Work & Home

Gender inequality is still an  issue and continues in family life and workplace. The phrase "good wife, wise mother," continues to influence beliefs about gender roles. Most women may not be able to realize that ideal, but many believe that it is in their own, their children's, and society's best interests that they stay home to take care of  their children, at least while the children were young. Many women find satisfaction in family life and in the accomplishments of being a mother, gaining a sense of fulfilment from doing good jobs as household managers and mothers. In most households ; women are responsible for their family budgets and make independent decisions about the education, careers, and life-styles of their families. Women also take the social blame for problems of family members.

Women's educational opportunities have increased in the 20th century. Among new workers in 1989, 37 % of women had received education beyond upper-secondary school, compared with 43 % of men, but most women had received their postsecondary education in junior colleges and technical schools rather than in universities and graduate schools.

History

Gender has been an important issue in the Japanese Culture, but the cultural elaboration of gender differences has had problems over time and among different social classes. In the twelfth century (Heian period), for example, women could inherit property in their own names and manage it by themselves.Later, under feudal governments, the status of women declined. Peasant women continued to have the freedom and power of decisionmaking , but upper-class women's lives were subject their husband ideology supported by the government like a part of its efforts of social control. With an early industrialization, young women participated in factory work under  unhealthy working conditions without gaining personal autonomy or independecy . A little bit later with the  industrialization and urbanization,there was  a low in  the authority of fathers and husbands, but at the same time a (Meiji) Civil Code denied women legal rights and obliged  them to the will of household heads .Peasant women were less affected by the institutionalization of this trend, but it slowly spread even to remote areas. In the 1930s and 1940s the government encouraged the formation of women's associations  applauded high fertility and  motherhood was rook as  a patriotic duty to the Japanese Empire.

A few years before World War II, the role of the japanese women was very poor. The Constitution at that time didn´t aprove the equality of the sexes and they didn´t have the opportunity to vote or at least to have the right itself . According to the Civil Code, wifes were considered as incompetent, and their  rights, and their rights as mother  were restricted

After the War, the new Constitution was promulgated in 1946 said that women and men were equal under the law.  Then the Civil Code was revised, and several range of domestic laws were changed, so there were a lot of improvements in the legal status of women in the family, the workplace and in society.

Since 1960, the fast growth of their economy brought  big socio-economic changes such as rise of and scientific/technological progress or  some living standards. These changes and with a lower birth rate,longer life expectancy and a high educational standard affected the normal family life, and specially the lives of women.

Women began to be part of a greater economic and social activity. However, the because of  the traditional concept that women must  stay at home,this concept  is still believed by people and is deeply rooted.

Japanese Survey about Equality between sexes

According to a survey on perceptions of equality between men and women in many fields, 77.1% of people surveyed felt that men received better treatment than women in society's views and customs, 67.1% felt the same way regarding politics, 59.3% regarding the workplace, 53.6% regarding family life, and 44.4% regarding the law or other institutional structures;But 65.2% felt there was equality in school education.

The survey  revealed that inequality is felt more strongly by women than by men.