Japan's growing economic activities and the attainment patterns of foreign-born Japanese workers in the United States, 1979 to 1989

"This study examines the impact of the economic activities of Japan in the United States on the socioeconomic attainments of foreign-born Japanese male workers in 1979 and 1989. It demonstrates that working in wholesale trade, finance and manufacturing industries, three major sectors of Japanese investment in America, provided foreign-born male Japanese workers with the highest likelihood of assuming managerial positions. Moreover, the managerial occupation in turn provided the Japanese workers with the highest earnings returns. This pattern is consistent over time and by length of residence. The results suggest the importance of Japan's economic globalization since the 1970s in explaining the socioeconomic attainment patterns of foreign-born Japanese workers in the United States."     

Do HRM practices influence the desire for unionization? Evidence across workers,workplaces, and co-workers for Great Britain

We investigate the desire of nonunion workers in Great Britain to become represented by unions. Comparing our results to those from the United States, we find that workers in Great Britain are less likely to desire unionization and express lower dissatisfaction with their influence at work. The determinants of the desire for unionization are estimated controlling for a wide variety of individual and workplace variables. The roles of human resource management and employee involvement are isolated. We identify direct work-place and worker-level effects of these practices in reducing the desire for unionization and an indirect effect operating through the influence of employee relations, a major determinant of the desire for unionization. Also, we identify characteristics of co-workers that are associated with desire for unionization and examine the role information revelation may play in managerial strategies to forestall unions.     

Age and sex in the occupational structure: A United States-Japan comparison

Seniority and experience are more important in Japanese than American labor markets. This article examines the way that these factors are reflected in patterns of age and sex segregation in the occupational structures of the two countries. Occupationalage segregation is greater in Japan than in the United States: There are larger age differences among the incumbents of major occupational groups in Japan, and managerial and administrative occupations in particular are dominated by older males. In contrast, occupationalsex segregation is slightly lower in Japan than in the United States. This nonintuitive result is due to the greater apparent integration of Japanese women into low-status white-collar and blue-collar occupational groups, resulting from particular labor market processes in those groups.Earlier versions were presented at the International Sociological Association meetings in Madrid, Spain, July 1990, and at the American Sociological Association meetings in Washington, DC, August 1990.     

Effect of Educational Expansion on Educational Inequality in Post-industrialized Societies: A Cross-cultural Comparison of Japan and the United States of America

Abstract: This paper analyzes the relationship between educational expansion and educational inequality. I first reconsider the conceptual basis of educational expansion, noting that in post‐industrialized societies, people's educational attainment is no longer measurable in a simple temporal increase because of the recent leveling‐off in the younger generation. I then review the theoretical framework of educational inequality. After presenting a summary of related studies, I provide a multilevel regression model that examines the macro/cohort influence of educational expansion on educational inequality in Japan and the United States. The following propositions are derived from my analyses: Educational expansion has functioned to dissolve both the socio‐economic and the cultural‐educational reproduction processes in Japan; meanwhile, inequality in terms of micro coefficients remains. In the United States, both the magnitude of gender inequality and the influence of the socio‐economic reproduction process are smaller than in Japan. The macro/cohort effects of educational expansion are generally smaller in the United States. This is true despite the fact that educational expansion significantly dissolves gender inequality in the United States, while educational expansion has little to do with gender equalization in Japan. My comparison of the model's fit concludes that the trajectory of educational equalization follows the two‐fold consequence of educational expansion. In sum, these results show that in conjunction with the non‐linear sequence of educational attainment in the post‐industrialized phase of development, the macro/cohort influence of educational expansion as well as the micro structure of educational inequality undergo gradual transformations.     

Children's behavior problems in the United States and Great Britain

We analyze the effects of family capital on child behavior problems in the United States and Great Britain by comparing a longitudinal survey sample of 5- to 13-year-old children from the 1994 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 3,864) with a similar sample of children from the 1991 National Child Development Study "British Child" (N = 1,430). Findings suggest that in both societies, male children, those with health problems, and those whose mothers are divorced are at increased risk for behavior problems, while those with stronger home environments are at reduced risk. Family structure effects are more pervasive in Great Britain than in the United States, although some of these findings are a function of our racially diverse U.S. sample. We conclude that parents are important in both societies in promoting child social adjustment, and evidence that the more developed welfare state in Great Britain may substitute for capital at home is weak.     

