Search

• Introduction of flexible (or non-regular) work has a negative impact on productivity. • This negative impact is strongest under innovation regimes that rely on highly cumulative knowledge. • Supply-side deregulation of labor markets is likely to have contributed to a productivity growth slowdown in major OECD countries after 2004. Due to labor market reforms around 2003–4, Japan has a growing group of 'non-regular' workers who are easy to fire, and have poor carrier perspectives. This marks a break with the traditional Japanese model of life-time employment that allowed for intensive in-company training and commitment of personnel. Drawing from a national wage structure survey, we find indications that employment of non-regular workers has a negative impact on productivity (proxied by wages), this negative impact being largest under innovation regimes that require a high cumulativeness of knowledge. Our findings are consistent with neo-Schumpeterian research in Europe which concluded that certain labor market rigidities, while being un desirable from a neoclassical perspective, can be useful to innovation. Our paper confirms the impression from earlier research that structural reforms of labor markets along supply-side lines are likely to be one of the reasons for a substantial decline of productivity growth in major OECD countries since about 2004/05. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted labor markets around the world. Workers and corporations scrambled to adjust their workstyles to a new normal, by avoiding the commute and working remotely from their homes or elsewhere. Japan is a country that stood out for its inability to adjust to the remote work imperative. Comparative statistics show that Japan reported the lowest number of people engaged in remote work among the OECD countries, as well as the lowest percentage of corporations that offered remote work policies. In this article, I investigate why telework in Japan is difficult. The lack of telework in Japan may seem paradoxical, given the country's reputation for being technologically advanced. I argue that it is not the technological infrastructure that is lacking in the Japanese workplace, but distinct features of work embedded in Japanese culture and its collectivist roots that prevent the effective implementation of telework. I rely on recently published data from various sources, and apply key sociological theories such as implicit contracts, gift exchange, dramaturgy, and impression management to substantiate my main arguments. The paper concludes by drawing on implications for the future of work in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aspirations for the future can influence investments made today, and gender gaps in aspirations can perpetuate gender gaps in outcomes. In this paper, we explore how the local labor market affects gender gaps in aspirations. Using a national longitudinal survey from Japan, we begin by documenting large gender differences in adolescents' aspirations with respect to education, marriage, and fertility, as well as parental aspirations for their child's education. We then show that these gender gaps – specifically, boys aiming for higher educational attainment as well as later marriage and fertility – are significantly smaller in municipalities with higher female employment. Consistent with this, we also find that female employment is associated with higher parental investments in girls relative to boys. We detect similar patterns when examining realized outcomes at age 19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intermediaries are indispensable for processing the mobility of international migrants. In the absence of an official migration policy in Japan, this requirement of intermediaries is not an exception. This paper examines the different approaches of Japanese intermediaries towards Japanese client firms and Vietnamese early-career professionals employed in the information technology sector in the cross-border labour market between Japan and Vietnam. Two major results are derived based on data from semi-structured interviews. First, recruitment companies instruct labour users, and recruitment organizations seek to 'frame' a job post for migrant workers for a successful visa application. Second, temporary staffing firms 'package' multiple Vietnamese workers to provide the necessary labour to clients. This study argues that different types of intermediaries are present in the employment process of early-career foreign skilled labourers and that a temporary staffing firm intervenes the most actively in the employment process of skilled migrants among other intermediaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of 'gig work' has been accompanied by an official discourse which highlights the benefits for 'gig workers', especially as arises from the more autonomous nature of this particular type of employment. In contrast, this paper draws upon the cultural political economy approach to argue that the move towards gig work is more accurately conceptualised as an attempt to legitimate the further flexibilisation of labour markets within advanced industrial democracies, seeking to construct economic imaginaries that are best described as a form of 'fictitious freedom'. In drawing on the cultural political economy approach, the paper explores the interaction between the structural, discursive and technological selectivities which have generated these outcomes. This is done through a discussion of the case of Japan, which is selected as a key case that highlights the tensions and pressures leading to the introduction of gig work in this way across the advanced industrial democracies. The article shows how gig work sees new digital technologies used in an attempt to increase productivity and thereby further growth, locking gig workers into low-skilled and low-paid super-fragmented tasks, whilst at the same time heralding the benefits that gig work can provide for a range of contemporary problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a response to demographic ageing, various