ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the history and role of women in the Japanese coal mining industry, with particular reference to Chikuho, Japan's largest coalfield, illustrating their special characteristics by comparison with the female factory workers of the textile industry, the largest occupational category for women in the modern era. Coalmining has a long historical lineage in Japan, though until the 19th century the main use of coal was restricted to the production of salt in the coastal area of the Inland Sea. With the shift towards rationalization in the larger mines in the 1920s, women were dismissed, together with many of their fellow male workers, to be replaced by even 'cheaper' Korean labour. Although female labour played a crucial role in the development of the coalmining industry in Japan, especially in the Chikuho coalfield, once the women lost their value as cheap labour they were dumped under the name of rationalization.
