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This study focuses on "ibasho" in Japan in the sense of free spaces for people with a history of hikikomori (social withdrawal) who have trouble in finding employment. The paper reviews previous literature on "ibasho," and attempts to clarify the role that "ibasho" are expected to play in supporting these people. As a result of the analysis, six functions of "ibasho" were extracted. Specifically, (1) shelter and asylum, (2) interpersonal relations, (3) "ibasho" as a safe and secure place, (4) bridge to social independence, (5) resistance to dominant values, and (6) dilemmas with "ibasho." In conclusion, we noted that "ibasho" is a concept that has immense possibilities in practice, although it needs to be refined before it can be used as an academic concept as it is.

This paper presents one of the first cross-nationally comparative studies on the economic and social returns to grit (perseverance and passion for long-term goals). Specifically, we investigated whether grit incrementally predicted objective (income) and subjective (job satisfaction) career success over and above cognitive skills and educational attainment; whether grit's association with career success was moderated by individual characteristics; whether grit's associations with career success varied across countries; and whether this variation could be explained by labour market conditions (unemployment rates). Multi-group structural equation models with data from 6,738 respondents from 19 countries revealed that grit was incrementally associated with income and job satisfaction in some but not all countries. Grit's effect sizes were mostly modest, yet there were some indications for variations by education and labour market conditions. Overall, these findings suggest that the associations between grit and career success are not uniform but vary across individuals and contexts.

Previous research fails to address whether contingent employment benefits individuals' careers more than the alternative they often face: being without a job. Using work history data from Japan, this study shows that accepting a contingent job delays individuals' transition to standard employment more than remaining jobless. Moreover, having a contingent job, rather than having no job, leads Japanese men to have lower occupational status after they transition back to standard employment. I argue that in a highly segmented labor market like Japan's, the strict separation of labor pools for standard and contingent jobs makes being labeled as a contingent worker particularly detrimental. Meanwhile, the legacy of Japan's welfare corporatism alleviates the stigma of unemployment, making individuals better off jobless than having a contingent job. This research thus demonstrates the importance of labor-market contexts in shaping the scarring effects of contingent work arrangements.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been utilized by academics and policy makers to indicate the economic well-being of the people. However, economic growth measures cannot capture fully the overall well-being of the people. This paper has tested quality of economic growth in Japan after World War II as to whether it has brought about positive outcome in the well-being of its citizens. Comparison between GDP and GPI (Genuine Progress Index) has revealed that GDP does not fit as well with people's life satisfaction trend as GPI. Prefecture-based rankings on GDP, Human Development Index (HDI) and Life Satisfaction have shown that there are clear gaps between objective measures and subjective measures to indicate the overall well-being of the people. Also, analysis on major determinants for people's life satisfaction reveals that older people, women, non-employed people, and those who live in subsidized housings felt satisfied with their life.

Japan's so-called Lost Decade of the 1990s presents a unique case study of an economy with a recent severe and prolonged recession, with large changes in the labor market and fiscal policy as the main policy available to the government. Japanese unemployment rate surged from 2.1% in 1991 to 5.4% in 2002. Meanwhile, the Japanese economy experienced a rise in government expenditures, while taxes remained fairly stable. This paper quantitatively evaluates the impact of these changes in fiscal policies on labor market variables, in particular the unemployment rate, during the 1990s. We build, calibrate, and simulate a dynamic general equilibrium model with search frictions in the labor market, a productive government sector, heterogenous government spendings, and different categories of taxes. Our model is able to reproduce the paths of the main labor market variables, and the counterfactual experiments show that the changes that took place in the different spending components affected the unemployment rate heterogeneously, although overall they kept unemployment lower than it could have been. We also find that had the government also implemented countercyclical tax policies, unemployment would not have risen as much as it did by 2002. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Hikikomori is a Japanese term etymologically derived from ' hiku ' (i.e. ' to pull back ') and ' komoru ' (i.e. ' seclude oneself '), which identifies those subjects who deliberately withdraw themselves by social life, remaining confined into their own home/room. The phenomenon is widely diffused in Japan, even though it is currently spread outside the Japanese culture. However, a universally shared and cross-cultural adaptation of Hikikomori definition, phenomenological and psychopathological characterization is still missing. Methodology: An expert-guided opinion paper was here provided to clinical characterize the Hikikomori-like social withdrawal in the Italian context, by considering the transformation from a family-based society to a 'fluid' digital-structured culture, also discussing the concept of modern-type depression. This was provided deepening the principal current studies available in literature and giving an