ABSTRACT
Against the backdrop of globalization and industrial structural change, Japanese society has been experiencing widening social inequality and social exclusion, which has become one of the prominent political issues (see the chapters by Lechevalier and Heinrich in this volume). The fundamental problem is the expansion of non-regular employment enabled by the deregulatory reforms from the mid-1990s, which disproportionately located women and young people to less privileged statuses (Imai 2011a). However, at the same time the quality of regular employment also worsened, when compared to the times of famous “Japanese management”: wages declined, competition became harsher, and workplace control intensified, which taken altogether gave regular workers further difficulties in balancing work and life (Imai 2011a). Thus, in the last two decades, it can be said that the performance of employment to support people’s lives declined significantly.