governments have been promoting social policies that promote older people's participation in productive activities, including those outside the formal labour market. Nevertheless, older people's behaviours do not simply reflect government policies and intentions. This paper explores how older people themselves interpret their social roles within a policy context that seeks to position them as providers of welfare through their participation in community activities. For this purpose, this paper draws on a qualitative case study of older people in Japan engaging in health promotion and mutual aid among local residents. By employing Hannah Arendt's distinction between the human activities of labour, work and action as a conceptual framework, it finds that although the purported purpose of community activities was to substitute decreasing pensions and family care or to create a better community, participants in this study valued their activities as a process of creating new relations and new realities through action. The paper argues that while labour has occupied a predominant position in the post-war welfare paradigm, community activities by an expanding population of older people may offer opportunities for action, which were not always available through paid work or care-giving in the household. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the writing on labor market flexibilization focuses on non-regular employment, this ethnography of precarious work explores one overlooked aspect, the experiences of increasingly precarious young regular workers. These jobs take the form of standard employment, but workers are often subjected to even more precarious and exploitative working conditions than non-regular workers. Drawing on the case of Japan, a seemingly unlikely place to observe such a development, this article has three aims. First, it clarifies the underlying mechanisms of labor exploitation in precarious regular employment. Second, it illustrates these mechanisms at work by examining the experiences of young workers. Third, it explores the potential of such young workers to disrupt these mechanisms through an individualistic form of collective action. The paper illuminates that, in the context of labor market flexibilization, inequality of security exists not only between standard and non-standard employment but also within standard employment arrangements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine how parental caregiving affects women's employment in Japan. Drawing on the 2005–2014 Longitudinal Survey of Middle-Aged and Elderly Persons, we estimate logistic regression models for the employment status of middle-aged women in various types of employment as a function of caregiving intensity to examine when and in what context caregivers' employment may be at risk for Japanese women. The results showed that working women who began providing 5 or more hours of care per week were significantly more likely to leave their jobs than non-caregiving women; those who began providing fewer than 5 hours of care per week did not show this likelihood. Among women in regular employment, those who began to provide 5 or more hours of care per week and those who provided care in the previous year were more likely to stop working or change jobs than their non-caregiving counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1905, Karafuto (Southern Sakhalin) became Japan’s second formal colony and the most sparsely populated territory in the Japanese empire. Despite its peripheral location and small population the colony was of important economic value, boasting considerable natural resources such as marine products, coal, oil and timber. This combination of richness and remoteness meant that enterprises in the colony faced an acute labour shortage. This paper examines the ways that enterprises operating in Karafuto sought to circumvent this problem by analysing the recruitment, management and maintenance of labour in Karafuto’s forestry and construction industries. It is found that a degree of coercion emerged at worksites in the colony, as management struggled to hold onto its workforce for the entirety of a project; however, coercion was not the norm and was strongly associated with specific recruitment grounds. Utilizing contemporary social research, colonial newspaper reports, oral testimony and other sources this paper finds that recruits from further afield were more likely to be involved in incidents of abuse than those in close proximity to Karafuto. Local connections, strength in numbers and mutual dependence of workers from these areas and Karafuto-based recruiters for work/labour served to reduce levels of conflict between the two parties. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper attempts to explore the connections between expanding female education and the participation of women in paid employment in Japan, China and India, three of Asia's largest economies. Analysis based on existing data and literature shows that despite the large expansion in educational access in these countries in the last half century, women have lacked egalitarian labour market opportunities. A combination of social discouragement and individual choice largely explains the withdrawal, non-participation or intermittent female presence in the labour force, notwithstanding increased educational access. In taking stock of these issues and debates across these countries, it is argued that the parallel experiences of women in these countries can be traced back to persistent gender norms which, amongst other things, imply the centrality of marriage and non-market unpaid labour for women. The paper argues that there is a need for gender-sensitive public policy in order for increased education to translate to labour market gains for women, leading to sustainable development outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Even though Japan and Switzerland are characterised by comparatively low youth unemployment rates, non-standard forms of employment are on the rise, posing a risk to the stable integration of young labour