Updated on 2024/03/29

写真a

 
ROBERTS, Glenda S.
 
Affiliation
Faculty of International Research and Education, Graduate School of Asia Pacific Studies
Job title
Professor
Degree
アジア学科修士、人類学修士、Ph.D.(博士)

Research Experience

  • 2001.04
    -
    Now

    Waseda University   GSAPS   Professor

  • 1998.04
    -
     

    - 早稲田大学アジア太平洋研究センター助教授

  • 1996.06
    -
     

    -1998年 3月 東京大学社会科学研究所客員助教授

  • 1995.08
    -
     

    -1996年 5月 University of Hawaii, Dept. of

  • 1995
    -
     

    副所長;アジア学科講師;助教授審査終了)

  • 1991.08
    -
     

    -1995年 7月 University of Hawaii, Center for

  • 1990.12
    -
    1991

    7月 東西センターリソースシステム研究所

  • 1989.11
    -
    1990.11

    国際交流基金学術研究員

  • 1989.05
    -
     

    -1989年10月 East-West Center Population Institute

  • 1988.08
    -
     

    -1989年 4月 University of Hawaii Dept. of

  • 1986.11
    -
    1987

    6月 China-Hong Kong顧客サービス部運営補佐員

  •  
     
     

    客員助教授)

  •  
     
     

    Anthropology,VisitingAssociateProfessor(ハワイ大学人類学学科

  •  
     
     

    JapaneseStudies,AssociateDirector(ハワイ大学日本研究センター

  •  
     
     

    通訳・編集部

  •  
     
     

    Postdoctoral Fellow東西センター人口学部奨励研究員

  •  
     
     

    VisitingAssistantProfessor(ハワイ大学人類学科客員講師)

  •  
     
     

    Anthropology

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Education Background

  •  
    -
    1986

    Cornell University   Anthropology   Cultural Anthropology  

  •  
    -
    1978

    University of Michigan   Department of Asian Studies   Asian Studies  

Committee Memberships

  • 2016.09
    -
    2021.11

    Ministry of Justice, Japan, Immigration Bureau  Deliberative Committee for Immigration Control Policy

  • 2017.09
    -
    2021.03

    SSRC  Abe Fellowship Program Committee

  • 2013.04
    -
    2015.12

    Ministry of Justice, Japan, Immigration Bureau  Deliberative Committee for Immigration Control Policy

  • 2009.04
    -
    2014.12

    JUSEC  Fulbright Commission Board

Professional Memberships

  • 2021.09
    -
    Now

    Japan Sociological Society

  • 2010
    -
    Now

    European Association of Japanese Studies (EAJS)

  • 1996
    -
    Now

    Society for the Study of Working Women

  •  
     
     

    Japan Association for Migration Policy Studies

  •  
     
     

    Japan Anthropology Workshop(JAWS)

  •  
     
     

    Association of Asian Studies

  •  
     
     

    American Anthropological Association

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Research Areas

  • Sociology

Research Interests

  • Gender, Socio-cultural Anthropology, Japanese Studies, Migration

Awards

  • Book “Staying on the Line: Blue-Collar Women in Contemporary Japan,” University of Hawaii Press was selected for inclusion on the list of Noteworthy Books in Industrial Relations and Labor Economics (1994)

    1994  

 

Papers

  • Low-Skilled Migrant Labor Schemes in Japan’s Agriculture: Voices From the Field

    Glenda S ROBERTS, Noriko FUJITA

    Social Science Japan Journal    2023.09

    Authorship:Lead author

     View Summary

    Abstract

    Despite rapid demographic decline, until recently, low-skilled migrant workers have been welcomed only through ‘side-doors’ such as technical interns (TITP). Yet pressure for change comes from two sides: the moral critique of the ‘side-door’ scheme, and the growing economic pressures of a dwindling labor force. In 2018 Japan put in place a short-term bona-fide labor scheme (Specified Skilled Worker; hereafter, SSW) in fields previously largely inaccessible to foreign labor. In combination with the TITP schemes, these workers are allowed to stay longer. But what do these changes mean, how do the farmer-employers see them, and will the SSW lead to a sustainable farm labor supply going forward? We explore stakeholders’ views of the current schemes and their opinions on how low-skilled labor migration should proceed in agriculture. Businesses are desperate for labor, but not at any cost. Under SSW, employers are being asked to change the ways they envision and treat migrant labor. The tensions between their expectations and the realities on the ground reflect the contradictions that Japan’s migration policies inherit, based in the bureaucratic fiction that only ‘skilled’ labor is necessary. Data for this paper come from qualitative interviews conducted from 2018 to 2022 in Kyoto, Aichi, and Tokyo.

    DOI

  • Chapter 7 in Hasegawa Shinji, ed., Economic and Social Perspectives on the World under COVID-19 Through Experiences of the Lockdown in Paris

    Hiroko CONSTANTINI, Glenda ROBERTS, Aline HENNINGER

        144 - 158  2021.09  [Invited]

    Authorship:Last author

  • The work, family and care nexus in Paris and Tokyo: Gender equality and well-being among urban professionals

    Glenda S. Roberts, Hiroko Costantini

    Contemporary Japan     1 - 34  2021.05  [Refereed]

    Authorship:Lead author

    DOI

    Scopus

    2
    Citation
    (Scopus)
  • Leaning out for the long span: what holds women back from promotion in Japan?

    Glenda S. Roberts

    Japan Forum   32 ( 4 ) 555 - 576  2020.10  [Refereed]

    Authorship:Lead author

    DOI

    Scopus

    7
    Citation
    (Scopus)
  • An Immigration Policy by any Other Name: Semantics of Immigration to Japan

    Roberts, Glenda S

    Social Science Japan Journal   21 ( 1 ) 89 - 102  2017.02  [Refereed]

  • 似たような成果たが経路は異なる—ジェンダー化された雇用規制の国際移転

    ロバーツ・グレンダ・S

    知識経済をジェンダー化する:労働組織・規制・福祉国家     155 - 175  2016.08

  • (Book Review) Career Women in Contemporary Japan: Pursuing Identities, Fashioning Lives. London: Routledge.

