlier in this chapter all questions were explained in depth and the exact number of responses for each answer were discussed in detail. For the purpose of this specific section, and for simplicity, only percentages are shown and percentages are rounded to the nearest full number. It should be noted that the number of responses for some questions is rather small, with the lowest being forty-four responses. While the number of responses are low, the results should not be ignored as the work is pilot in the sense that I hope to show what types of questions are important to ask. When looking at table 34, it is easily noticeable that child-rearing policy knowledge is extremely low. With a high positive response of 36%, it is clear part of my hypothesis was correct. It is possible to argue that many individuals claimed to have heard of the Child Allowance benefit and therefore the positive amount shown should be higher, but upon further testing of their knowledge it was shown that the majority of individuals were not able to tell me who is eligible to receive the benefit. This shows that they may even doubt their own eligibility to receive benefits. Therefore in this case, I coded them as negative instead of positive. The effectiveness of child-rearing policies is rather low because the majority of individuals are unaware or misinformed about the policies therefore the policies are not incentive to have children, as the government hoped for at the time of implementation. Instead these policies have turned into an after the fact surprise child support benefit.

Table 34. Comparison of Child-Rearing Policy Knowledge Child Allowance Preschool Cost Healthcare Cost Positive 13% 35% 36% Negative 87% 65% 64%

Table 35 shows several survey responses to questions measuring the effectiveness of various workplace related policies. Unlike child-rearing policies where testing knowledge is all that needs to be done to determine effectiveness, workplace policies are already implemented and as such they should have already had an effect on the way employers view their job security, gender equality, and the workplace in general. Therefore it was important to ask questions regarding the respondent’s thoughts of what would happen under specific hypothetical situations. The most positive response comes from individual’s knowledge of childcare leave, respondents understand how long individuals can take off work to care for a child. Despite being aware of the childcare leave policy the same overwhelming majority response does not follow when asked about their job security if they or someone else were to take advantage of childcare leave. The majority of respondents for both questions believe that there would be some negative effect on a career if childcare leave was taken. That being said, 68% of the respondents did believe they would return to the same job if they took leave. The final section shows that males and females partake in different jobs in 42% of the respondents companies.

Table 35. Comparison of Workplace Related Policy Effects Childcare Belief that own Belief that Opposite sex Both sexes leave career would would return coworker’s doing same knowledge be affected by to same job career affected job in the leave after leave by leave workplace Positive 83% 47% 68% 42% 58% Negative 16% 53% 32% 58% 42%

My hypothesis was incorrect in the sense that I expected to find more evidence of job security and gender equality in the workplace. I was not expecting over half of my respondents to say that they felt their job would be affected negatively if they took advantage of legally guaranteed childcare leave. However, my hypothesis was correct because the evidence shows more people feel that the workplace policies implemented provide enough job security for them to take leave and return to the same job than the number of individuals who are aware of child-rearing policy benefits.

CHAPTER 7

CONCLUSION

In this study the effectiveness of many policies that have the intention of raising the fertility rate has been explored. Child-rearing policies were implemented with the goal of providing an incentive by reducing the cost of having a child. While the majority of participants know Japan has a population crisis and that the government is implementing policies to create incentives for having children, the majority of individuals do not fully understand what the benefits will do for them. The data shows that childless individuals believe that childcare costs and healthcare costs are more expensive than what they really are. Many childless respondents are also unaware of whether or not they would be eligible to receive Child Allowance. Even participants with children responded that they didn’t learn about policies until after getting pregnant. Increasing awareness of already available policies seems like a necessary step for the Japanese government. The potential of these policies is undermined by the lack of awareness in the Japanese population. A large problem in recent decades has been a balance between family and work. Traditionally Japanese companies have been very demanding of their employees and this in turn has discouraged people from starting a family. Many different workplace policies were implemented to make having a career and a family more appealing while providing job security. Data shows that a majority of individuals fear their career would be negatively affected by taking childcare leave. Respondents also said they believe someone of the opposite sex would have their career affected by taking childcare leave. There also appears to still be evidence of gender inequality in the workplace however further research is needed to answer this question. My hypothesis that employer related policies, job equality laws, and job security laws would be more effective than child-support policies is neither correct nor incorrect. I expected to find that a large majority of individuals would feel secure in their decision, or

that of their co-worker to take advantage of childcare leave laws. However the majority of individuals actually felt that their career, or that of their co-worker, would be negatively affected if they took childcare leave. This shows that there are some underlying social norms and workplace expectations that have not been eradicated yet by public policy. I also expected that the majority of individuals would be unaware or misinformed of many child- rearing policies. I find this to be true as the majority of individuals showed misunderstanding or unawareness about several child-rearing policies. I feel that the questions asked in this survey did a good job of testing knowledge of policies and to get a feel for the workplace beliefs of individuals. These questions if tracked over time can provide an answer as to whether policies are becoming effective or not. This thesis is not trying to say that population policies have been ineffective and will not improve. After doing a historical analysis of the role of the Japanese woman since 1603 it is obvious that there has always been gender inequality in Japanese society. Centuries of inequality, ways of thinking, gender roles and social norms are not going to change with the implementation of policy alone. Time is necessary. It is entirely possible that the current policies alone will eventually improve the population crisis and solve workplace issues, however this will not be known without a constant analysis of such policies. To date there has not been a large survey done asking questions to measure fear of taking childcare leave, knowledge of child-rearing benefits, or feelings about the workplace environment. A lot of research and survey questions are dedicated to the reasons for not having children or why people are waiting to get married, but questions related to specific policies are left out. Adding some of the questions in this thesis to already existing surveys such as the National Fertility Survey would provide data every five years that can help measure the effectiveness of population policies over time. It is my hope that this study will provide inspiration for academies and researchers to build on the types of questions and issues raised in this study.

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