market entrants. Drawing on the French approach of societal analysis, this paper investigates how country-specific school-to-work transition systems stratify the risk of non-standard employment in early career differently in Japan and Switzerland. Our results reveal that in Japan, young entrants who completed university education are least at risk of becoming employed in non-standard work. On the contrary, it is the highly educated university graduates who mainly enter the labour market via non-standard employment in Switzerland, where vocational education promotes smooth transitions into standard employment relationships. Our findings suggest that the transition systems of the two countries differ in the way they revert to non-standard forms of employment. However, while job insecurities may not endanger labour market integration of highly skilled university graduates holding good career prospects in Switzerland, they may go hand in hand with social exclusion processes for the low-educated young entrants lacking bargaining power in the segmented Japanese labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key trend in the development of the global economy is the informalisation of employment. A number of studies have emerged that capture the growth and characteristics of non-standard employment in Japan and South Korea as two major world economies that are experiencing relative decline in growth. However, limited is understood in the role of institutional actors in shaping the labour markets and how these two neighbouring countries may, despite similarities, differ in terms of forms of non-standard employment and the institutional and cultural reasons that underpin the differences. This review study fills part of the gap by providing a systematic analysis of changes in the labour market in Japan and South Korea, the role of institutional actors in shaping the informal labour market, patterns of non-standard employment and its impacts on individual workers as well as the development of the labour market. The paper concludes that informalisation has led to the decline of job quality on a relatively large scale in these two countries and that a greater level of state intervention is necessary to maintain workforce well-being and economic sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper examines a view that the traditional stem family system was one of the preconditions for Japan''s modern economic development, focusing on labour markets and skill formation practices. The paper begins with a brief look at the Japanese stem family household formation rules. Then, exploration is made, first, on the self-employed, the largest sector of the early modern economy; second, the merchant house and its employment patterns as an origin of present day large corporations'' employment system and skill formation and human capital management practices; and third, workshop industries, which formed middle and lower layers of the manufacturing sector in the period of industrialisation. Finally, women''s marriage behaviour is examined in relation to labour markets, especially changes in real wages. All this is an attempt to go some way towards a better understanding of the ways in which the family economy and corporate firms worked in economic development, rather than to suggest an alternative hypothesis on the relationship between family and household factors and subsequent economic development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper has three objectives: i) to empirically examine labor market transitions in deindustrializing Asian economies; ii) to study the character of labor market risks and how these risks are shifting by gender, by education level, and by age in the transitional period; and iii) to rethink the commonly accepted assumptions that deindustrialization and globalization are the main causes of new labor market risks and, thus propose the possibility of institutional legacy as an important factor for such risk shifts. This study focuses on the labor market risks in the Republic of Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Three steps are taken in this inquiry. First, this study commences by empirically examining the three labor market changes mentioned above. Second, it challenges the idea of the emergence of 'new risks,' arguing instead for the concept of 'risk shift': the feature of risk shifting to different demographic groups. Lastly, with the empirical evidence already used, this paper discusses whether deindustrialization or globalization is a sufficient cause for risk shifts in deindustrializing Asian economies, proposing that institutional legacy may be an important factor in risk shift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether the Japanese youth labor market has become more unstable, particularly since the 1990s. To address this problem, I suggest that we consider the transition rate of job exit to be the benchmark of instability in the labor market and focus on workers’ career histories until they reach the age of 34 years. This paper presents six hypotheses that explain the instability of the youth labor market as follows: the total increase in the job-exit transition rate, the higher risk of job exit for provisional workers, the increase in the number of provisional workers, the increasing transition rate for provisional workers and stable regular workers, the impact of firm size, and the impact of the collapse of the bubble economy. I present the summary statistics of job exit rates and the results of the Cox partial likelihood estimation models. A conspicuous phenomenon of the 1990s entailed an increasing number of provisional workers who ran a higher risk of job exits compared to regular workers. However, the job exit transition rates are generally stable. Moreover, the transition rates for regular female workers have decreased since the 1980s due to the increasing realization of gender equality in society. Although partial likelihood estimation states that firm size and the type of officer concerned (public/private) had significant effects on the transition rates, their