Abstract
The author conducted semi-structured interviews of 10 couples in which both spouses worked full-time jobs in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area and at least one spouse took childcare leave. The subjects were born in the 1960s and early 1970s. The results show how difficult it was to continue working full-time while raising a child, how they coped with this difficulty, how childcare leave and the childcare-break system helped them, and how they changed through their experience of this hard time. The difficulty lies in long working hours, an unfavourable workplace atmosphere, and limitations on their nursery use. Couples adopted various strategies to cope with these difficulties; adjusting their work pattern, reducing housework, calling on help from relatives, and so on. The childcare leave and childcare-break system are mostly regarded as helpful, but some pointed out defects. Couples negotiated with each other, seeking better arrangement. These experiences brought about changes in their attitudes, especially with the greater priority they placed on family life. Some said that having children limited their work capacity in some respects though being with them is priceless. Some talked about the needs for a ‘decent track’ in which they are free from the penalties of being parents.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The Labour Policy Council of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare reviewed the current Act on Temporary Measures Concerning the Promotion of Reduced Working Hours—which aims to uniformly reduce employed labour hours down to 1800 per year—and submitted a recommendation on December 17, 2004 stating that the work hours should be set based on ‘considerations for individual’s health and life’. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare plans to revise the law based on recommendations, and lay out a new set of guidelines—issue-specific measures such as utilising various systems to encourage people working long hours to take paid vacations, or measures to delay the start of work on Mondays and the days after holidays so that employees who have to relocate away from their family for work can spend enough time with their family, and so on—that can be used as references.
- 2.
There is also an idea suggesting that not only children, but also their parents, develop in childrearing. Galinsky (1987) conducted an interview survey of 228 parents and arrived at the six-stage model of parenthood. The six stages are ‘Image-Making Stage’ (during pregnancy), ‘Nurturing Stage’ (from childbirth to the child’s second year), and so on.
- 3.
- 4.
Some local governments set an original standard that is almost equivalent to that of the national government, with some exceptions such as whether it includes school grounds, etc. Nurseries that meet the local government’s standards are qualified by the local government. All of the subject couples left their children with nurseries that were either licensed by the national government or qualified by their local government.
- 5.
Many use ‘mommy’, whereas some did ‘mummy’. For example, Eikhof (2012) uses the latter.
References
Barnett, Rosalind C. 1996. Toward a review of the work/family literature. Boston, MA: Wellesley College Center for Research on Women.
Bigner, Jerry J. 1994. Individual and family development: a life-span interdisciplinary approach. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
De Klerk, Marissa, Alewyn Nel Jan, and Elleen Koekomoer. 2012. Positive side of the work-family interface: A theoretical review. Journal of Psychology in Africa 22(4): 683–694.
Demerouti, Evangelia, Maria C.W. Peeters, and Beatrice I.J.M. van der Heijden. 2012. Work-family interface from a life and career stage perspective: the role of demands and resources. International Journal of Psychology 47(4): 241–258.
Duvall, Evelyn Millis, and Brent C. Miller. 1985. Marriage and family development (6th ed). New York: Harper & Row.
Eikhof, Doris Ruth. 2012. A double-edged sword: twenty-first century workplace trends and gender equality. Gender in Management: An International Journal 27(1): 7–22.
Erikson, Janet Jacob, Giuseppe Martinengo, and E. Jeffrey Hill. 2010. Putting work and family experiences in context: differences by family life stage. Human Relations 63(7): 955–979.
Fukumaru, Yuka. 2000. Tomobataraki setai-no fufu-niokeru tajuyakuwari-to yokuutsudo-no kanren (Relationships between multiple roles of dual-career couples and depression). Kazoku Shinrigaku Kenkyu (The Japanese Journal of Family Psychology) 14(2): 151–162 (in Japanese).
Galinsky, Ellen. 1987. The Six stages of parenthood. Reading, MA: Da Capo.
Greenhaus, Jeffrey. 2008. Innovations in the study of the work-family interface: Introduction to the special section. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 81: 343–348.
Kanai, Atsuko. 2010. Hataraku josei-no kyaria-toranjishion (Career transition among working women). Nihon Rodo Kenkyu Zassi (The Monthly Journal of the Japan Institute of Labour) 603: 44–53 (in Japanese).
Kato, Yoko. 2010. Waku Famiri Konfurikuto-no Taisho Purosesu (The coping process of Work-family Conflict). Kyoto: Nakanishiya Shuppan (in Japanese).
Lewin, Tamar. 1989. ‘Mommy Career Track’ sets off a furor. New York Times, March 8: A18.
Nicholson, Nigel. 1987. The transition cycle: a conceptual framework for the analysis of change and human resources management. Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management: A Research Annual 5: 209–264.
Schein, Edgar H. 1978. Career dynamics: matching individual and organizational needs. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Schnittger, Maureen H., and Gloria W. Bird. 1990. Coping among dual-career men and women across the family life cycle. Family Relations 39(2): 199–205.
Schwartz, Felice N. 1989. Management women and the new facts of life. Harvard Business Review 89(1): 65–76.
Senda, Yukiko. 2006. Shutoken-no tomobataraki fufu-ni okeru ‘work-family interface’: Ikujikyugyo shutokuchu, go-no 2-jiten-no intabyu chosa-wo motoni (The reality of work-family interface of dual career couples in the metropolitan areas: comparison of interview data taken during and after childcare leave period). In Shoshika-no Shinkyokumen-to Kazoku, Rodo Seisaku-no Taio-ni kansuru Kenkyu (Research on Policy Planning and Evaluation/Health Labour Sciences Research Grant (H14-Seisaku-029), ed. Takahashi, Shigesato, 82–95 (in Japanese).
Strober, Myra H., and Agnes Milling Kaneko Chan. 2001. The road winds uphill all the way: gender, work, and family in the United States and Japan. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Super, D.E. 1980. A life-span, life-space approach to career development. Journal of Vocational Behavior 16: 282–298.
Tanaka, Sigeto. 2003. Danjo kyodo sankaku shakai-no jitsugen kanousei: Seikatsu jikan deta-ni motozuku seisaku hyoka. Kikan Kakei Keizai Kenkyu 60: 48–56 (in Japanese).
Trost, Jan. 1974. This family life cycle: An impossible concept? International Journal of Sociology of the Family, 4, 37–47.
Voydanoff, Patricia. 2002. Linkages between the work–family interface and work, family, and individual outcomes. Journal of Family Issues 23: 138–164.
Williams, Kevin J., and George M. Alliger. 1994. Role stressors, mood spillover, and perceptions of work-family conflict in employed parents. Academy of Management Journal 37: 837–868.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Senda, Y. (2015). The Work-Family Interface: Balancing on a Knife’s Edge. In: Childbearing and Careers of Japanese Women Born in the 1960s. SpringerBriefs in Population Studies(). Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55066-2_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55066-2_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Tokyo
Print ISBN: 978-4-431-55065-5
Online ISBN: 978-4-431-55066-2
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)