    Anne Stefanie Aronsson

    Social Science Japan Journal   19 ( 1 ) 142 - 145  2016

  • (Book Review) RETURN: Nationalizing Transnational Mobility in Asia editors. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013.

    Xiang Biao, Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Mika Toyota

    Pacific Affairs   88 ( 2 ) 259 - 261  2015.08

  • Japan in Global Circulation: Transnational Migration and Multicultural Politics

    Roberts, Glenda S

    Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology   40 ( 1 ) 143 - 148  2015

    CiNii

  • Work and Life in Challenging Times: A Kansai Family across the Generations

    Glenda S. Roberts

    Capturing Contemporary Japan (Kawano, Roberts and Long, eds; University of Hawaii Press)     27 - 59  2014.01

  • Introduction: Differentiation and Uncertainty

    Satsuki Kawano, Glenda S. Roberts, Susan O. Long

    Capturing Contemporary Japan (Kawano, Roberts and Long, eds; University of Hawaii Press)     1 - 24  2014.01

    Authorship:Corresponding author

  • (Book Review)

    Yu, Wei-hsin

    Gendered Trajectories: Women, Work and Social Change in Japan and Taiwan. Stanford U. Press, 2009.   Pacific Affairs Vol. 84 (1)   64 - 78  2011

    CiNii

  • (Book Review)

    Yu, Wei-hsin

    Gendered Trajectories: Women, Work and Social Change in Japan and Taiwan. Stanford U. Press, 2009.   Pacific Affairs Vol. 84 (1)   64 - 78  2011  [Refereed]

    CiNii

  • Similar Outcomes, Different Paths: the Cross-national Transfer fo Gendered Regulations of Employment, in Sylvia Walby, Heidi Gottfried, Karen Gottschall and Mari Osawa, editors,

    Glenda S. Roberts

    Gendering the Knowledge Economy: Comparative Perspectives. London: Palgrave     141  2007

  • (Book Review)Women in Motion

    Roberts, Glenda S.

    Women in Motion: Globalization, State Policies and Labor Migration in Asia. Stanford University Press, 2005.   Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews, v. 35 n. 5   533 - 534  2006.09

    Authorship:Lead author

  • "Shifting Contours of Class and Status" in Jennifer Robertson, ed. Companion to the Anthropology of Japan

    Roberts, Glenda S

    Oxford: Blackwell     104 - 124  2005

  • (Book Review)

    Mary Brinton

    Women's Working Lives in East Asia, Stanford University Press, 2001.   The Journal of Japanese Studies ( 17 ) 201 - 249  2005.01

    DOI CiNii

  • Globalization and Work-life Balance: Gendered Implications of New Initiatives at a U.S. Multinational in Japan, in Heidi Gottfried and Laura Reese, eds.,

    Glenda S. Roberts

    Equity in the Workplace: Gendering Workplace Policy Analysis. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books.    2004

  • Pinning Hopes on Angels: Reflections from an Aging Japan's Urban Landscape, Roger Goodman, editor

    Roberts, Glenda S

    Family and Social Policy in Japan : Anthropological Approaches, Cambridge + London : Cambridge U. Press   pp.54-91  2002

  • Special Issue of Social Science Japan Journal: Gendering Contemporary Japan, including Introduction to the Special Topic by G.S. Roberts

    Oxford University Press, Vol.3, No.1. 2000     1 - 2  2000

  • Inquiring into Work/Life Issues in Corporations

    Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies/Tokyo:Waseda University, Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies   No.1  2000.01

  • Inquiring into Work/Life Issues in Corporations

    Roberts Glenda S.

    Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies/Tokyo:Waseda University, Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies   No.1 ( 1 ) 237 - 244  2000.01

    CiNii

  • Blue-Collar Woman in a Culture of Professional Housewives: Expanding the Meaning of Good Wife, Wise Mother

    Roberts Glenda S.

    1998, Hitotsubashi Journal of Social Studies 30: 49-57   30 ( 1 ) 35 - 43  1998

    DOI CiNii

  • Pinning Hopes on Angels: Government Responses to Japan's Low Birth Rates

    Roberts、Glenda S

    1997, Newsletter of the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, Vol.10: 19-21    1997

  • Immigration Policy: Frameworks and Challenges, in Florian Coulmas, Harald Conrad, Annette Scad-Seifert and Gabriele Voget, editors

    Glenda S. Roberts

    The Demographic Challenge: A Handbook about Japan. Leiden and Boston: Brill.     765 - 780

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Books and Other Publications

  • Japan's Evolving Family: Voices from Young Urban Adults Navigating Change

    Roberts, Glenda S( Part: Sole author)

    East-West Center  2016.10 ISBN: 9780866382748

     View Summary

    In recent decades, Japan has become a rapidly aging, low-birthrate society. Late marriage and no marriage have also become commonplace. With the prolonged recession, stable employment declined, wages dropped, and the reputation of the prototypical "salaryman" of the postwar period took a beating. In this milieu, how do young adults feel about conventional gender roles? Have attitudes changed in regard to marriage and childrearing, and if so, how? How do the unmarried envision themselves in the future, and how do the married wish to raise their children? In this interview study, diverse views can be heard, but those relating to childbearing and rearing remain fairly conservative. Furthermore, expectations that women should be solely responsible for the "double shift" of household labor and caregiving upon marriage, as well as continued discrimination against women in the workplace and a workplace culture of long hours, appear to underlie the hesitancy young adults have in acting on their dreams in the recessionary economy.