The Organizational Practice of Gendered Employment: Disparate Impact and Gender Segregation in the Japanese Entry-Level Labor Market

Abstract

This article discusses the supposedly “gender-neutral” Japanese organizational hiring practice of using a track-based employment system. In this system, prospective employees are required to accept nationwide transfers in residence to obtain career-track positions. Women have difficulty fulfilling this requirement because of cultural expectations to settle down and tend to domestic affairs (day care is often hard to access). Using job placement data on graduates from a Japanese university, I found that women are more likely to be hired into firms without this track system, where they are mostly hired for non-career-track positions. Therefore, seemingly gender-neutral bureaucratic rules actually disparately affect women, maintaining gender inequality in the corporate-centered economy of Japan.     

NEGOTIATING DIFFERENCE:

Research on immigrant women workers in the United States and Third World women employed by multinational corporations in export-enclaves has highlighted how global movements of capital and labor are expressed in changing labor processes, working conditions, and ethnic relations in the workplace. Notably absent from this body of literature are the ways in which rural, white American women respond to the new work environments offered by direct foreign investments in the United States. Using in-depth interviews with workers and observations of the workplace and the community we explore how the Japanese purchase of an apparel manufacturing firm in upstate New York reconstituted factory floor relations. In so doing, we extend interpretations of the social construction of the labor process by recognizing the racialized and ethnicized character of rural white women. We also show how both workers and managers construct stereotypic expectations of the other that are manipulated on the shop floor in the struggle for control, recognition, and appreciation.     

Women's Economic Standing,Marriage Timing,and Cross‐National Contexts of Gender

Proponents of the theory of specialization and exchange hypothesize that in any national context, women's higher economic standing will decrease their chance of marriage. Some researchers suggest, however, that only in industrialized countries with a high degree of role differentiation by gender does the inverse relationship between women's economic standing and the chance of marriage exist. To evaluate contrasting cross‐national predictions, I test with longitudinal data and standardized methods whether the inverse relationship exists in 3 similarly affluent industrialized countries that vary in their degree of role differentiation by gender: the United States, Japan (a context more differentiated by gender than the United States), and Sweden (a context less differentiated by gender than the United States). Contrary to the prediction that develops out of the theory of specialization and exchange, results indicate that women's higher levels of income discourage first marriage formation in Japan, but encourage it in the United States and Sweden.     

Gender Differences in Attitudes Towards Work Group in the United States and Japan*

Abstract This study examines gender differences in employees' group orientations on the basis of the United States-Japan gender comparisons of individual work attitudes. It is hypothesized that the gender differences in work group orientations disappear when workplace structures and styles of supervision are held constant across individual employees in the U.S. and Japan. The results show that the impact of being a woman on work group orientations is relatively small in both countries. At least, the impact of gender on Japanese and American group attitudes does not appear to be powerful enough to reinforce the assertion that gender is an absolute determinant of work attitudes. Although gender-based arguments can not be fully rejected by the present results, the fact that one is a woman produced only a minimal increment in employees' work group orientations, when men and women worked in similarly structured organizations. The findings, however, indicate that gender differences in work group orientations are not thoroughly reducible to the fact that workplaces are differently structured for the two genders in Japan and the U.S. The possibility of cultural embeddedness of individual affective work orientations is discussed.     

Gender inequality in mobile technology access: the role of economic and social development*

ABSTRACT

Digital inequality is a burgeoning field of study across disciplines, yet few papers address categorical digital inequality in cross-national samples. Using the only available cross-national data on access to Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) disaggregated by gender from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), I add to existing literature by examining factors associated with women’s unequal access to mobile phones across 51 countries. The largest of such samples, the ITU data demonstrates that the type and levels of gender inequality in mobile phone use are not consistent throughout countries. In fact, the distribution is quite variable, from incorporating a small-sample of nations where women have marginally higher access, to sub-samples close to parity, to a larger sub-sample where women are at a substantial disadvantage. Using Quantile Regression Methods to assess these variations, I test how major gender and international development theories inform inequality patterns. My findings suggest that women’s wellbeing, as measured by their access to modern contraception (i.e., reproductive autonomy), overwhelmingly promotes women’s relative access to mobile phones, regardless of preexisting levels of access. Other perspectives like the growth imperative and world polity theory show some staggered associations along the distribution that remain substantively inconclusive.     

