This study hypothesizes that the permanent employment system in Japan declined during the country's economic downturn in the 1990's. Contrary to expectation, the study finds that employment duration did not decrease, but increased especially for older workers in larger firms.

Keizer examines changing employment practices in Japan, focusing on the position of the Japanese firm that is confronted with the need to address the changing economic circumstances while also maintaining some fit with the wider set of institutions that govern the Japanese labour market.

"This book documents the changes in Japanese employment structures, behavior patterns, and attitudes that indicate that lifetime employment was not 'an indestructible bastion of Japanese cultural heritage.' ... Readable and refreshingly free of jargon." --Asiaweek

The Japanese economy, after decades of seemingly unsurpassable competitiveness, experienced a major crisis in the 1990s. Observers of Japan are faced with a challenging question: How can one explain Japan's reversal from stunning prosperity to dismal stagnation? Bai Gao, in this illuminating, comprehensive analysis of Japan's economic story goes beyond other analyses to demonstrate how the same economic institutions could produce both stunning economic success and the slump of the 1990s. By comparing the factors that sustained miracle growth in Japan in the 1960s and 1970s with the factors that led to the bubble economy of the late 1980s, Gao sheds new light on internal tensions in the Japanese economic system and how, finally, they 'burst the bubble' in the 1990s. Those who have been following the lively debate over 'What Became of the Japanese Miracle?' will be rewarded by Gao's richly detailed, historically informed, and multilayered contribution.

This is a new analysis of recent changes in important Japanese institutions. It addresses the origin, development, and recent adaptation of core institutions, including financial institutions, corporate governance, lifetime employment, and the amakudari system. After four decades of rapid economic growth in Japan, the 1990s saw the country enter a prolonged period of economic stagnation. Policy reforms were initially half-hearted, and businesses were slow to restructure as the global economy changed. The lagging economy has been impervious to aggressive fiscal stimulus measures and has been plagued by ongoing price deflation for years. Japan’s struggle has called into question the ability of the country’s economic institutions, originally designed to support factor accumulation and rapid development, to adapt to the new economic environment of the twenty-first century. This book discusses both historical and international comparisons including Meiji Japan, and recent economic and financial reforms in Korea, Scandinavia, Switzerland, and New Zealand, placing the current institutional changes in perspective. The contributors argue that, contrary to conventional wisdom that Japanese institutions have remained relatively rigid, there has been significant institutional change over the last decade.

This book brings together scholars from different disciplines to examine the evolving patterns of economic organisation across China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, and Singapore, against the backdrop of market liberalisation, political changes and periodic economic crises since the 1990s.

Gendered Trajectories explores why industrial societies vary in the pace at which they reduce gender inequality and compares changes in women's employment opportunities in Japan and Taiwan over the last half-century. Japan has undergone much less improvement in women's economic status than Taiwan, despite its more advanced economy and greater welfare provisions. The difference is particularly puzzling because the two countries share many institutional practices and values. Drawing on historical trends, survey statistics, and personal interviews with people in both countries, Yu shows how country-specific organizational arrangements and industrial policies affect women's employment. In particular, the conditions faced by Japanese and Taiwanese women in the workplace have a profound effect on their labor force participation at critical points in their lives. Women's lifetime employment decisions in turn shape the divergent trajectories in gender equality. Few studies documenting the development of women's economic lives are based on non-Western societies and even fewer adopt a comparative perspective. This perceptive work demonstrates and underscores the importance of understanding gender inequality as a long-term, dynamic social process.

This volume, stemming from the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, observes that for Japan to 'rise again' would mean recovery not only from the triple disaster—the March, 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown—but from 20-plus years of economic stagnation, political fumbling, and deterioration in Japan's regional and global influence.

Human impacts on the environment are largely driven by economic forces. If a more ecologically sustainable world is to be achieved, significant changes must be made to the current growth- and consumption-dependent economic system. The Frontier Issues in Economic Thought series was designed to assist the growing number of economists and others who are responding to the need for new thinking about economics in the face of environmental and social forces that are reshaping the world.The Changing Nature of Work examines the causes and effects of the rapid transformation of the world of work. It provides concise summaries of the key writings on work and workplace issues, extending the frontiers of labor economics to include the often overlooked social and psychological dimensions of work.The book begins with a foreword by former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich that presents labor in contemporary perspective. An introductory overview provides a brief history of the changing nature of work and situates current problems in the context of longer-term developments. Following that are eight topical sections that feature three- to five-page summaries for each of the ten to twelve most important articles or book chapters on a subject.Sections cover.new directions in labor economics social and psychological dimensions of work and unemployment globalization and labor new technologies and organizational change flexibility and internal labor markets new patterns of industrial relations family, gender, paid and unpaid work difference and diversity in the workplaceThe book provides a roadmap for scholars on the vast and diverse literature concerning labor issues, and affords students a quick overview of that rapidly changing field. It is an important contribution to the series and is a valuable book for anyone interested in labor, as well as for students and scholars of labor economics, industrial sociology, industrial relations, social psychology, and their respective disciplines.

This book reviews employment and leisure trends in Japan from the post-war era to the present. In addition, it also examines how these trends will affect tourism destinations and businesses that rely heavily on Japanese overseas tourism. Topics that are of particular interest to readers include the most current Japanese employment and leisure data and how the data compares with the earlier, postwar era that made up the boom-years of Japanese overseas travel. The latest data provides insight into how today’s working and living conditions in Japan impact overseas travel expenditures today. Readers, ranging from academics to business practitioners, will benefit from the book that provides the latest information that can be used in a practical manner to assist tourism-related businesses and organizations meet the current and future needs of the Japan overseas travel market.