Publisher's Synopsis
"Japanese Women Working" aims to provide a wide range of perspectives on the study of working women in Japan over the last century. The contributors address issues of state policy towards, and management of, women workers, and also particular groups: domestic servants, hospital care assistants, textile workers, miners, homeworkers, and "professsional" housewives. They highlight many of the issues and decisions that have faced working women in Japan, and question the universal accuracy of the prevailing domestic stereotype of these people. Essays included span a period of rapid economic change in Japan, and look at the country both as developing and as industrialized, indicating the importance of the overall economic environment, as well as cultural factors, in determining women's position in the labour market. Bringing together contributions from historians, economists, anthropologists and management specialists from Europe, Japan and the United States, the book emphasizes the importance of a multidisciplinary approach in the study of this subject.