Safety segregation: The importance of gender, race, and ethnicity on workplace risk

Using micro data of the Bureau of Labor Statistics we examine the extent and the causes of workplace risk inequality in the United States. Far more men than women and far more blacks and Hispanics than whites are killed or injured at work. Occupational differences between men and women and among the races explain most, but not all, of the workplace risk inequality in the United States. After controlling for occupation, men experience twice as many workplace fatalities as women but fewer nonfatal injuries, while black and Hispanic males experience slightly more workplace fatalities than white males but fewer nonfatal workplace injuries. We find little evidence men choose higher risk jobs and women lower risk jobs because of differences in economic circumstances or risk preferences. But economic and taste factors explain large fractions of the fatal and the nonfatal injury rate differences by race/ethnicity. Workplace risk inequality among the races primarily reflects differences in educational attainment.     

GENDER,MORTALITY, AND CORPOREAL INEQUALITY

Most previous empirical analyses of gender inequality have focused on modern economic indicators such as income. The advancement of theory on gender stratification requires detailed analysis of indicators with greater endurance and prevalence in world-historical terms. Sex mortality differentials are presented as cross-cultural indicators of corporeal gender inequality, defined as differential access to basic bodily resources for life and health. Indeed, mortality differentials represent a more fundamental form of gender inequality, in that women first must be alive before they may be denied access to other resources such as equal pay. Analysis of United Nations and World Bank data on developed and developing countries evidence the importance of ecological, economic, and familial explanations in determining corporeal gender inequality. Women's familial roles are found to be more important for gender inequalities in death at younger ages, and women's economic roles are more important for death at older ages. Implications of the results for mortality decline and gender stratification theory are discussed.     

MIND THE GAP: Religion and the Crucible of Marginality in the United States and Great Britain

Comparisons between the United States and Great Britain reveal many similarities in broad‐based religious concerns and values. Nonetheless, surveys over the last 40 years document a widening gap between the two countries in individual‐level religious commitment. This article suggests that the residual effect of prior marginalization of certain groups and the way they responded to the crucible of marginality is a critical variable to consider. The structure of the religious market in Great Britain kept peripheral groups from turning to religion for support or encouragement in their resistance to the establishment; this, however, was not the case in the religious economy of the United States. Using data collected in the most recent wave of the World Values Survey, I show that higher levels of religious commitment among particular groups with a history of marginalized status—namely African Americans and Southerners—in the United States and the lack of similar levels among similar groups in the British context—ethnic minorities and residents of Scotland and Wales—explain part of the gap in religious commitment between the two countries.     

Long Working Hours and the Corporate Gender Divide in Japan

While the workplace custom of working long hours has been known to exacerbate gender inequality, few have investigated the organizational mechanisms by which long working hours translate into and reinforce the power and status differences between men and women in the workplace. Drawing on 64 in‐depth interviews with workers at financial and cosmetics companies in Japan, this article examines three circumstances in which a culture of long working hours is disadvantageous for women workers, and the consequences of those circumstances: (a) managers in Japanese firms, reinforcing gender stereotypes, prioritize work over personal and family lives; (b) non–career‐track women experience depressed aspirations in relation to long working hours and young women express a wish to opt out due to the incompatibility of work with family life; and (c) workers who are mothers deal with extra unpaid family work, stress such as guilt from leaving work early, salary reduction and concerns over their limited chances for promotion. The article argues that the norm of working long hours not only exacerbates the structural inequality of gender but also shapes employed women's career paths into the dichotomized patterns of either emulating workplace masculinity or opting out.     