interpretation based on clinical experience in the Italian society. The work was supervised through a consensus by the most international expert of Japanese Hikikomori syndrome. Results: Current individual, family and social trajectories may potentially act as a mediator in favouring the occurrence of Hikikomori-like social withdrawal also in western countries, including Italy. Despite the differences between Japanese and Italian society and culture, the recent shaping of family structure and intra-familial dynamics, typical of the current post-modern society, may potentially influence the emergence of psychopathologies not typical of Italian culture. Unemployment and 'Not in Employment Education or Training' (NEET) conditions may represent another potential risk factor for economical/social marginalization of youngsters, together with the recent dramatic emergence of web-based psychopathologies. Conclusion: A diagnostic culturally-adapted flow-chart is proposed for clinical characterizing Hikikomori in Italian context, which may help in proposing preventive strategies, ensuring early identification and prompt therapeutic interventions, particularly among youngsters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates Japanese labor market mismatch between 2000 and 2019 by using the method of Sahin et al. ("Mismatch Unemployment." The American Economic Review 104 (11): 3529–64, 2014). We quantify contract-type (regular or non-regular), employment-type (full or part-time), and occupational mismatch and their respective contributions to changes in unemployment. All three types of mismatch show a countercyclical pattern, sharply increasing during the global financial crisis (GFC), but slowly declining during the recovery. Contract-type and occupational mismatch accounted for a significant portion of the rise in the unemployment rate during the GFC, each accounting for around 30 and 20–40 percent, respectively. Employment-type mismatch, on the other hand, accounted for much less–at around 15 perecent of the rise in unemployment for the same period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have examined the attitude and moral perception of 228 college students (63 Japanese and 165 non-Japanese) towards artificial intelligence (AI) in an international university in Japan. The students were asked to select a single most significant ethical issue associated with AI in the future from a list of nine ethical issues suggested by the World Economic Forum, and to explain why they believed that their chosen issues were most important. The majority of students (n = 149, 65%) chose unemployment as the major ethical issue related to AI. The second largest group of students (n = 29, 13%) were concerned with ethical issues related to emotional AI, including the impact of AI on human behavior and emotion. The paper discusses the results in detail and concludes that, while policymakers must consider how to ameliorate the impact of AI on employment, AI engineers need to consider the emotional aspects of AI in research and development, as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using parent-foreign affiliate matched data on Japan from 1995 to 2009, this paper examines the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on domestic employment, especially in manufacturing. One of the contributions of this paper is that we utilize the matched data for each country in which Japanese multinational firms operate, which enables us to identify the differences in the impact of FDI between destinations. Results indicate that the increases in the investment goods price in China but the decreases in it in the United States negatively affected the domestic labor demand of multinationals in Japan. This contrast may reflect a difference in specialization patterns across countries. We also found that disemployment in Japan was driven mainly by substitution between capital and labor, rather than by the reallocation of labor from Japan to overseas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how exposure to sunshine affects the suicide rate in Japan, especially in relation to economic variables. Using prefecturebased data on socioeconomic variables for the years 1993-2009, the paper confirms existing research in finding a significant correlation between suicides and unemployment, for both men and women. The interaction between sunshine and unemployment is also significant, and further analysis reveals that unemployment is not an important factor for suicide in high-sunshine prefectures, whereas in low-sunshine areas the effect of unemployment on the suicide rate rises. The divorce rate is highly significant and positive for men, but significant and negative for women, suggesting that many Japanese women consider divorce liberating. Current suicide research in Japan with its strong emphasis on economic variables may benefit from an inclusion of measures of general well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper quantitatively investigates the connections between the growing number of young adults in Japan who are out of the workforce—not in school, working, or seeking work—and their employment environments and family backgrounds by drawing upon six years of data from sampling studies that were conducted from 2000 to 2006. A multinomial probit model is used to generate estimates of the possible impacts of changes in local job markets and varying family characteristics on the likelihood of young adults being unemployed (not working but seeking work) or out of the workforce altogether. The paper presents the most detailed testing to date of hypotheses concerning the factors that lead young adults to leave the labor force. I find that apart from the respondents’ educational backgrounds, their parents’ employment status when the respondents were adolescents and past household income are significant determinants of young adults’ employment outcomes. Leaving the workforce is particularly correlated with previously having a high standard of living and not attaining the same level of education as one’s same sex parent.

