“We Will Establish a Virtuous Cycle in Which Jobs Attract People and People Attract Jobs” : Analysis of Abe Administration’s Regional Revitalization Documents from 2014 to 2020
Kaarna, Laura (2023-03-23)
“We Will Establish a Virtuous Cycle in Which Jobs Attract People and People Attract Jobs” : Analysis of Abe Administration’s Regional Revitalization Documents from 2014 to 2020
Kaarna, Laura
(23.03.2023)
Julkaisu on tekijänoikeussäännösten alainen. Teosta voi lukea ja tulostaa henkilökohtaista käyttöä varten. Käyttö kaupallisiin tarkoituksiin on kielletty.
avoin
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on:
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2023041135798
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2023041135798
Tiivistelmä
In 2012, the re-elected Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and his administration faced the harsh truth: Japan’s regional economies were struggling because of overconcentration of people and services in metropolitan areas, population was in crisis due to declining birth rate, the Japanese work culture needed to be reformed and the emergence of new lifestyles demanded better work-life balance. To battle this situation Abe launched the Headquarters for Revitalizing Towns, People, and Jobs in 2014 and introduced Chihō sōsei, regional revitalization, which would become one of his flagship policies for the next 6 years.
This thesis analysed the policies about revitalizing the rural areas in Japan and aimed to understand how Abe’s administration attempted to prevent the rural regions from hollowing out. The documents were analysed from the perspective of work related issues. Japanese work culture and work style reform are in the center of regional revitalization: available jobs attract people to an area and where there are people there will be more jobs. Literature argues that without work reforms Japan will not be able to correct its birth rate that is in downward spiral. This will lead to significantly smaller population that needs to take care of the large population of over 65-year-olds in the future. Furthermore, Japan needs to acknowledge women as an equally important workforce as men.
The purpose of this study was to find out what themes emerge from the 9 selected regional revitalization policy papers from 2014 to 2020 and how work was described in these documents. I chose work related terms and conducted a content analysis on the excerpts that talked about these terms. I discussed the findings by gathering them in groups around five central themes found in the documents. As this study shows, the themes include women, gender roles, death from overwork, diverse lifestyles and rural nostalgia. The focus of reforms was often on women which is understandable since Japanese work culture has always been male dominated. Empowering women and enabling better work-life balance for women as well as addressing the conservative attitudes and expectations on women that are still strongly embedded in Japanese society are the key points of discussion on work.
What I found out was that concrete actions were scarce compared to the government’s reassurances of how much they wanted to make positive change in the Japanese society. Also, since women’s situation was largely covered I expected there to be more detailed information about young people’s situation in work life as well, but this was missing from the documents. Women continue to be attracted to big cities more than men. Although the idea about rural areas feels inviting and nostalgic to many, it became evident from the policy documents that people also see rural areas as conservative and narrow-minded places. Although the government understands that excessive working hours are not beneficial it is difficult to change this part of the Japanese work culture. Furthermore, government wished to make telework an essential part of Japanese work culture but telework is not always possible because of Japanese SME’s reluctance to change their traditional work style and the lack of high-speed internet across the country.
This thesis analysed the policies about revitalizing the rural areas in Japan and aimed to understand how Abe’s administration attempted to prevent the rural regions from hollowing out. The documents were analysed from the perspective of work related issues. Japanese work culture and work style reform are in the center of regional revitalization: available jobs attract people to an area and where there are people there will be more jobs. Literature argues that without work reforms Japan will not be able to correct its birth rate that is in downward spiral. This will lead to significantly smaller population that needs to take care of the large population of over 65-year-olds in the future. Furthermore, Japan needs to acknowledge women as an equally important workforce as men.
The purpose of this study was to find out what themes emerge from the 9 selected regional revitalization policy papers from 2014 to 2020 and how work was described in these documents. I chose work related terms and conducted a content analysis on the excerpts that talked about these terms. I discussed the findings by gathering them in groups around five central themes found in the documents. As this study shows, the themes include women, gender roles, death from overwork, diverse lifestyles and rural nostalgia. The focus of reforms was often on women which is understandable since Japanese work culture has always been male dominated. Empowering women and enabling better work-life balance for women as well as addressing the conservative attitudes and expectations on women that are still strongly embedded in Japanese society are the key points of discussion on work.
What I found out was that concrete actions were scarce compared to the government’s reassurances of how much they wanted to make positive change in the Japanese society. Also, since women’s situation was largely covered I expected there to be more detailed information about young people’s situation in work life as well, but this was missing from the documents. Women continue to be attracted to big cities more than men. Although the idea about rural areas feels inviting and nostalgic to many, it became evident from the policy documents that people also see rural areas as conservative and narrow-minded places. Although the government understands that excessive working hours are not beneficial it is difficult to change this part of the Japanese work culture. Furthermore, government wished to make telework an essential part of Japanese work culture but telework is not always possible because of Japanese SME’s reluctance to change their traditional work style and the lack of high-speed internet across the country.