Womenomics, ‘Equality’ and Abe’s Neo-liberal Strategy to Make Japanese Women Shine

Dalton, Emma

doi:10.1093/ssjj/jyw043

Cited by 60 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Abe's labor market reform policies included three areas of reform in particular: (1) efforts to promote women's employment, particularly in positions of management; (2) efforts to promote more flexibilized labor among skilled workers; and 3) the piecemeal adoption of migrant worker policies that together amount to something akin to an immigration policy. "Womenomics" was styled as a key component of Abe's program in 2013, with the government setting targets of 30 percent female corporate leadership by 2020 (up from nine percent in the early 2010s) (Dalton, 2017). At the same time, the Abe government also introduced a range of measures to allow foreign workers to come to Japan, first through a policy aimed at attracting highly skilled workers in 2015 (Immigration Bureau of Japan [IBJ[, 2018) and then with legislation to create a new system for medium and low-skilled workers in 14 blue-collar occupational sectors (Schwarcz, 2018).…”

Section: Neoliberal Economic Reformsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Various authors have examined elements of Abe's tenure and policy repertoire, including his economic program, known as Abenomics (Chiavacci and Lechevalier, 2017;Dalton, 2017;Shibata, 2017;Wakatabe, 2015), his administrative policies (Jayasuriya, 2018;Mishima, 2017;Schieder, 2017), and his defense policies (Dobson, 2017;Khilji, 2015;Pyle, 2018). Yet there has thus far been little research considering the overall consequences of the Abe regime for Japanese political order, and in particular for the restoration of LDP hegemony.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Passive Revolution in Japan: The Restoration of Hegemony under Abe?

Carroll

2021

Critical Sociology

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This article draws on Gramsci’s theory of passive revolution to explore the second tenure of Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzō from 2012 to 2020. It sees the high degree of political stability that Abe achieved as a contrast to the preceding two decades of Japanese politics and asks what accounts for Abe’s success in restoring Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) dominance in an era of enduring economic and social crisis. The article argues that Abe executed a strategy of passive revolution that incorporated two “faces”: an “outward” face oriented around consent and an “inward” face rooted in coercion. The former involved economic policies (in particular “Abenomics”) designed to appear capable of resolving chronic economic stagnation, growing inequality and other social and economic problems, restoring popular support for the LDP without undermining conditions for capital accumulation or empowering subaltern classes. In contrast, the latter involved various low-profile security and administrative policies that enabled the Abe government to dramatically increase its power while silencing or disarming potential rivals and critics. The article sees this two-sided strategy of passive revolution as effective in restoring LDP dominance but unlikely to prove the basis for a more expansive hegemony or a resolution to Japan’s organic crisis.

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Section: Neoliberal Economic Reformsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Passive Revolution in Japan: The Restoration of Hegemony under Abe?

Carroll

2021

Critical Sociology

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“…This was acknowledged at the international level during the UN Decade for Women (1975–1985) when countries worldwide agreed upon key language in the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against Women ( CEDAW) committing to the full respect of women’s human rights ( Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (MOFA), 2016 ). Since ratification, the Japanese government has passed a variety of laws aimed at advancing gender equality and although the Equal Employment Opportunity Law (1985) has been amended four times (1997, 2006, 2013, 2016) to better protect women’s rights, and yet many loopholes continue to allow discrimination (Dalton, 2017 ; Gordon, 2017 ; Starich, 2007 ; Weathers, 2005 ).…”

Section: The Legacy Of Patriarchal Gender Roles and Economic Empowermmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patriarchal Leadership and Women’s Exclusion from Democratic Institutions

Steele

Miyake

2021

Japanese Women in Leadership

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In this chapter, we focus on the status of women’s representation in Japan at national and local levels of government, notably by tracing women’s numerical presence or descriptive representation (Pitkin in The concept of representation . Atherton Press, New York, NY, 1967) in the postwar period. We discuss how gender bias against women manifests through micro and macro, socio-cultural and institutional, contexts of local and national politics, and, notably, the pervasive impact and hegemony of elite men’s social and political capital within electoral political and political party recruitment strategies. In particular, we explore the key gatekeeping mechanisms restricting women’s baseline access to political leadership and the absence of an equal playing field in Japanese politics. We discuss recent feminist activism in favor of diversifying decision-making within Japan and propose next steps for expanding the windows of opportunity for women’s political leadership.

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“…Policy efforts to make the full-time labor force more accessible to women have been highly publicized and numerous in recent years, most notably the Abe administration's "Womenomics" policy, first unveiled in 2013. However, these policies appear to have benefited only the small number of women capable of assimilating into Japan's traditional, masculinized employment arrangement while segregating the majority of women into precarious, part-time work (Dalton 2017). In addition, a relatively weak welfare system, ineffective government policies for easing work-family conflicts, and an insufficient number of day care center spaces (Boling 2015) have made it difficult for wives and mothers to balance family obligations with those of full-time paid work.…”

Section: The Changing Economy Marriage and Gendered Expectationsmentioning

confidence: 99%