Salary Men

Abstract

In contemporary Japanese society the term salary men refers mainly to white‐collar elites in multinational corporations (who represent approximately 20 percent of the total working population). As described in Beck and Beck'sA Change of a Lifetime(1994) salary men constitute a managerial class that occupies the top stratum of the business community and is accorded high status in society. Its members have almost exclusively obtained degrees from Japan's most prestigious universities. However, in practice, a wider use of and flexible self‐identification with the term is common. The term can therefore refer to both non‐elite white‐collar and occasionally blue‐collar workers. Such flexible usage is made possible by Japan's industrial structure – thekeiretsusystem – which links large corporations to medium‐sized and small subcontracting firms. The combination of English terms is used to signify, literally, a worker whose firm guarantees him a salaried income.