While the dependence of unemployment on real oil price and real interest rate is an important issue that has been addressed only in the time dimension, little is known about the movements of real input prices and their impact on unemployment in the time-frequency space. With a continuous wavelet coherency and partial coherency approach and monthly data of Japan and US from January 1960 to May 2017, this paper contributes to the literature by examining the characteristics of the dependence of unemployment on real input prices across frequencies and over time. The empirical results indicate that: First, a rise in real oil price leads to productivity growth slowdown and unemployment increase at the scale of 16–64 months after 1990 for Japan and 8–24 months after 2005 for US. Second, an increase in real interest rate results in higher unemployment at the 16–32-month scale before 1974 for Japan and 8–64-month scale before 2000 for US. Third, the degree of integration between labour market and energy market in US is higher than that in Japan. This study provides time-frequency evidence to the supply side hypothesis about the relationships between input prices and unemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan has uncovered a competitive advantage in murder prevention strategies, as murder rates in the nation are some of the lowest in the world. In Japan, murder rates have been falling consistently since the post-World War II era to reach rates of 0.2 murders per 100,000 people, whereas in the United States these rates have been historically volatile, stabilizing in recent decades slightly above 5 murders per 100,000 people. This study poses the following questions: What structural, sociolegal, and policy elements have made Japan reach such positive results in murder prevention? And what lessons can be learned from this success that may help reduce murder rates in the United States? Analyzing the state of murder in Japan and the United States, this Paper provides a comparative examination of some of the structural factors affecting the geographical and perpetrator elements of murder. Through the lens of (i) socioeconomic indicators like inequality, poverty, and unemployment, as well as (ii) the geographical allocation of police resources (comparing the United States police infrastructural arrangement with the Japanese koban system), this Paper attempts to shine light on the structural patterns that have made Japanese society such a profoundly safe environment from homicide. Avoiding purely holistic or monolithic culturalist arguments, the Paper looks at the historical trajectory of murder at a national level, then provides a contemporary state of murder analysis of Boston as compared to Osaka, and New York in contrast to Tokyo. Dispelling the notion that a larger police force with larger capital investment equates safety from murder, the study finds that (i) areal socioeconomic integration, and (ii) equal geographic distribution of police resources as community-focused and integrated safety providers, are two of the foundational distinct elements that lead to murder prevention in Japan--and that a tailored adaptation of this system to the United States' needs, capabilities, and characteristics could signify increased efficiency in murder prevention, and a consequent reduction in murder rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper examines regional characteristics affecting the latent entrepreneurship in Japan, focusing on regional macroeconomic indicators, existing density of establishments and human capital, and business start-up assistance programs by local governments. We define two types of people having the latent entrepreneurship as follows (1) persons merely wishing to be a self-employed worker, and (2) persons preparing to be a self-employed worker out of the former definition. Total cash earnings and the unemployment rate, which are the macro economic indicators, had positive effects on latent entrepreneurship in Japan. Judging from the significance of their estimations, the latent entrepreneurship is explained by the “Push hypothesis”. If we examine the problem more closely, it is necessary for us to identify government assistance programs which make the latent entrepreneurs more self-employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the experience of angst (ikizurasa) among youth in longterm unemployment in post-industrial Japan, and proposes a model for supporting them. Currently, the dominant model for unemployment support consists of activation policies, which assume that users can identify their problems and clarify their needs in job seeking. However, for youth in situations of long-term unemployment, the effectiveness of these policies is limited. This paper argues that indirect support which focuses on (re)constructing human relationships through sharing narratives is a more effective way to help such youth mitigate their angst. In-depth interviews with two participants in a Self-Help Group for youth affected by long-term unemployment, as well as participant observations of the group, reveal how a narrative approach allowed participants to build new senses of self founded in realities shared by others. The analysis shows how these developments were crucial to helping the participants to find employment that suited their situations and needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) is attempting to overcome the mild deflation that has lasted in Japan for nearly 15 years and to achieve its 2 % price stability target. In the face of the zero lower bound on short-term interest rates, the BOJ introduced nonstandard monetary easing policy called quantitative and qualitative monetary easing (QQE) to achieve the target. So far, a number of positive outcomes have materialized. Compared with 2012, stock prices have been higher; private consumption is more resilient; more active real estate investment are taking place; and the yen's exchange rate has been at more depreciated levels. Most importantly, the growth momentum of the economy is gaining traction and the unemployment rate is approaching the pre-crisis lowest level. There are some signs of the economy moving out of deflation although the BOJ needs some time to reach the 2 % target. This paper highlights the main features of QQE with conceptual explanations by reviewing the previous major monetary easing policies: quantitative monetary easing adopted in 2001-2006 and comprehensive monetary easing introduced in 2010 but was replaced with QQE in April 2013. