Kansai Suuri Syakaigaku Kenkyuukai [Kansai Association for Mathematical Sociologists] 2000-07-15 meeting at Osaka University.
The current Japanese gender-equal policy aims for an equal share of paid and unpaid work between women and men, through reducing both childcare and paid working hours. This paper criticizes the practicability of that policy.
First, a logical analysis of an official document (1996) demonstrates the tacit assumption that men are full-time workers. That assumption limits the domain of possible time allocation between women and men, since the normal working hours are applied to all men.
Second, with the data for the average amount of time spent on paid and unpaid work by women and men aged 30-39 in 1995 (surveyed by the NHK Broadcasting and Culture Research Institute), the policy is assessed by numerical simulations. The results show that gender-equal time allocation never realizes under the current policy.
Finally, the author suggests three modifications to the policy:
Created at 2001-08-27. Last updated at 2001-08-27.