  • Japan’s Evolving Family: Voices from Young Urban Adults Navigating Change. Hawaii: East-West Center

    Roberts, Glenda S

    East-West Center  2016

  • Capturing Contemporary Japan: Differentiation and Uncertainty

    Satsuki Kawano, Glenda S. Roberts, Susan Long, eds

    University of Hawaii Press  2014.09 ISBN: 9780824838690

  • Migration and Integration--Japan in Comparative Perspective

    Gabriele Vogt, Glenda S. Roberts, ditors

    Iudicium  2011.03

  • Japan and Global Migration

    Mike Douglass, Glenda S. Roberts, eds

    Routledge (published with a new preface in paperback by U. Hawaii Press, 2003)  2000

  • STAYING ON THE LINE:BLUE-COLLAR WOMEN IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN.HONOLULU

    Roberts、Glenda S

    U.HAWAII PRESS 1994  1994

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Presentations

  • Changing Face of Demographics in Japan

    Roberts, Glenda S

    Panelist and Presenter at in American Embassy Tokyo Consular Workshop  (Tokyo)  American Embassy Tokyo

    Presentation date: 2016.09

  • Ready or NOT?” Youngish Urban Adults’ Views on Family Formation in the 20-teens

    Roberts, Glenda S

    AAS in Asia  (Kyoto)  Doshisha University

    Presentation date: 2016.06

  • The Semantics of Migration to Japan: Unpacking the Ambiguities

    Roberts, Glenda

    UCLA Global Japan Forum  (Los Angeles) 

    Presentation date: 2016.05

  • Rethinking Japan’s Lost Decades: Crisis Narratives and Post-Bubble Transformations

    Roberts, Glenda S

    Discussant at American Anthropological Association  (Colorado) 

    Presentation date: 2015.11

  • Marriage in Mid-life: Marriage, Intimacy and Well-being for Middle-aged Salarywomen in Urban Japan

    Roberts, Glenda S

    Presenter at East Asian Anthropology Association  (Hokkaido)  University of Hokkaido

    Presentation date: 2015.10

  • Changing Gender Orders and Diversity in Comparative Perspective

    Roberts, Glenda S

    Commentator for Ilse Lenz  (Tokyo)  DIJ Tokyo

    Presentation date: 2015.10

  • Leaning Out for the Long Span: What Holds Women Back from Promotion in Japan?

    Roberts, Glenda S

    Women’s Empowerment in Modern and Contemporary Japan: Normalize and/or Diversify the Family-5th Congress of Asian and Pacific Studies, INALCO.  (Paris) 

    Presentation date: 2015.09

  • Imagining and Living the Family: Attitudes from Young-ish Adults in Urban Japan

    Roberts, Glenda S

    Histoire de la Famille Mini Colloquium  (Paris)  Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales

    Presentation date: 2015.03

  • 'Graying Gap Society’ meets ‘Immigration Nation’: How is Japan imagining mobilities in its future?

    Roberts, Glenda S

    Keynote Speech at the Japan Anthropology Workshop  (Pennsylvania) 

    Presentation date: 2013.03

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Research Projects

  • Social inclusion and integration of diversity: Employers, newcomer migrant workers, and community response in Japan

    Project Year :

    2019.04
    -
    2022.03
     

     View Summary

    Japan is gradually becoming a nation that depends on diverse migrant labor. It is important to integrate immigrant populations into society early to avoid the later conflicts and mutual mistrust found elsewhere.This study will investigate the social inclusion of migrants at multiple levels. At a time when the Japanese government is expanding the categories and lengths of stay of migrant workers to ease the labor shortages accompanying drastic population decline, this project seeks to understand how newcomer migrant labor will be welcomed and integrated into the workplace and the community.Together with my RA, I visited the JA office in Kyoto, in July 2019, interviewing at two chicken farms, meeting some foreigner ginou jisshusei and Special Skilled Workers 1. On 12/3 we met farmers from Aichi at a reception in Tokyo where they had attended a presentation by the Ministry of Agriculture.<BR>On 12/19, we returned to Kyoto-fu with the JA staff to discuss with local town representatives and a chicken farm manager how the foreign workers might get involved in town events. We saw farms in Yawata and learned of farmers' difficulties in securing workers who would stay long-term. We visited a JA meeting for local farmers, where a representative explained the new SSWI system.<BR>We participated in two academic conferences:RA Noriko Fujita presented her research on 10/20 at a Diversity panel of the Japan Society of Policy Studies. The second conference was the Japan Labor Sociology conference on 11/3, where we heard a talk on dairy farms in Hokkaido. My RA and I compiled our preliminary findings from our field trips into a talk for the Waseda University/U. Birmingham international NODE migration conference in December, 2019.On 5 February, we visited the town in Aichi where we had been invited to return, interviewing five women farmers about their roles managing foreign workers. They invited us back to stay for a longer trip, to do a homestay in order to understand more about their farming lives and needs.I and my research assistant carried out as many field trips to Kyoto and Aichi as we had planned in the past year. The trips were productive. We had great help from the JA representative as well as from the farmers in Kyoto prefecture and Aichi. We have been requested to return and stay longer in order to observe the daily life of the foreign workers. We are communicating with JA and with the Aichi farmers online. We have gained a good rapport with them. We presented preliminary results at NODE conference on migration, held with Waseda and U. Birmingham scholars, December 3-6, 2019. Our presentation was well received. We made collaborations with UK scholars for future research. The only problem was we could not present at the Association for Asian Studies in March due to Covid 19.We would like to make a follow-up trip to JA in Kyoto prefecture in July, if the Corona virus situation improves. Furthermore we will visit Aichi, to stay for a week or ten days' trip, in order to get to know the people there better, and find out to what extent the workers are being incorporated in local events. I will interview some of the local politicians, as well as Ministry of Agriculture staff, to understand their views on the SSWI program going forward. We will expand our contacts with farms who employ SSWI workers to have more of a variety of farms and stakeholders. I will be able to make more field trips in December 2020 as well as February 2021 if the virus situation has improved.<BR>I will apply again to attend the Association of Asian Studies meeting next year in the US in March 2021. With a world pandemic, it is difficult to predict to what extent we can carry out the field trips, or join the conferences. I may delay applying to present my findings at the American Anthropological Association conference in November 2020,depending on the pandemic. Instead I will attend the final year of the grant. I will keep up with the news and scholarly accounts on this

  • After the global financial crisis, Asian emerging / mature economic society and Gender

    Japan Society for the Promotion of Science  Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research

    Project Year :

    2011.04
    -
    2015.03
     

    ADACHI Mariko, SHIN Ki-young, SAITO Etsuko, ANEHA Aki, HORI Yoshie, YAMADA Kazuyo, TACHI Kaoru, KANAI Kaoru, NAGATA Hanako, ROBERTS Glenda s., HIMMELWEIT Susan