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study empirically examined unemployment dynamics in 12 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, namely, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand. It used quarterly data on the unemployment rates from the first quarter of 1980 to the first quarter of 2013. This paper employed three different econometric methods, including the recently-developed powerful unit root test with structural break (Lee and Strazicich, 2003, 2004) and the nonlinear unit root test (Enders and Lee, 2012). The findings indicated that the unemployment rates in five countries of the region, namely, China, Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand, had highly dynamic labor markets in which higher-than-normal unemployment rates would revert to the normal level. The other seven Asia-Pacific countries had less dynamic labor markets. The findings of this study have some important policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to outline learning and good practice across Europe on the deployment of asset based approaches for promoting active ageing and intergenerational solidarity. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on a wide ranging review of good practice across Europe distilled from desktop analysis and two European roundtable sessions with key stakeholders. Findings – The paper analyses the current level of volunteering by older people across Europe and the evidence for its benefits to the health and wellbeing of older people. It then goes on to provide analysis and good practice regarding area and individual based asset approaches, as well those relevant to addressing the social exclusion faced by people with dementia. Practical implications – The analysis and good practice examples in the report provide resources for developing effective asset based approaches to promoting active ageing and intergenerational solidarity. Originality/value – The review of European experience is particularly original. There has been little if any European review of asset based approaches to active ageing and intergenerational solidarity. Learning from practice elsewhere enables more confident initiatives to be taken up and developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Japan since the 1920s witnessed unemployment, no system of unemployment insurance existed in Japan until after the end of World War II. Historians of welfare and labor have taken this to mean that the prewar Japanese government deviated from international standards of welfare policy, an argument that ties into notions of Japan as a liberal welfare state in the literature on varieties of capitalism and welfare-state regimes. The present paper confronts this type of argument from two angles. First, the type of unemployment that Japanese society faced in the 1920s was substantially different from that the advanced industrialized countries in Europe, North America, and Oceania had to deal with, as can be shown by analyses of the structure of the work force. Second, the main problem actually posed by unemployment in Japan, i.e. the situation of day laborers, was addressed, albeit not by the central state, but by municipal governments who installed local relief associations. If one acknowledges the potential of historical studies to contribute to social science typologies, the results of the present paper show that the claim that Japan is a liberal welfare state regime is difficult to sustain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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 empirically examines the determinants of non-employed young Japanese people, whose number increased from the 1990s to the beginning of the 2000s. Non-working unmarried persons aged 15–34, who do not attend school, are classified into three types: ‘job seekers’ (type 1), who search for jobs; ‘non-job seekers’ (type 2), who express a desire to work but do not search for jobs, and ‘non-job seekers’ (type 3), who express no desire to work. Those in type 2 and type 3, non-job seekers, are defined to be ‘NEET’ or ‘not in employment, education or training’. Multinomial logistic regression results show that young persons whose expected returns from working are low—such as females, older people, the less educated and the long-term jobless—tend to refrain from working and become non-job seekers. Moreover, there is evidence of an income effect that makes youths from wealthy families more likely to be type 3 non-job seekers. However, the number of jobless youths from lower-income households has been increasing and hence, the income effect on type 3 jobless has become less relevant recently. As a result, young, less-educated males from poor families in Japan have become more likely to lose interest in work rather than those in middle-income families. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

The aim of this paper is to investigate the potential for entrepreneurship in Japan using the Employment Status Survey, which is the only government-administered survey that includes questions about the desire to become an entrepreneur. We find that there are still a number of potential entrepreneurs in Japan, despite a recent decline in the number of new firms being established. We also find that there is a large regional variation in the distribution of entrepreneurial potential, with clustering into a few regions and the level in Tokyo being exceptional. Further, using panel data on 47 prefectures from 1982 to 1997, we examine the determinants of entrepreneurial potential. The estimation results show that the price-cost margin, market size, market growth and the unemployment rate have positive effects on the potential for entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to explore the theoretical and practical implications of conducting comparative research in the realm of legal science. The endeavour is based on experiences gained from engaging in such activities as part of a research project in labour law. In order to allow for a critical evaluation of ways in which to regulate redundancy, the study mentioned sets Swedish collective agreements on employment security against