effect did not intensify after the collapse of the bubble economy. In sum, the evidence that the Japanese youth labor market changed in the 1990s is limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper scrutinises the growing trends and tendencies toward nonstandard employment in Japan to understand the making of new risk profiles. Since the first signs of new risk profiles emerged prior to the bursting of the economic bubble, an analysis should not, as many have done, isolate the 1990s. Yet, few noticed that the growth of nonstandard employment had preceded the reversal of economic fortunes. Often, characterisation of the Japanese model extrapolated from relatively secure positions of one labour market segment in the highly regulated, coordinated governance institutions. For this reason, extant models have failed to anticipate growing risks in society as a whole. A review of employment regulation highlights the function of legal reforms in the making of new risk profiles. State-based regulations allowed for and codified unequal treatment of part-time and temporary work. As a result, nonstandard employment emerged as a distinct status with few of the benefits or the social protections associated with the corporate-centred, male-breadwinner reproductive bargain. By identifying the institutional logic of the corporate-centred male-breadwinner reproductive bargain, we can better understand the emergence of precariousness in the Japanese labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Both inward and outward foreign direct investment (FDI) have implications for the wage rates of home-country workers. Such implications have been particularly noteworthy in Japan where the traditional internal labor-market practices, which value long-term sustainability of employment and wages, collide with the pressure for change in the globalizing Japanese economy on many fronts. In this paper we estimate the impacts of FDI on workers’ wages in Japanese manufacturing industries. We find that Japanese employees benefit, in the form of wage gains, from their employers’ association with both inward and outward FDI operations. These wage effects differ systematically depending on gender and worker ranks within their employer firms and are likely to weaken the mechanisms underlying the sustainability of Japanese firms’ traditional internal labor markets. The presence of FDI effects on worker wages also implies an increasing disparity between the incomes of workers who work for successfully globalizing firms and workers who do not, jeopardizing Japan’s traditional policy objective to sustain harmonious economic growth across all economic sectors. This would also deepen the structural divide including the wage gap of the Japanese economy that exists between large firms and small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) since firms which get involved in FDIs are mostly large firms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: This paper examines the labor market outcomes of two different forms of cross-border higher education degree programs (i.e., study abroad vs. twinning) between Malaysia and Japan. Based on a new graduate survey, it examines whether there are differences in the labor market outcomes between the two programs and what other factors have significant effects on the labor market outcomes. We observed no significant differences in the labor market outcomes between the two programs. Instead, the degree fields, internship, and university rankings are significant for the first employment. For current work, post-graduation qualifications and skills such as English become important. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In most advanced countries, young people are now expected to remain in education until the age of 18 and, in a context of poor opportunities for those who leave at an early stage, there are concerns about those who are being left behind. In this paper we use comparable survey data to focus on the destinations of young people in two contrasting societies, England and Wales and Japan. We compare the destinations of 19/20-year-olds in the two countries, with a strong focus on those who leave education at an early stage, and go on to explore the extent to which young people's socio-economic backgrounds and their orientations to education explain their post-school experiences. We argue that, in both societies, those who enter the labour market before the age of 20 face severe difficulties irrespective of their social background. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on institutional barriers to older workers' continued work beyond the conventional retirement age in contemporary Japan. Under the current institutional arrangements, most older workers in Japan, contending with mandatory retirement rules at the workplace, have the option of being re-employed after mandatory retirement, and experience large wage reductions if they choose this option. We examine how these institutional arrangements in Japan today affect older workers' views and decisions regarding their future labor market behaviors. Using a multi-nomial logit analysis, we analyze data drawn from a nationally representative sample of 1,400 male regular employees, aged 57 to 59, who participated in the 2007 'Survey on continued employment and occupational life after age 60 (Rokujūsai ikō no keizoku kōyō to shokugyō seikatsu ni kansuru chōsa)', which was conducted by the Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training (JILPT). Our analysis has found (i) that older workers do not want to be re-employed if their prospective wages are lower than their desired minimum level; (ii) that, if they choose not to be re-employed, they tend to seek alternative employment opportunities by themselves rather than retiring; and (iii) that, other than prospective wage level, the prospective total income (including 'in-work' social security benefits) and the availability of flexible work arrangements are crucial factors affecting the future labor market behaviors of older workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It