FUNCTIONAL ALTERNATIVES AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: AN EMPIRICAL EXAMPLE OF PERMANENT EMPLOYMENT IN JAPAN.

The presentation concerns the utility of conceptualizing the structural changes associated with modern economic development as functional alternatives. The concept is corn pared to other approaches represented as historicism, convergence, and structural modeling with environmental effects. The advantages of the functional alternative conceptualization are demonstrated through comparison of selected employment characteristics in Japan and the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]