British redundancy pay legislation and the Japanese Employment Stabilizations Fund system. The paper discusses the pitfalls and potentials of the chosen approach and presents some tentative conclusions regarding its benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper quantitatively analyzes the trade-off between job losses and the spread of COVID-19 in Japan. We derive an empirical specification from the social planner's resource constraint under the susceptible, infected, recovered, and deaths (SIRD) model and estimate how job losses and the case growth rate are related to people's mobility using the Japanese prefecture-level panel data on confirmed cases, involuntary job losses, people's mobility, and teleworkability. Our findings are summarized as follows. First, we find that a decrease in mobility driven by containment policies is associated with an increase in involuntary job separations, but the high teleworkability mitigates the negative effect of decreased mobility on job losses. Second, estimating how the case growth is related to people's mobility and past cases, we find that the case growth rate is positively related to an increase in people's mobility but negatively associated with past confirmed cases. Third, using these estimates, we provide a quantitative analysis of the trade-off between job losses and the number of confirmed cases. Taking Tokyo in July 2020 as a benchmark, we find that the cost of saving 1 job per month is 2.3 more confirmed cases per month in the short run of 1 month. When we consider a trade-off for 3 months from July to September of 2020, protecting 1 job per month requires 6.6 more confirmed cases per month. Therefore, the trade-off becomes worse substantially in the longer run of 3 months, reflecting the exponential case growth when the people's mobility is high. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Japanese labour market has worked quite well over recent decades, whereas the European economies have produced more and more unemployment. A popular hypothesis is that this difference can be attributed to unions. Which, in Europe, unions are strong and centralized and do not care about the individual firm, the Japanese unions are enterprise unions which deal directly with and understand the local management. Employers in Japan in tum consult unions and employees on all relevant management decisions. This corporatism finally ensures that workers are more motivated and have a higher productivity. It is the central conjecture of this paper that the presence of unions increases the 'voice' of the employees significantly. By using innovative new firm data, it is shown that this is actually the case. Hence, Japanese enterprise unions are not harmful, but foster information sharing, and contribute to the performance of the enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like in most advanced countries, the labour income share in Japan has been falling since the mid-1970s. However, in contrast to other advanced economies, Japan experienced an exceptional recessive period in the 1990s and 2000s, with the rate of unemployment rising to a historical maximum of 5.5% in 2002, to persist above 4% in subsequent years. In the present paper, we examine the main causes behind the paths followed by the labour income share and the unemployment rate during the post-1997 crisis period (1997-2002) and the transition years that followed (2002-2009). We do so by estimating a multi-equation macro model that allows us to look separately at the various components of this particular labour market: wages, output, and employment. Our main finding is that the fall in the labour share can be attributed to the changes that took place within the labour relations system (the weakening of unions mainly) and that the surge in unemployment can be altogether ascribed to the distorting effects of the sizeable and increasing public debt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the midst of the 20 years of economic and social uncertainty that has been punctuated by the worldwide financial crisis, an increasing rhetoric of economic uncertainty and social instability has risen to popular consciousness among many ordinary citizens in Japan. With changing economic and familial relations, individuals in Japan are participating in the networked communities of ''moralizing institutions'' to find renewed stability and a sense of empowerment in their lives. Through ethnographic fieldwork with an international religious organization and a domestic ethics organization, this paper analyzes the diverse ways in which individuals are reestablishing a sense of stability and direction by reengaging with idealized life patterns and family orientations that have become more elusive under the increasingly uncertain socioeconomic conditions. Specifically, I analyze how individual members were directly affected by what Zygmunt Bauman calls the ''liquidity'' of recent economic reforms including rising unemployment and late-career layoffs which had drastic repercussions on life planning and family relations. As human networks built from resilient networked faith, these moralizing institutions provide a different kind of logic of ''liquidity'' and ''flexibility,'' allowing members to realize their idealized life plans and to navigate toward the solid ground of a stable work and family life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the period of 1978-2003, this paper examines the relationship between changing productivity and demographic characteristics of Japan's labor force. The results of this study reveal four important and interesting characteristics of the Japanese labor force. First, there is a negative relationship between productivity growth and turnover rates. Second, the participation rate of younger workers in the labor force has declined; this has resulted in a decline in the percentage of younger workers (15-34 years old). Third, the gender distribution of the labor force has not changed in any significant way. Fourth, the unemployment rate has increased by more than four times. These labor force changes have contributed to fluctuations in productivity growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates outflow equations for the unemployed and job vacancies under random and stock–flow matching using Japanese data. We find that for the outflow of