appears that Japanese employment practices, once hailed as one of the secrets to Japan's 'miracle' of rapid economic development after World War II, are not keeping up with important changes in Japan's economy and society under deceleration of economic growth and aging of the population. Nevertheless, the current regulations protect the practices of lifetime employment security and seniority-based wages as a desirable work style. However, these practices not only deter labor market flexibility, but also entail social costs by creating a 'wall' that divides insiders and outsiders of firm-specific labor markets, and this leads to large wage disparities. Furthermore, these practices create an 'implicit packaged contract' between firms and their employees, allowing the firm wide discretion over employees' work style, including working hours and job placement. As more women pursue full-time careers, they are being forced into the difficult position of having to choose between their careers outside the home or their children. The difficulty of this decision has resulted in a rapidly declining fertility rate. This paper argues that Japanese employment practices need to be revolutionized to allow better work-life balance and an alternative lifestyle for an increasing number of dual-income families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expanding international education and economic globalisation have changed both the make-up of international labour migrants and the patterns of immigrant economic adaptation. Chinese student migrants' employment experiences and economic mobility in Japan suggest that an immigrant occupational niche has emerged among Japanese firms characterised by a set of corporate positions that specifically deal with businesses in China. These firms preferentially recruit Chinese student migrants to fill these positions. This paper discusses the mechanisms that shape such an immigrant occupational niche and the opportunities and constraints presented to Chinese students in Japan. It discusses the paradoxical effects the existence of an occupational niche has on Chinese students, and argues that it provides a pathway for immigrants to enter a previously inaccessible labour market. However, the existence of an immigrant occupational niche itself is a product of prevailing institutional, structural and cultural barriers in the host society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary Japanese society, 'post-bubble' housing debates are being shaped by labour market restructuring, demographic change and policy shifts. In this context, this paper explores shifting trajectories of homeownership using three specific housing debates: 'the emergence of a gap society', 'increasing single-person households' and 'housing assets in later life'. By exploring these various debates, it attempts to highlight how housing, demography and social policy interact at different levels and in different areas to produce dynamic shifts away from the conventional post-war housing trajectory. Current trends have exhibited shifts away from: the linear upward housing trajectory; the family-centred housing model; the land-orientated housing system; and homeownership dominance per se. The concept of generation is used as a thread to tie the different debates together. Each housing issue is often more relevant to a particular generation, but relationships between generations within families and society add to the dynamism to the current shifts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Matters of border control in twenty-first-century Japan interact with current social issues involving demography, the labour market and economic relationships with other countries in the region. Japan faces a rapidly ageing population, the highest life expectancy in the world, a birth rate well below replacement level and a shrinking population. Smaller families find it difficult to provide primary care for the sick, the elderly and those with disabilities, and the welfare system is stretched to the limit. At the same time, Japanese people are increasingly unwilling to undertake work regarded as 'manual labour' or 'unskilled labour'. Thus, the management of border control is related to the labour market and the management of welfare. This is a range of policies which I would like to refer to as involving the management of bodies. This paper thus focuses on 'the management of borders' and the 'management of bodies' in contemporary Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Noting the phenomenon of technology fusion across technologies and industries as the critical factor that would affect the manpower shortage, this paper has tried to illustrate the notion of technology fusion and focused on presenting a prototype model for university education in a technology fusion environment. Finally this research has delved into an area for empirical back-ups for technology fusion with cases in the US, Japan and Korea. Through the analysis, technology fusion has been in development in historical data, which pressures the education sector to be changed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is evidence in many countries of an inverse relationship between the real wages paid to workers and the unemployment rate in their local labor market, a so-called wage curve. However, the evidence to date for Japan has been rather limited. In this paper, we estimate wage curves for Japan using pooled cross-section time-series data from 1981 until 2001. The presence of a wage curve is confirmed. The wage curve has become slightly more elastic after the bubble economy of the 1980s than it was in the pre-bubble and mid-bubble period. The unemployment elasticity of pay is greater for males than for females. We also estimate regional wage curves using time-series data. The male wage curve elasticity is larger in the northern regions of Hokkaido and Tohoku and the western region of Shikoku, while it is smaller in the central regions of Hokuriku, Tokai and Kinki. