Occupational Segregation by Education and Gender in Japan: Focusing on Employment Status and Marital Status

This chapter describes occupational segregation in contemporary Japanese society by gender and education in detail focusing on employment status and marital status. The non-linear association between attributes/education and occupational status was analyzed using anonymized data from the Employment Status Surveys in 1992, 1997, 2002, and 2007. The Analysis using employment status is very important to understand occupational gender segregation in Japan because women tend to work as non-regular workers. The analysis showed that the occupational structure was maintained from the perspective of the relationship with attributes, and gender factors were relatively important for occupational segregation after the 2000s. The analysis using minor occupational group and employment status confirmed that occupational segregation by gender is strong even among highly educated individuals. Even when marital status was considered, the effects of gender and educational level were pronounced in the correspondence between occupational status and attributes. The analyses in this chapter indicated that there is a large effect of life events on employment careers, but also that women are segregated into unfavorable occupational statuses (occupational type, employment status) since the beginning of their careers. Due to changes in the 2000s, however, unmarried men in their 20s began to occupy a position in the labor market that was close to that of women.