the unemployed, the stock–flow matching model fits better than the random matching model at the quarterly frequency, but not at the monthly frequency. In contrast, the outflow of vacancies is affected by the stock of the unemployed as well as its inflow at both monthly and quarterly frequencies. In addition, we calculate the exit rates of the unemployed and job vacancies to show the relationship between the exit rates and the durations of unemployment and job vacancies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines if the effects of agglomeration economies are manifested in technical efficiency and generate faster economic growth and higher (lower) levels of employment (unemployment). Using the prefecture level data for each of the two-digit groups of industries in Japan, it estimates a region-specific technical efficiency index based on the stochastic frontier production function framework. The factor analysis shows that in most of the industry-groups, efficiency has a positive association with external scale variable(s). Though the relationship is not very strong, it would be erroneous to ignore the effect of agglomeration economies on efficiency. For some light goods industries, the agglomeration effect is relatively stronger. Economic growth varies positively with external scale variable(s) and the unemployment rate tends to fall with respect to growth and concentration. This suggests that measures against industrial concentration may be counter-productive, particularly in the context of globalization when countries greatly need to raise productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union over the first 4 years of its existence. Monetary policy is viewed as having been of the ‘inflation‐targeting’ type, but with a tendency towards delay and conservatism in adjustment, which may also reflect over‐optimistic output growth forecasts. The resulting pressure on the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) illustrates the weakness in the ‘consensus view’ of the harmonious interaction of monetary, fiscal, and supply‐side policies, which requires policy in all three areas to be ‘correct’. In discussing reform of the SGP, a looser but still constraining form of fiscal agreement is advocated. The supply‐side and balance‐of‐payments issues involved in inter‐country adjustment also interact importantly with the SGP and are identified as key areas of difficulty in a still ‘immature’ monetary union, with separate labour‐market structures. Here the mechanisms for coordination are more or less absent. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper appraises the in-sample and out-of-sample adequacy of linear AR and nonlinear SETAR models of unemployment rates for Germany, Japan, the UK and the US. Tests are reported for the presence and specification of threshold nonlinearities, SETAR model estimates, limiting dynamic properties and residual diagnostics, and out-of-sample forecasting performance. In-sample, threshold non-linearities are confirmed to be strongly present for the UK, US and Germany, and more marginally so for Japan. Out-of-sample, excepting Japan, SETAR models provide superior onestep-ahead forecast on RMSE grounds, most notably for the US. Final tests indicate that these models exhibit predictive accuracy in the sense of parameter and residual variance stability, implying the potential for exploitation of such nonlinearity in official forecasting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Japan, suicides had consistently decreased before the COVID-19 pandemic (from 2009–2019), but conversely increased after the pandemic outbreak (from 2020–2022). To identify the features of fluctuations of suicides in Japan, the standardized suicide mortality rates per 100,000 population (SMRP) disaggregated by gender (males/females) and age (10-year cohorts) from 2009–2022 were analyzed using interrupted time-series and joinpoint regression analyses. Temporal causalities from unemployment rate (CUR) disaggregated by unemployment duration and reasons for seeking work to SMRP were analyzed using vector autoregressive modelling with Granger causality analysis. SMRP fluctuations from 2009–2022 were composed of three patterns, such as positive discontinuity (increasing) synchronized with the pandemic outbreak, attenuations of decreasing trends before the pandemic, turning from decreasing before the pandemic to increasing/unchanging after the pandemic outbreak. Dismissal CUR positively related to SMRP of working-age generations, whereas voluntary CUR negatively related to SMRP of younger population (<30 years), which turned to persistently increasing before the pandemic (approximately 2016–2017). CUR shorter than 3 months positively related to SMRP of working-age females, which displayed promptly increasing synchronization with the pandemic outbreak. CUR longer than 12 months positively related to SMRP of working-age males, which contributed to persistently increasing SMRPs during the pandemic. These results suggest that increasing SMRP during 2020–2022 in Japan has been probably at-tributed to interactions among the pandemic-related factors, continuous vulnerabilities from before the pandemic and newly developing risk factors for suicides during the pandemic. Unexpectedly, increasing SMRPs of working-age males in 2022 suggest that either prolongation of the pandemic or the ending of the pandemic might positively affect suicides in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of non‐standard employment has become a cause for concern for policy‐makers trying to boost output and keep unemployment low while also maintaining job security. This paper estimates a dynamic unobserved effects model using the Keio Household Panel Survey, an individual‐level panel data set, to investigate the effects on future employment opportunities of employment in Japan's non‐standard employment and regular employment sectors. I find strong evidence of persistence within the labour market, suggesting that past employment experience has a significant impact on future labour market outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with the high savings ratio, the functioning of the labor market is one of the most important factors behind the macroeconomic performance of the postwar Japan, which foreign observers have christened the 'miracle of the Rising Sun'.