     View Summary

    In order to understand the ongoing socioeconomic changes in Asian societies after the global financial crisis, we utilized cutting-edge perspectives from Feminist Economics to analyze globalization in the three spheres of finance, production, and reproduction.Comparative analyses on Japan/US were carried out on the topic of financial exclusion and inclusion,housing loans,consumer loans.Japan/Korea analyses were carried out on the topic of life insurance.Furthermore, we analyzed industries for the ageing society (wheelchairs, social insurance systems (care insurance), including interest groups and end-users, at the macro, meso and micro-levels

  • The theory, the thought, and the range of Feminist Economics

    Japan Society for the Promotion of Science  Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research

    Project Year :

    2008
    -
    2010
     

    ADACHI Mariko, ITOH Ruri, IDA Kumiko, GLENDA Roberts, OKI Kosuke, SATOH Takashi

     View Summary

    Results of the research ; (1)Feminist economics materialized as a new field of economics, the Sphere of Reproduction as economic categories was visualized.(2)It focused on social reproduction and the economic theory basis of the action by commitment which is not only a selfish individual's rationality was clarified.(3)There is the purposeful rationality to the circulation of the basic needs of life time, and the interdependency of caring has included in the economy. That is the alternative conceptualization of the economy by which the most foundational result of feminist economics. The above three points are having verified theoretically

  • 現代日本における少子化の傾向が先祖供養に与える影響及びその対応策についての考察

    日本学術振興会  科学研究費助成事業

    Project Year :

    2002
    -
    2004
     

    ロバーツ グレンダ, 河野 さつき

     View Summary

    本研究では、現代日本において近年急激に進んできた少子化の傾向が先祖供養に与える影響及びその対応策について考察しました。伝統的な家制度においては、先祖祭祀は子孫の義務とされ、子孫の絶えた家の死者は無縁となり、家の存続が死者の安らかな眠りのための必要条件とされていました。しかし、近年、子供のいない家庭や、結婚しない男女も増えています。研究分担者は、このような社会的背景をふまえ、少子化の傾向と新しい葬送の関係を明らかにするため、新しい葬送形態の発展、従来の先祖供養の存続・地域差に焦点をあて、以下の調査を行いました。
    1.市民運動として自然葬を行っている「葬送の自由をすすめる会」、跡継ぎのいない人でも入れる合祀墓「もやいの碑」の会員を対象に参与観察及びインタビューを行いました。また、「葬送の自由をすすめる会」の会員を対象に郵送によるアンケート調査を行い、71通の回答を得ました。
    2.葬送の新しい動きの一部として「生前葬」の調査を行いました。
    3.少子化と先祖供養の存続に関する地域差を明らかにするため、全国8地方で葬送習俗の調査を行いました。
    4.首都圏での「家の墓」の成立、変容に関する実証的データをえるため、雑司ヶ谷墓地にて墓石調査、墓参の観察を行いました。
    5.祭祀継承者のいない場合の祭祀に関する歴史的背景を明らかにするため、明治時代以降を中心に、無縁仏に関する文献調査を行いました。
    研究分担者は、本研究によって得られた調査結果を分析し、近年の新しい葬送形態は、少子化の対応策として、従来の先祖祭祀を行うことが難しい人々に新しい選択肢を与えるだけでなく、子孫に頼らず、自分の祭祀形態を自分で選択するという新しい価値観を育み、実践する機会を与えていることを明らかにしました。

  • 現代日本における少子化の傾向が先祖供養に与える影響及びその対応策についての考察

    日本学術振興会  科学研究費助成事業

    Project Year :

    2002
    -
    2004
     

    ロバーツ グレンダ, KAWANO SATSUKI, KAWANO S.

     View Summary

    本研究では、現代日本において、急激に進んできた少子化の傾向が、先祖供養に与える影響及びその対応策について考察しています。近年、子供のいない家庭や成人の未婚者も増加し、伝統的な家制度に基づいた先祖祭祀が難しくなっており、子孫がいなくても入れる合祀墓や自然葬(散骨)を選ぶ人も増えています。本研究ではそれらの対処法を選んだ人々の動機、家族背景、特に少子化との関連について参与観察、インタビュー、アンケート調査を行いました。また、少子化と先祖供養の存続に関する地域差を明らかにするため、本年度は北海道恵庭市、札幌市、青森県弘前市、岩手県水沢市及び真城町、東京都檜原村、愛知県岡崎市、名古屋市、京都府西京区、岡山県浅口郡船穂町、倉敷市の11か所で調査を行いました。その結果、高度経済成長期に町村部から都市に移住してきた人々の間では、少子化が合祀墓や散骨を選ぶ理由になりやすいことが明らかになりました。また、自然葬を行っているNPO法人「葬送の自由をすすめる会」の協力を得、自然葬を行った人々の追悼行為ついて遺族調査も行いました。その結果、遺族は従来の仏式の祭祀形態に必ずしもとらわれず、故人の意志を尊重し、その人らしさを大切にした追悼を行っていることが明らかになりました。従来の葬送形態の批判として行われることもある「生前葬」に関する調査結果も研究論文にまとめ、生前葬がその人らしい人生の最終章を飾る自己表現の一儀礼として行われていると論じました。

  • Comparative Gender Analysis of New Economy ; service, information and widening social gaps in aging societies

    Japan Society for the Promotion of Science  Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research

    Project Year :

    2002
    -
    2003
     

    OSAWA Mari, OGASAWARA Yuko, ROBERTS Glenda, TANAKA Kazuko, AIBA Keiko

     View Summary

    This research is a comparative gender analysis of the United Kingdom, Germany, United State and Japan regarding the changes in industrial and work organization which would have been produced as "New Economy" in an era of economic globalization. It is pointed out that although many have argued about "less hierarchical" and "more flexible" way of organization in industry and work, in fact various social gaps based on gender, class, ethnicity and knowledge have been expanding. Not only the elements of deregulation and privatization but also the elements of re-regulation and strengthening safety net should not be overlooked, in relation to a vector of the current reformation of regulation and welfare states, and these phenomena intersect gender relations. Above four countries have strong economic power in the world and make implicationally an excellent contrast each other. These four countries have different gender regimes in particular. The United States is most advanced in promoting women's working. Japan's gender regime seems that woman's domestic roles are the highest priority. This research has investigated and made clear whether gender regimes cross cutting welfare, industry and working and family have been converging or whether it has been diverging under a strong path dependency.Namely the public symposium "New Economy in a Global Era : Comparative Gender Analysis of US, Europe and Japan" was held at University of Tokyo on September 3, 2002 to exchange opinions regarding the concepts of this research with scholars as well as citizens outside of the research group. The results of the symposium were published in the special issue "Transnational Feminism" in "Gendai Sisou" Vol.31 No.1 (January 2003). Workshops with overseas co-investigators were held in the University of Bremen at the end of September, 2003 and in Japan at the beginning of March,2004. In order to widely disseminate the results of this research to the society, the public symposium "New Economy in a Global Era : Comparative Gender Analysis of US, Europe and Japan II" (the 18th UT-ISS Symposium) at the University of Tokyo on March 4, 200

