ABSTRACT
A young woman graduates from junior college in Tokyo and gets a job as a clerical worker. She lives at home and is able to contribute small amounts of money from her salary to her parents. Other women in the group called “office ladies” are married women in one of two categories. Some have remained at work after the birth of children. Japanese women have not always been welcome, or needed, in the world of business. After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when industrialization began in Japan and women were increasingly needed as part of the work force, women slowly entered the textile industry and developing heavy industries to do unskilled labor. Companies that use “office ladies” to perform necessary though usually menial tasks and to add a “woman’s touch” as hostesses are clearly reluctant to lose this large category of cheap, marginal workers.