In the first place, the nature of the Japanese labor market is important for the long-run trend of Japanese economic growth because labor and its quality, are crucial factors for economic development. The high quality of a well disciplined workforce, as well as the migration of labor from rural to urban areas, has contributed much to the rapid growth of the Japanese economy.
Second, the nature of the labor market has influenced the pattern of Japanese business cycles by buffering demand fluctuations. The slow response of firms' demand for labor, combined with the fast response of the labor force participation ratio, has prevented a sharp increase in the unemployment rate during recessions. Relatively flexible nominal and real wages have also enabled the Japanese economy to adjust quite smoothly to supply shocks, notably after the second oil crisis.
In this paper we shall review trends in unemployment, wages and productivity in the postwar Japanese economy, and relate them to its macroeconomic performance. We shall also summarize the current literature concerning features of the labor market, evaluate quantitative estimates of trends in labor statistics, and explore future prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author discusses various issues associated with wage flexibility during deflation in Japan. The author mentions the impacts of decline in wage earnings on Japanese economy. The author also informs about the contributions of wage flexibility for increasing unemployment rate and declining consumer price index (CPI).

Background: Evidence is still limited on the prevalence of multimorbidity and complex multimorbidity in Japan, as well as their associated factors. Additionally, no studies regarding multimorbidity and complex multimorbidity in Japan have used patient data obtained directly from medical records. The primary objective was to clarify the prevalence of multimorbidity and complex multimorbidity using patient data obtained directly from medical records. The secondary objective was to elucidate factors associated with multimorbidity and complex multimorbidity. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study at Tarama Clinic on Tarama Island, a remote island in Okinawa, Japan. Among patients who visited Tarama Clinic from April 1 to June 30, 2018, those who were ≥ 20 years of age, lived on Tarama Island, and had capacity to give consent were eligible for study inclusion. We collected the following data using medical records, medical expense receipts, and self-administered questionnaires: multimorbidity and complex multimorbidity, participants' characteristics, and potentially associated factors. Multimorbidity was defined as having ≥ 2 among 17 chronic health conditions, in accordance with previous studies conducted in Japan, and having ≥ 2 among 16 chapters of the International Classification of Primary Care, 2nd edition (ICPC-2). Complex multimorbidity was defined as having ≥ 3 among 16 chapters of the ICPC-2. Results: We included 355 study participants. Descriptive analysis showed multimorbidity prevalence measured using the 17 chronic health conditions in this area was 30.0% (age ≥ 20 years) and 57.5% (age ≥ 65 years). Multimorbidity prevalence measured using the ICPC-2 was 32.9% (age ≥ 20 years) and 60.3% (age ≥ 65 years). We also found a 20.9% (age ≥ 20 years) and 45.1% (age ≥ 65 years) prevalence of complex multimorbidity, respectively. Poisson regression with robust error variance showed that age ≥ 60 years was associated with multimorbidity. Age ≥ 60 years (adjusted prevalence ratio [aPR] 1.887 and 1.831 for ages 60-79 and ≥ 80 years, respectively) and being unemployed (aPR 1.251) were associated with complex multimorbidity. However, having hazardous drinking or more was inversely associated with complex multimorbidity (aPR 0.745). Conclusions: The population-based prevalence of multimorbidity and its upward trend with increasing age on a remote island in Japan was consistent with previous reports in the country. Multimorbidity was associated with age 60 years or older, and complex multimorbidity was associated with age 60 years or older, being unemployed, and not having hazardous drinking or more. Our study findings indicated a possible association between the coexistence of diseases and social determinants of health (SDH) in Japan. To improve care for patients with multimorbidity and complex multimorbidity, more research that takes SDH into account is warranted, and evidence-based policymaking is essential for Japan. The present study can provide a foundation for accumulating such evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates individual-level matching functions to measure search frictions in the Japanese labour market and presents the determinants of search duration. We employ administrative microdata that track the job search process of job seekers who left or lost their job in August 2005 and subsequently registered at their local public employment service. Our finding is that the matching function exhibits decreasing rather than constant returns-to-scale for job seekers and vacancies. We also find that after controlling for the benefits period, job seekers who lost their job involuntarily were more likely than those quitting voluntarily to exit from unemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the short-run and long-run causal interactions between happiness and two economic variables in Japan, namely, unemployment and income. Results suggest that whilst more rapid economic growth and lower levels of unemployment are important in raising people’s well-being in the short run, it is the relative growth performance of the economy that matters in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper deals with the impact of the global financial crisis on Japan’s economy, especially on its higher education. The first section provides an overview of Japan’s national economy with a focus on the impact of the global financial crisis on the national economy, then the author touches on the impact on