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The durability of Japan's industrial products now holds world acclaim. But the durability of jobs in Japan-despite misleading Western images of lifetime employment-is no better than in other industrial nations. The "group model" of Japanese society that has been in fashion in the West confuses the goals of an organization with the personal aims and aspirations of its members. Like workers anywhere, those in Japan must go through life reconciling their duties to the job with their often conflicting obligations to family, to community, and to self-respect. Career outcomes are anything but certain in Japan-once we see them from a worker's point of view.
Work and Lifecourse in Japan is a collection of workers' eye-level reports on career development in a variety of Japanese organizations and professions. In addition, there are overview chapters on employment trends in the Japanese economy, and on the problems of scheduling one's life-events in the demanding milieu of our post-industrial world.
"A lot of people will have to rethink their positions if they read this work carefully. It has great significance, both for the study of Japanese ethnology as well as for our understanding of the ways in which industrial, urban, 'mass' societies develop." — Robert J. Smith, Cornell University
List of Tables
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Life Is Just a Job Resume?
David W. Plath
PART ONE: CURRENTS OF EMPLOYMENT
1. Careers and Mobility in Japan's Labor Markets
Solomon B. Levine
2. Changing Employment Patterns of Women
Karen C. Holden
PART TWO: BUT AM I GETTING ANYWHERE?
3. Aborted Careers in a Public Corporation
Kenneth A. Skinner
4. Shiranai Station: Not a Destination But a Journey
Paul H. Noguchi
PART THREE: PATHS AND PRIORITIES
5. Intertwined Careers in Medical Practice
Susan O. Long
6. Where Security Begets Security: Concurrent Careers of Local Politicians
Jack G. Lewis
7. Cataclysm and Career Rebirth: The Imperial Military Elite
Theodore F. Cook Jr.
PART FOUR: WORK, FAMILY AND THE HANDS OF TIME
8. The Office: Way Station or Blind Alley?
James McLendon
9. The Tempo of Family Formation
Samuel Coleman
10. Where Work and Family Are Almost One: The Lives of Folkcraft Potters
Jill Kleinberg
Reflections: Timetables and the Lifecourse in Post-Industrial Society
Julius A. Roth
Index