Bystander Attitudes to Prevent Sexual Assault: A Study of College Students in the United States,Japan, India,Vietnam, and China

College women are at a high risk of sexual assault. Although programs that aim to change bystander behaviors have been shown to be potentially effective in preventing sexual assault on campuses in the United States, little is known about bystander behaviors outside of the United States. The purpose of this study was to explore and compare factors affecting bystander behaviors regarding sexual assault intervention and prevention among undergraduate students in the United States, Japan, India, Vietnam, and China. A total of 1,136 students participated in a self-reported survey. Results demonstrate substantial variations across countries. Bystander behaviors are associated with multilevel factors, including gender, knowledge of individuals who have experienced a sexual assault, and knowledge about campus or community organizations.     

Social Resources and Occupational Status Attainment: Comparison of Japanese and American Employees' Personal Networks

Abstract: The present study compares Japan and the USA in the ways in which individuals’ personal relationships affect the social standing they achieve. The conceptual framework applied here is similar to that used in established research in Western countries, which examines the effects of both human capital and social capital. The analyses are based on the data collected from a random sample of adult residents in Tokyo, which contains information about their personal networks. This data set is compared with the social network module of the 1985 General Social Survey in the United States. The analyses supported both human capital and social capital theories in the process of status attainment in both countries. Human capital, however, seems to have a stronger influence especially in the USA sample, because certain structural characteristics are associated with one's own educational achievement, which in turn are instrumental in attaining social capital. Unlike the USA, however, the access to social capital in Japan was found primarily through homophily, showing little effect based upon the type of networks they have. The results suggest the difference between the two countries in terms of the function of social resources and the strength of ties that are instrumental in the process of status attainment.     

Organizational Resources and the Gender Gap in Congregational Lay Leadership

The purpose of this study is to examine how organizational resources affect the gender gap within lay (volunteer) leadership in religious congregations. Using institutional theory as a framework, this study situates congregations within a larger field of organizations competing for legitimacy. Congregations with higher levels of resources—such as wealthier members, better-educated members, or larger memberships—are more likely to be connected to the core of the field and therefore more likely to have gender egalitarian practices in order to signal their legitimacy. Therefore, I hypothesize that women in resource-rich congregations will have greater access to volunteer leadership positions than women in congregations that are resource deficient. I analyze 70,942 individuals in 344 religious congregations from the 2001 U.S. Congregational Life Survey using multilevel modeling. I show that religious congregations with more members, better-educated attenders, and wealthier attenders have smaller gender gaps in volunteer leadership positions. Congregational resources can mitigate the gender gap in lay leadership, and women within resource-rich organizations have greater access to positions of authority.     

A global overview of major or unique libraries, clearinghouses, and bibliographic databases in social gerontology

Eighty-six major and/or unique information resources in social gerontology, mostly in the form of libraries, clearinghouses and other hybrid resources, and bibliogrphic databases were identified through an international survey. They are practically all located in the more developed countries, and the large majority are in the United States. A growing number are available in electronic format, facilitating direct end-user access. Significant information gaps continue to exist and access to the data resources of the northern hemisphere remains a major problem for developing nations.     

Race,Gender, and the Invisible Hand of Social Capital

To better understand persistent race and gender inequality in the labor market, this article discusses the informal processes by which social connections provide individuals with access to information, influence, and status that help to further people’s careers. Because social networks are segregated by race and gender, access to these social capital resources tends to be greater for white men than for minorities and women. To illustrate this point, research on the invisible hand of social capital is presented. In short, high-level job openings are commonly filled with non-searchers – people who are not looking for new jobs – thanks to their receipt of unsolicited job leads. Recent studies find that this process operates more effectively for white men than for minorities and women, demonstrating how the invisible hand of social capital helps to perpetuate race and gender inequality. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings and directions for future research.     

Management gender composition and the gender pay gap: Evidence from British panel data

Women continue to earn less than their male counterparts globally. Scholars and feminist activists have suggested a partial explanation for this gender gap in earnings could be women's limited access to power structures at the workplace. Using the linked employer–employee data of the Workplace Employment Relations Study 2004–2011, this article asks what happens to the gender gap in earnings among non‐managerial employees when the share of women in management at the workplace increases. The findings, based on workplace‐fixed time‐fixed effects regression models, suggest that workplace‐level increases in the share of women in management are associated with decreases of the non‐managerial gender gap in earnings. This effect appears to be largely unrelated to changes in equality and diversity policies, family‐friendly arrangements and support for carers at the workplace.