Abstract
AbstractThe Japanese labour market has been regarded as ‘dualistic’ in terms of employment status (regular vs non‐regular). While it is true, this perspective misses recent changes in regular employment in terms of labour flexibility. The government has attempted labour market deregulation since the 1990s to increase the flexibility of not only non‐regular but also regular employment, and the labour market has become more diversified. Labour unions lack power resources to resist these neoliberal changes, however, because of their insufficient access to policy‐making, low union density and a lack of solidarity against the background of economic stagnation and competition under globalization.
Highlights
Against the background of economic stagnation after the collapse of the bubble economy in the early 1990s and intensified economic competition from neighbouring Asian countries, Japanese employers have attempted to reduce the number of regular workers who can benefit from seniority wages and job protection under lifetime employment (Goto 2011: 9–12; Nakano 2006: 61–6, 118–20)
It is true that labour market deregulation implemented by the LDP government from the 1990s was mostly aimed at non-regular employment, and the gap between relatively well-protected regular workers as insiders and poorly protected non-regular workers as outsiders can be identified, as scholars of labour market dualism have pointed out (Song 2012; Thelen and Kume 1999, 2006; Yun 2016)
When we examine recent changes in European labour market policies, we notice a number of non-liberal market economies relaxed the degree of employment protection by facilitating dismissal of regular workers, contrary to the theoretical expectation of a dualism perspective
Summary
Against the background of economic stagnation after the collapse of the bubble economy in the early 1990s and intensified economic competition from neighbouring Asian countries, Japanese employers have attempted to reduce the number of regular workers who can benefit from seniority wages and job protection under lifetime employment (Goto 2011: 9–12; Nakano 2006: 61–6, 118–20). It is true that labour market deregulation implemented by the LDP government from the 1990s was mostly aimed at non-regular employment, and the gap between relatively well-protected regular workers as insiders and poorly protected non-regular workers as outsiders can be identified, as scholars of labour market dualism have pointed out (Song 2012; Thelen and Kume 1999, 2006; Yun 2016) These scholars (including those with a ‘varieties of capitalism’ perspective) regard liberalization of the labour market in several ‘non-liberal’ market economies (such as Sweden, Germany and Japan, which differ among themselves in terms of unions’ policy-making access, the degree of centralization of collective bargaining, union density, the degree of labour mobilization and so on) as a process of ‘dualization’ (Emmenegger 2015; Emmenegger et al 2012: 9–17; Hassel 2014; Palier and Thelen 2010; Thelen 2009, 2014).
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