Technical Innovations and Role of High School Graduate Workers:

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to clarify roles of high school graduate workers in Japan from the 1950s to the early 1960s. In particular, I address the following questions: Did high school graduate workers play the same roles as junior high school graduate workers in factories? And, if they played different roles, how were their roles different from those of junior high school graduate workers?In post-war Japan, high school enrollment ratio substantially went up, which led to the increase of high school graduate workers. High school graduates had worked as engineers and white-collars until the 1950s, while junior high school graduates had worked as skilled blue-collar workers. As a result of the increase of high school graduates, they came to be employed as blue-collar workers. The primary goal of this article is to reveal the impact of high school graduate workers on the production and working systems.To make clear the impact, first, I examine questionnaire surveys and other documents. From these surveys and documents, I derive two hypotheses: One hypothesis is that high school graduate workers were employed as substitutions of junior high school graduate workers and thus simply took same roles as junior high school graduate workers. The other hypothesis is that high school graduates contributed to the development of production systems as workers suitable for dealing with new technology, equipment or machines and thus had different roles from junior high school graduate workers.Then, I confirm those hypotheses using the data and reports by the University of Tokyo on three major companies; Hazama-gumi, Ishikawajima Heavy Industries, and Toyo Koatsu Kogyo. All investigations and reports for this study were made in the 1950s or the early 1960s. After examining these data and reports, I statistically analyze whether high school graduate workers had a positive impact on factory's production by using quantitative data. Finally, I make a concluding statement on roles of high school graduate workers and their impact on production systems.