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of Latin American immigrants in Japan to date have focused on Nikkei (of Japanese ancestry) from Brazil and Peru, considering their accommodation to Japanese society as a group with ethnic ties to Japan. In the last few years, however, Latin Americans of diverse backgrounds from countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Colombia have also migrated and settled in urban areas throughout Japan. These immigrants find few avenues to organise themselves or to integrate with the population at large. The Ministry of Justice handles the legislation and enforcement of immigration laws but provides limited social services and information. A handful of non-government associations operate for the benefit of all immigrants but their reach and scope are limited due to lack of human and economic resources. Social discrimination and an increasingly tight labour market complicate this situation. In this paper, I discuss the formal and informal networks that Latin American immigrants develop to overcome these obstacles to accommodate to their host society. I argue that the social and cultural negotiations that facilitate the functioning of these networks contribute to the creation of a pan-national Latin/o American culture in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at how far women's access to positions of power in the labor market is independent of class background, looking at the case of Japanese women in professional and managerial employment. It questions both the conventional approach to the class analysis of women, as well as the dismissal of the concept of class in understanding women and power. Using three different indicators of social origin, based on father's employment position, mother's work status and employment position, and parent's cultural capital, it argues that women's access to positions of power in employment is not independent of social origin. On the contrary, a privileged class background is more important for women that it is for men in gaining entry into professional and managerial employment. The study also looks at how the inclusion of women in the analysis affects the understanding of class, and proposes the use of both conventional and alternative theoretical and methodological approaches to understand the complex relationships between gender, class, and power.

Since the late 1980s the Brazilian population in Japan has steadily increased, despite the long-term recession in the late 1990s. In this paper we will examine the mechanism of the constant increase of Brazilians in Japan, focusing on the institutional context of their incorporation into the Japanese labor market. On the demand side, Brazilians solved an acute labor shortage in the economic boom period, but long-term recession and casualization of the labor market made them compete with other peripheral workers such as Japanese women arid the aged. Thus Brazilians have been marginalized within the secondary labor market since the late 1990s. On the supply side, recruiting agencies and labor contractors established a "just-in-time" labor delivery system, which enabled "flexible staffing" in a highly fluctuating labor market. As a result, demand and supply for Brazilian workers is still on the increase. Working in Japan is getting less attractive for Japanese Brazilians but is more of a viable option for them, driving further migration from Brazil to Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the job-finding process and recent trends in the labour market for Japanese university graduates. Contrary to the common wisdom, graduates have been able to find jobs in top firms even if they have not attended the most prestigious schools. Nevertheless, the recent recession has hit the graduates of the lower-ranked schools the hardest. Furthermore, in contrast to the recent experience of other OECD countries, the market for university graduates seems to have been more gravely affected than the market for high-school graduates. Also surprising is the observation that the (mostly male) graduates of lower-standard natural science and engineering faculties have been more adversely affected than graduates of social science faculties. This seems to reflect a long-term increase in demand for engineering and science graduates with master's degrees in addition to the effects of the recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a hypothesis that Japan's rapid economic growth was achieved through a unique combination of neoclassical elements, implying competitiveness and efficiency, and antineoclassical elements, implying growth preference in corporate decisionmakings. First a model of economic growth is presented to establish a theoretical link between management motivation and economic growth, and then industrial organization, internal labor markets, and capital markets in Japan are investigated in comparison to those in the United States in order to substantiate the hypothesis above. We also argue that the faster economic growth in Germany over the United Kingdom can be explained in a similar fashion, and discuss the implications to economic and antitrust policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The serious problem in Japanese education today is the excess of competition. Although that helps the high standard of Japanese education, it also brings about many difficulties for young people. The competition in the school system is, in general, closely related to the competition in society as a whole, especially in the labour market. The structure of the labour market has a strong influence on competition in the school. For example, the British segmented labour market divides the competition by occupation, and it helps the diversified structure of post-compulsory education/training. Meanwhile, in the Japanese labour market, which is characterised by Japanese-style employment, the competition is little divided by occupation, and this helps the unitary structure of competition in the school. Comparing Japan and Britain, this paper will examine the structural causes of the competition in the school system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]