the Japanese government’s finances, and goes on to look at the impact on Japan’s higher education system, concentrating on government expenditure on higher education, student enrolment, changes in funding for national and private institutions as well as trends in tuition and fees in national and private universities. The author concludes by arguing that there is little evidence to show that the global financial crisis has directly affected the Japanese government’s funding of its national or private institutions, nor has it significantly influenced the unemployment rate of university graduates due to the long-standing economic recession, which had occurred prior to the global financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior studies found that individuals' social networks provide opportunities for finding high-status jobs. However, people do not always look for new jobs only to attain a higher status. For example, in the case of people who need another job because they were laid off, social networks may play a role as a support resource when trying to escape unemployment. In this paper, I investigate the effects of social networks in providing such a safety net as well as networks that are instrumental in attaining higher-status jobs. I use data from "The Social Stratification and Social Mobility Survey in Japan, 2005"; moreover, in my analyses, I take into account the reasons for changing jobs. The results showed that social networks helped those who had involuntarily left their jobs to find new ones. These networks primarily consisted of family members rather than acquaintances. This suggests that at least in Japan, people's social networks are likely to serve as a safety net for escaping from unemployment rather than as an instrumental resource for finding high-status jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce productivity enhancing firm-specific skill training into the labour search model in which the firm-specific skill training intensity and the job destruction rate are endogenously determined. It is shown that the higher the intensity of such training, the lower the rates of unemployment, job creation and job destruction. The paper's model provides a theoretical framework to understand the often mentioned peculiarity of the Japanese labour market; prevalently low rates of unemployment, job creation and job destruction in Japan are due to its training system which promotes workers to acquire firm-specific skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a two-country, two-commodity continuous-time dynamic optimization model that accommodates a liquidity trap and persistent unemployment. It investigates a theoretical possibility of international asymmetry in business activity and a stagnant country's currency appreciation, which has been the common experience of Japan and the USA after Japan's total capital liberalization. It is found that if the marginal utility of consumption relative to that of liquidity exogenously declines in a country, its current account improves and the home currency appreciates. Consequently, home products lose competitiveness, causing home employment to decrease and foreign employment to increase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the roles of heterogeneous worker flows in Japan's labour market. I divide workers into regular, non-regular, and self-employed and other workers and examine the effects of these different types of worker flows on Japan's labour stocks. I find that the fluctuations in the job separation rate for non-regular workers and the participation margin are relatively important for the evolution of Japan's unemployment rate. Further, the transitions between regular and non-regular jobs play a major role in the dynamics of Japan's non-regular worker ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spillover hypothesis, which may alternatively be called the key-bargains or key-industry hypothesis, represents the notion that the wage-settlements achieved by many industries reflect not only the "ordinary" market forces affecting them, but also the wage settlements achieved in some key industries. Though Mehra's empirical results deny the assertion that there are considerable spillovers from key to non-key industries, his technique, the analysis of residuals from the "ordinary" wage equations, is particularly intriguing for Japanese economists because the existence of key industry effects is almost taken for granted in Japan, but no one has succeeded in identifying them empirically. When the key industry hypothesis is tested as in the present paper, the specification of the "ordinary" wage equation poses a problem. Yash P. Mehra specifies that a level of industry wage is a function of profit rate, consumer price index, and economy-wide unemployment rate, with a complex lag structure. The wage equations are specified and the procedure of the analysis is sketched in this article. The main finding of the article is that the key industry hypothesis is moderately supported for a handful of industries, though the evidence in favor of it is much weaker than is popularly held in Japan.

The time series properties of unemployment rates for Germany, Japan, the UK and the US are re-examined. Evidence of nonlinear structure in the residuals of the most parsimonious linear ARMA models is reported for all countries except Japan. Modelling this nonlinearity using SETAR models suggests strong asymmetry in unemployment dynamics and the presence of a possible limit cycle for the UK. However, residual diagnostics for these models indicate remaining structure. Alternative TAR models conditioned on past growth rates of industrial production yield substantial reductions in residual variance over both linear and SETAR counterparts, iid residuals in all cases other than the US, and threshold values at or very near zero, clearly identifying the asymmetric behaviour of unemployment during expansionary and contractionary phases of the business cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]