  • 「ニュー・エコノミー」の比較ジェンダー分析−高齢社会のサービス化、情報化と格差問題

    Project Year :

    2002
    -
    2003
     

  • Female migrant workers in Coastal China : Employment and Lifestyles

    Japan Society for the Promotion of Science  Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research

    Project Year :

    1999
    -
    2001
     

    TAJIMA Junko, ROBERTS Glenda S., SHU Hao Yan

     View Summary

    The objective of this research was to compare aspects of female migrant workers' employment and lifestyles in the coastal areas of China, under differing management regimes. In particular, the research took up three electronics firms in Guangdong Province, comparing and discussing the employment and conditions of female migrant workers, using data from our interviews and questionnaire surveys. We summarize our findings as follows :1. From the perspective of management, Firm A in Shenzhen exhibited a stable pattern of management with several Japanese features. They had created a system that enabled a stable procurement of middle managers and in-firm stratification. They had achieved a stable growth throughout the firm. Firm B's management pursued change. Relying increasingly on local labor for their resources, they employed a management style befitting the cultures and practices of the locality and achieved increased productivity from their female workers. Company C exhibited an extended expansion pattern and makes use of 'transnational' human resources, carrying out cost savings by making use of favorable tax policies through reliance on joint-venture production.2. In terms of employment, Firm A mainly utilized a three-shift system with daily work. Firms B and C employed two-shift systems with overtime. There was a median gap of 200 yuan in the pay, and wages were a significant factor in workers' job satisfaction insofar as the workers' ability could be demonstrated through the wage. Overtime encroached on the length of free time, and we could discern slight differences among firms vis a vis the acquisition of a new knowledge of leisure and the evaluation of the migrant worker lifestyle overall. In all, however, female migrant workers evaluated their experiences positively.3. When comparing these three firms in terms of gender and perceptions of inequality between men and women, there were significant differences between Firm B and the other two firms as regards pay and bonus, but on other aspects, we could not necessarily see a significant difference. However, in Firm A where we could directly compare male and female workers, there was a significant difference in type of occupation, of which we could say in itself demonstrated a division of labor by sex

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Misc

  • Women in motion: Globalization, state policies, and Labor migration in Asia

    Glenda S. Roberts

    CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY-A JOURNAL OF REVIEWS   35 ( 5 ) 533 - 534  2006.09

    Book review, literature introduction, etc.  

Other

  • I would be...

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    I would be glad to meet with those engaged in similar research to my own.

  • I would be glad to meet with those engaged in similar research to my own.

 

Syllabus

 

Overseas Activities

  • Comparing well-being and work/life balance of women in France with those in Japan and Germany など

    2017.09
    -
    2018.08

    USA   East-West Center and U. Hawaii

    France   EHESS

  • Migrant workers and Caregiving

    2006.08
    -
    2007.09

    アメリカ   ハワイ大学

    アメリカ   イエール大学

Sub-affiliation

  • Affiliated organization   Global Education Center

  • Faculty of Social Sciences   Graduate School of Social Sciences

Internal Special Research Projects

  • The Work, Family and Care Nexus in Paris and Tokyo through and beyond Covid-19: A qualitative study

    2023   Costantini, Hiroko

     View Summary

    These are tentative findings: I used snowball sampling tointerview one psychologist, one social association volunteer, and five managersin firms, to understand their perspectives on how people in Paris managedthrough and after the Coronavirus pandemic, and whether there had been lastingeffects. It appears that elderly people in particular were affectedby the pandemic, not only by way of their increased mortality rate, but also,they seem to have been more affected by the fear of becoming ill. Their social circleshave shrunk, and remain so, even now.The use of the term ‘boomers’ pejoratively, illustrates anew perception that the older generation sacrificed the younger generations bythe pandemic lockdown policy.The pandemic was also extremely isolating for people whowere incarcerated, as they were forbidden to have any visitors at all, andsocial activities in prisons were curtailed. Those with cognitive problems suchas dementia also faced difficulties since they could not understand the reasonsbehind the regulations, and they fought against them.The largest change in firms since COVID has been theallowance of teleworking two days per week. This continues for all non-manual,non-service workers.&nbsp; It is very popular.&nbsp;

  • Gender Equality and the Work, Family and Care Nexus in Paris and Tokyo under Covid-19: A qualitative study

    2022   Costantini, Hiroko

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    This brief trip to Paris allowed me to re-start my project on the nexus of work, family and care in Paris and Tokyo, which I had begun in 2018.&nbsp; We have already produced one research article from our 2018-2020 data, but when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, I felt it would be significant to re-interview the people from the original study, as well as to increase the study with new participants, in order to understand how urban professionals have fared during and after the pandemic.&nbsp; The three interviews I performed in this trip confirmed that Covid had indeed had an important impact, making me eager to continue with this study.

