Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- PART I
- PART II
- PART III
- PART IV
- 7 Shitsuke: The Art of Child Rearing
- 8 Maternal Involvement in Children's Schooling
- 9 Balancing Work and Family Life
- 10 Women and Family Life: Ideology, Experience, and Agency
- References
- Appendix A Berkeley Parenting Self-Efficacy Scale (Preschool Version)
- Appendix B Research Methods
- Index
9 - Balancing Work and Family Life
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- PART I
- PART II
- PART III
- PART IV
- 7 Shitsuke: The Art of Child Rearing
- 8 Maternal Involvement in Children's Schooling
- 9 Balancing Work and Family Life
- 10 Women and Family Life: Ideology, Experience, and Agency
- References
- Appendix A Berkeley Parenting Self-Efficacy Scale (Preschool Version)
- Appendix B Research Methods
- Index
Summary
After five years, I was one of the most experienced employees at my workplace.… I didn't want to quit my job when I got married … My boss was a career-oriented single woman. She worked so hard. For her, the job was the first priority. She told me that I should be ready to do overtime even after getting married … Six months after I got married I was asked to be part of a new project team. I was given one condition for joining. I was not supposed to become pregnant for two years … When I was told that I could not get pregnant for two years, I had to reconsider the offer … In the end, I declined the offer. And I ended up quitting the job because I was not feeling comfortable working there.
(Beni, college educated, low self-efficacy mother of three)Beni, quoted above, is typical of many Japanese women, in that she held a full-time job for several years after finishing school and then left the workplace upon getting married. In fact, Japan is one of the few countries where a graph of women's employment trajectory over their lifetime still forms an “M” shape, with high rates of employment prior to child rearing, a deep dip during the childbearing years, and a rise when the children begin school (Brinton, 2001; Choe, Bumpass, & Tsuya, 2004; Macnaughtan, 2006).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Women and Family in Contemporary Japan , pp. 171 - 195Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010