  • Gender Equality and the Work Family and Care Nexus Post-Covid: A qualitative study of families in Paris and Tokyo

    2022   Costantini, Hiroko

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    As I was able to spend a full six weeks working on the project, in the end I interviewed 21 new people in Paris including 5 couples, and 17 re-interviews, including 2 couples.The interviews took place in the people's residences, cafés, my home or their offices. I was able to expand the survey to more people who work in less lucrative professions, such as teacher or pilates instructor.&nbsp; In addition, I was able to talk with some people who were of migrant background, including Muslim families.&nbsp; These interviews were particularly interesting, because their perceptions of the pandemic and their handling of it were somewhat different from those of others, and I felt that their position in French society affected their everyday practices considerably.As there has been no time yet to analyze my findings, I can only give impressions these interviews left with me.&nbsp; I will mention these below:&nbsp;--level of income affected choices of urban or countryside living during the pandemic.-- there were varying levels of trust in the government's policies on the pandemic.&nbsp;-- parents felt that the educations of their children were compromised due to the pandemic. In particular they referred to early elementary school children and adolescents who were preparing for college entrance.-- as a result of the pandemic, remote work has been well entrenched in France, and welcomed heartily by many people.--Many felt that they cherished the time spent with family during lockdowns.

  • Life as a Project: Japan's Urban Salarywomen, their Lives and Careers under Covid 19

    2021  

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    From the iseven qualitative nterviews I was able to conduct, in this current phase of the project. I learned that for the most part, my interviewees fared well during the pandemic.&nbsp; They were able to carry out their work duties from their homes.&nbsp; Since they are older now, they did not have small children to take care of during the day.&nbsp; This meant that they could continue their work uninterrupted.&nbsp; In fact, some of them preferred having a home office rather than going to the company every day. It saved them time and energy.&nbsp; The only negative factor has been a downturn in the company's fortunes since sales of their products have been affected by the supply chain problems and border closings during the pandemic.To the best of my knowledge, none of my interviewees have become ill nor were their families affected.&nbsp; Some of them have reached retirement age but are continuing on at the company for another five years.&nbsp; Others are anticipating retirement and planning what to do with themselves afterward. I am impressed with their energetic plans.&nbsp;&nbsp;Many of my interviewees have seen their hard work vis a vis their children's educations come to fruition. Some of the children have entered very prestigious universities, while others have now found stable employment.&nbsp; Some children have married, and there are now grandchildren.&nbsp; All of this I will be analyzing and writing up in the future.&nbsp;&nbsp;

  • Women, Work and Family in the 21st Century: A Comparison between Japanese and French.

    2019   Umegaki-Costantini, Hiroko

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    This research concerns how middle-class families in Paris and Tokyo balance their working lives and their family lives in contemporary society.&nbsp; While the societies are quite different in many respects, they also have points in common--they are both post-modern democracies, both have high rates of education for women and a substantial presence of women in employment, and both experienced demographic decline in more recent years.&nbsp; France, however, though government policy that emphasizes thick support for families, has managed to stave the sharp decline in the birth rate, while Japan has not taken this route and is still confronted with a very low birthrate.&nbsp; Our research, is an anthropological study, based on narrative in-depth interviews of middle and upper-middle class working men and women in Paris and Tokyo.&nbsp; It asks these families how they manage their everyday schedules, who takes care of the family, how their relatives and partners are involved, what sorts of services they use from the government and their satisfaction with that, and their conception of the family and the couple, and their hopes for their futures.&nbsp; We are currently writing an academic paper based on our analysis from these cases.

  • Inclusion and integration of diversity: Employers, newcomer migrant workers, and their communities in Japan

    2018  

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    This research involved directly contacting the stakeholders in the system of Technical Interns and Trainees in the area of farming, and hearing from them how they manage the current system and how they envision the new system of tokutei ginou&nbsp; as it comes into place in the next years.We studied Aichi and Kyoto prefectures, because they are two of the prefectures that exhibited a great deal of interest in utilizing new systems of labor to support agricultural innovation.&nbsp; We are interested in how foreign labor has been utilized up until now, and how they will be incorporated into the local societies in the future. Hence, social inclusion is a key word of this project.&nbsp;&nbsp;With the assistance of an RA, I was able to make three trips to Kyoto and Nagoya in order to assess the current situation.&nbsp; We interviewed JA officials in Nagoya City, Kyoto, as well as a local JA office, and we also interviewed one official at the Kyoto Prefectural Agricultural office. We participated in a farmers' meeting in one local area, and on a separate occasion, visited several farms there and spoke with the owners about their operations.We also spoke with some of the Technical Interns and Trainees, and saw the lodgings of some of them. Furthermore, we were able to do participant observation at a weekly meeting of one of the Japanese language learning workshops, held in that locale in the evening.&nbsp;

  • Women, Work and Family in the 21st Century: A Comparison between Japanese and French.

    2018   Umegaki-Costantini, Hiroko

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    This research project seeks to understand familyorganization and social change in the 21st century, especially inregard to work/life balance, gender roles, and caregiving.&nbsp; With this fund from Waseda University in2018, with the collaboration of Professor Hiroko Umegaki-Costantini who alsosecured research funds from her university, Sciences-Po, I was able to make substantialprogress on the research.&nbsp; The Frenchside of the research ended in May last year when we completed 30 researchinterviews with men and women who had at least one child under the age of 18. &nbsp;&nbsp;Dr.Umegaki-Costantini of Sciences-Po and I wrote a preliminary researchpresentation based on our study, presenting it at the Historical Demographyseminar of Professor Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux of the EHESS, in May 2018. Preliminary findings indicate that although the French have more social supports for work/life balance, it remains a problem in their family lives.&nbsp;&nbsp;We received excellent feedback whichencouraged us to look further into social class aspects of work/life balanceand care. Hence I plan to take another trip to Paris in the next phase of thisresearch in order to interview people of more varied socio-economicbackgrounds. I also presented this research to the faculty of GSAPS when Ireturned from my sabbatical leave in September, 2018.

  • Women, Work and Well-being in the 21st Century: Effects of Diverse Life Courses at Home and in the Labor Market

    2017   Umegaki-Costantini, Hiroko

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    This project fund has allowed me to develop and pursue the French side of this research while I am resident in Paris during my sabbatical leave.&nbsp;&nbsp;The funds have paid for honorarium for interpreters to accompany myself and one other collaborative researcher as we interview French dual-earner families about their work/life balance and well-being, focusing on issues of the household division of labor, carework by and for the older generations, the social welfare network that supports work-life balance, the corporate or other work environment that supports or detracts from work/life balance, as well as couple's attitudes toward bearing and rearing children, and the meaning of family today.&nbsp;&nbsp;I first discussed with my collaborator, Dr. Hiroko Umegaki of Sciences Po in Paris, about her interest in carrying this out as a joint project. She has done a Ph.D. dissertation from Cambridge University on the role of grandparents in the family.&nbsp; Hence she was interested in pursuing especially the question of intergenerational care in families of dual earners in Paris. We began the project in December by finding the interpreters ard readying the resume and fiche in both languages for the interviews.&nbsp; We began the interviews in January 2018 and had finished 18 by the end of February. We are continuing the project until we reach thirty informants, but Dr. Umegaki's funds will cover the rest of the interviews.&nbsp;&nbsp;To date we have found that the French have far more flexibility in achieving work and life balance than their Japanese counterparts.This is not particularly surprising, given the high level of government support for childbearing and rearing, and the lower working hours.&nbsp; We find the range of how they think about family, and how women think about work and their own sense of liberation and independence, to be quite striking..&nbsp; It is too early to give definitive findings, but we will be doing fieldwork on the project until the end of April 2018 and expect to carry out analyes over the coming two years.

  • Urban Salarywomen in Japan:A Longitudinal Study

    2017  

     View Summary

    The Special Project research grant for 2017 allowed me to re-interview the women in my Salarywomen dataset and to have those interviews professionally transcribed. Although the fund was insufficient to transcribe all of the interviews, I will be able to use my personal research funds to finish the remaining transcriptions in April of 2018. This will be in time for the remainder of my sabbatical leave, which I will spend at the East-West Center and the University of Hawaii, in the summer months.&nbsp; There I will spend my time in analysis and writing up of this interview data.&nbsp;&nbsp;By way of preliminary results, what I can say I have found from this most recent set of interviews is interesting material on women's evolution of their self concept as they age. Some have taken on increased responsibilities as managers in their firms, while another has become a manager after a long wait and much perseverence.&nbsp; Children are growing up and moving on to senior high school and university; life projects such as rebuilding a house are achieved, parents age apace, while some have passed away.&nbsp; As well, my informants themselves are aging and sense their age. Their doctors warn them of gaining weight, and caution them to get more exercise, which many of them take to heart. At least two of my informants have lost a significant amount of weight and say that they feel much better.&nbsp;&nbsp;In addition, some of the women are now thinking about what to do in retirement, and are honing their outside interests, such as jazz piano or other arts, which they plan to continue when they retire.My current sabbatical leave allows me the time to analyze this data and to write about these women's lives. I am currently writing an article which looks at how women sustain marriage in middle-age whilst they continue with their fulltime, regular employment.

  • Leaning Out for the Long Run:Japan's Urban 'Salarywomen' and Well-being

    2015   Roberts, Glenda

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    This was the final year of my research project on salarywomen, until the next time I perform the longitudinal interviews on this data set of 15 married women with children, who have been working continuously at Naruse Corporation since they began their employment after finishing their final year of education.In this set of interviews, I concentrated on asking these women about their promotions and their attitudes toward promotion. &nbsp;I did this because I wanted to understand how they are situated in regard to Prime Minister Abe's efforts to increase the numbers of women promoted to management in corporations. All of the women in my data set are now in their forties at the youngest, so all of them have spent many years in their firm. Hence one would expect that they have all been promoted by now. &nbsp;Yet this turned out not to be the case. &nbsp;While some have been promoted, others remained behind. &nbsp;Why?The answer is complex, but it is rooted in the difficulties of being the primary caretakers of children while holding down a career job. &nbsp;While there was one employee who had become a manager at a relatively early age, she was able to do so because her own mother took on a large share of the care work at home. &nbsp;Other women also became managers, but this tended to happen after their forties, when the children were at least junior high or high-school age, and no longer needed as much attention from their mothers. &nbsp;While promotions were rewarding for these women, they also entailed new responsibilities and hence, more workload. &nbsp;Although salaries did not increase much from promotions, they noted that their pensions would increase significantly. &nbsp;The women who did not yet have promotions could be divided into three groups--those who wanted promotion yet were thwarted, those who were conflicted about it, and those who did not desire a promotion. &nbsp;In a paper I wrote on this, I discuss three of the women who exemplify these three typologies.The person who wanted the promotion yet who could not have it yet was an interesting case, as she had taken advantage of the company's generous system for childcare leave, as well as accompanying her spouse at the time of his transfer to the US. &nbsp;When she returned to her position, she was unable to be promoted, even though she felt she had worked hard and deserved it. &nbsp;Instead, the firm offered her extra educational courses. She appreciated this, but she really wanted to be promoted. &nbsp;From her example we learn of the problems women can face if they actually make use of the flexible family friendly policies that firms offer.The person who was conflicted still had three small children and a husband who worked very long hours. She loved her job, but she also wanted to spend time with her children. She knew that if she were promoted, she would not be able to spend the time with them that she wanted to spend. Even with her current job, she was unable to spend enough quality time with them. She even developed depressive symptoms twice because of the time dilemmas she faced. &nbsp;She was hoping that her husband would be sent abroad, so that she could take a leave to accompany of him and be released from the time crunch she was experiencing at Naruse.The person who did not want promotion was too busy with her children, always put them first, and was adament that that was her priority. &nbsp;She liked her job and she was a very good worker, but for her, foremost came her family. &nbsp;We can learn from this that many women will not desire promotion until corporations provide more reasonable hours of work, for both men and women.I presented the paper at the Asian Studies conference in Paris in September 2015. I will further rework the paper and hope to send it out for publication in the coming months.I am grateful to this grant for the opportunity to continue work on my salary women data set.

  • Japan's Urban 'Salarywomen' and Well-being: A Longitudinal Study

    2014   Roberts, Glenda

     View Summary

    In 2014 I finished the interviews of salarywomen at Naruse company (pseudonym), and had all of the interview data transcribed. &nbsp;The next goal will be analysis and writing up of this project.Across eleven years of engagement with these salarywomen, I have observed many interesting developments in their lives as workers and as wives and mothers. &nbsp;All of the women I interviewed seem determined to stay employed at the firm, if they have not already left. .Some women and their husbands have placed their children into private junior or senior high schools, and some children are also now enrolled in university, or graduated and trying to find their way in the difficult job market. &nbsp;Some of my respondents are actively trying to have their children become internationally savvy. They are having them learn English, or enrolling them in summer homestay programs. My oldest respondent has also had one of her children marry recently, to a man with a foreign ethnic background--another harbinger of a more multiethnic, cosmopolitan Japan. Children's illnesses have also been encountered. One woman has had to ask the firm for flexibility in regard to her schedule as one of her children now has a serious chronic illness.Another major foci of this round of interviews was intimacy with marital partners. &nbsp;I have found that most of the women in my data set, who are in the prime years of their lives, &nbsp;no longer have nor desire intimate relations with their spouses. I need to read further in the literature to make sense of this finding. &nbsp;&nbsp;I also looked into attitudes toward promotion. Most women do not desire promotion until their children are grown, as they wish to concentrate on rearing them rather than to put in late hours and weekends at the firm. &nbsp;This suggests that Prime Minister's 'womenomics' strategy may have difficulties being implemented if firms do not change their practices of overtime and long hours.

  • Japan's Urban 'Salarywomen' and Well-being: A Longitudinal Study

    2013  

     View Summary

    In the summer of 2013 I was able to contact the Naruse Corporation (pseudonym) and ask for permission to begin this next rendition of the qualitative project on salarywomen that I have been carrying out periodically since 2003. The company response was favorable, and they noted that from now on, they gave me permission to contact the women in my data set whenever I like, directly, without having to go through the personnel department, since this is a well-established project and they understand I am careful with my informants' privacy concerns. By the time I received their reply, however, it was too late to begin interviews, so I had to wait until the fall semester. I was able to contact and hold interviews with nine of the women in my data set before March 5,2014, by which time the research fund had to be used up. These interviews have now all been transcribed by a professional transcription company, and I will perform the analysis this summer, after I have finished interviews with the remaining five women, whom I plan to meet by the middle of July. There have been important changes in the lives of these women since I last spoke with them. We had in-depth conversations about their ideas on their careers and difficulties and challenges with work, their ideas about promotion, their ideas about retirement and possible other activities they would like to pursue, issues with caring for aging family members, intimacy with their partners, plans for their children (school entrance and graduation, upcoming marriage, etc), and discussions about how they spend their private time. It has been very rewarding to meet and have these conversations again, and I look forward to the analysis stage of this study. Aside from the interviews and transcriptions, the research fund also partially supported my travel to the Association for Asian Studies Conference in Philadelphia, March 26-29, 2014, where I Chaired a panel on the last day, about career women in East Asia. The panel was well attended and the exchange of information stimulating.

  • Women's Re-employment and Home life in Japan

    1998  

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    Thank to the funding provided from the Special Projects Research Fund, I was able to have ten interview tapes from this project transcribed by a student assistant. It took the student assistant longer than planned to finish transcribing the tapes, so analysis is not yet final. But I can tentatively say I found the interviews highly interesting. I came away from these interviews with a strong notion of the difficulties women face when once they leave their regular employment to marry or give birth. Several women mentioned to me that they would not have quit their first jobs had they known how difficult it would be to find another well-paying job in the future. Yet they could not see how they could possibly balance the long hours and fast pace of their jobs with lives as wives and mothers, so they quit. These interviewees were uniformly well-educated and some were in upper-middle income brackets. Nevertheless, the women interviewed strongly desired to become re-employed, even at part-time menial jobs because they wanted to be out in and contributing to society, and staying home with the children was not sufficiently fulfilling. In fact, two of the women I interviewed had at periods engaged as salespeople of yogurt drinks and put their infants in public daycare to do so, despite high household income. Their husbands were somewhat supportive of their desire to work, although they also worried about how this might affect the children. Most of the men did little of the childcare or household chores during the week, as their long hours on the job prohibited it, but they did quite a lot of weekend family work. The men I spoke with noted they had no objections to their wives taking on equal financial responsibility for the household, but it was unrealistic to expect this since they had already quit their first jobs, and the husband himself could make a much higher income than the wife could ever hope to earn. They felt constrained against putting more time in on household work because their jobs were so demanding of them. One woman noted her husband did not like taking care of his children and was adept at it, but she insisted on it and after time passed, he become much better at handling them. In other words, parenting is learned, not innate. Both men and women looked to the government to provide decent daycare for children and after-school care as well as community programs for children too old for after-school care but not fully self-sufficient. Re-employment and training programs sponsored by the government were also looked upon favorably. I noted in my proposal I would attend the conference "Work and Family: Today's Realities and Tomorrow's Visions" sponsored by Wellesley College and the Sloan Foundation, and I did. I learned a great deal about how corporations in the United States are creating work/life policies to help their employees integrate their working and personal lives. Such policies include flex-time, telecommuting, reduced hours for regular staff, leaves of absence, compressed work week, various kinds of family leave, job sharing, and child/eldercare referral or assistance. Researchers have found that the biggest problems in implementation of these policies center around work culture where middle managers want workers to be present, and "face-time" is more important than actual productivity. Another problem is that these policies tend to be understood as policies for women, who have the responsibility for household and children. Men are discouraged from making use of them. This further entrenches the gendered division of labor in the United States. I came away from the conference wondering if work/life policies would have helped Japanese women to remain at their career jobs rather than quit and have to deal with the difficulties of the re-employment market.Results After the conference, I visited the headquarters of an American multi-national financial services firm that has branches in Japan. This firm is currently implementing work/life policies in its Japanese branches. I obtained permission to study this process and I have also applied to the Citibank Behavioral Sciences Research Council for funding to carry out the pilot project. I will hear in June whether or not I have been successful in this competition. In March I travelled to Purdue University in Indiana to begin working on a paper with a colleage there who is in Political Science and Women's Studies. She and I collaborated last summer in looking at some day-care initiatives of the Angel Plan, and I am using some of the material from the Special Projects research. The co-authored paper concerns changing notions of gender in Japan and the US, with reference to government policy on family leave and childcare. We will submit this paper to the Social Science Japan Journal of the University of Tokyo later this year. Last, in January 1999 I gave a talk at Meiji Gakuin University about the Wellesley conference and how I see it fitting into the situation in Japanese workplaces. I remain committed to this line of research inquiry, and plan to continue it.

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