Jiyeoun Song

This article seeks to examine the rapid rise of labor market dualism and inequality in Japan and Korea. It argues that the path‐dependent trajectories of labor market and social protection reforms biased in favor of labor market insiders explain recent institutional developments in the two countries. In Japan, political coalitions between conservative policymakers, large firms, and core regular workers in reform politics consolidated labor market dualism and inequality during its protracted rece

Abstract This article analyzes the politics of foreign care worker policies in J apan, K orea and T aiwan. In the face of socio‐demographic challenges, these countries have responded differently to the increasing demand for hiring foreign care workers, creating distinct policies with respect to the origins of the foreign care workforce, the size of the foreign care workforce in the labour market, and job specifications. In this article, I argue that the interaction of female employment patterns,

This paper examines Japan's immigration policies during the Abe government. Japan has maintained its very restrictive immigration policies, especially for unskilled foreign workers, since the early 1990s. But despite Japan's reluctance to open its doors to unskilled foreign workers, the Abe government drastically shifted its policy position toward expanding the employment of unskilled foreign workers through the revision of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law in 2018. This paper

The past several decades have seen widespread reform of labor markets across advanced industrial countries, but most of the existing research on job security, wage bargaining, and social protection is based on the experience of the United States and Western Europe. In Inequality in the Workplace, Jiyeoun Song focuses on South Korea and Japan, which have advanced labor market reform and confronted the rapid rise of a split in labor markets between protected regular workers and underprotected and

Over the past two decades Korea and Japan have experienced a rapid inflow of foreign population into their homogeneous societies. Despite their many similarities in immigration control policies, Korea and Japan have differed in their politics of immigrant incorporation. Korea's central government has instituted policies that favor female marriage migrants and children of international marriages, while Japan's local governments have initiated policies for a wide range of foreign residents in thei

This article analyzes Japan's labor market reform in response to its protracted recession, focusing on the institutional configuration of policymaking. It argues that although the centralization of decision-making authority bypassed bureaucracy-led policymaking, policy coordination with coalition partners and political compromise with opposition parties prevented across-the-board labor market deregulation in Japan.

In this article, I analyze diverging political pathways of labor market reform with an empirical focus on the cases of Japan and Korea. Despite similar trends of regulatory reform toward the increase of labor market flexibility, the patterns of labor market reform differed in the two countries. Japan adopted labor market liberalization for nonregular workers with the persistence of employment protection for regular workers. In contrast, Korea opted for regulatory reform for all workers while sim

The widening economic gap between J apan's major urban centers and its rural regions has been regarded as one of the country's most serious political and social concerns since the early 2000s. This article examines the politics of regional inequality in J apan over the past decade, focusing on the driving force of the growing divide between the urban and rural economies and the strategies of political parties to redress the problem. In this article, I argue that the K oizumi cabinet's fiscal dec

Abstract Japan's labor market has been under severe strain over the past few decades, driven by its protracted economic recession, a series of labor market reforms, and changing labor management practices. Confronting these new challenges, an increasing number of young people have had extreme difficulties in searching for decent and stable jobs in the labor market, trapped in the vicious cycle of precarious employment. This paper examines the deterioration of employment and labor market conditio

아베 정부는 경제 활성화와 지속가능한 성장이라는 정책목표를 달성하기 위해 노동시장, 보육, 교육 중심의 성장전략을 선택하였다. 이는 일본이 직면한 저출산․고령화와 인구감소로 발생하는 노동력 부족을 해결하고 인재 만들기 혁명과 생산성 혁명을 통해 지속가능한 성장모델을 수립하고자 한 것이었다. 아베 정부의 성장전략은 이전 자유민주당 정부의 선택과도 상당한 차이가 있는데, 노동시장정책은 다양하고 유연한 고용조건과 근무형태를 도입하고 노동시장 불평등과 장시간 노동관행을 개선함으로써 노동시장에 적극적으로 참여하지 않았던 여성, 고령자 등 다양한 인적자원 활용을 목표로 하였다. 또한 보육정책과 교육정책은 미래의 인적자원에 대한 투자와 급변하는 산업구조와 생산시스템에 적응할 수 있는 새로운 인재양성에 중점을 두었다. 이러한 성장전략은 총리와 총리관저 주도의 중앙집중화된 정책결정과정을 통해 더욱 신속하고 포괄적으로 진행되었다.

This paper examines the development of publicly-funded social care programs in Japan and Korea, known as the “familistic” welfare state, over the past two decades. Despite the rapid expansion of social care programs funded by taxes and social insurance premiums, the delivery of social care services in the two countries has been mostly delegated to the private sector (including both non-profit and forprofit organizations), as opposed to the public sector. This paper argues that Japan and Korea ha

The past several decades have seen widespread reform of labor markets across advanced industrial countries, but most of the existing research on job security, wage bargaining, and social protection is based on the experience of the United States and Western Europe. This book focuses on South Korea and Japan, which have advanced labor market reform and confronted the rapid rise of a split in labor markets between protected regular workers and underprotected and underpaid nonregular workers. The t

With the strong policy goal of resuscitating Japan’s sluggish economy, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has advocated an increase in female employment as a core part of his ambitious economic revitalization strategy, a plan called “Abenomics.” This paper examines a series of Abe government’s policy initiatives for increasing female employment, ranging from the work and life balance programs and the government policy recommendations to the public and private sectors to the regulatory measures on diversi

Over the past few decades, Japan’s labour market has faced substantial changes, represented by flexibility, an increase in the proportion of the non-regular workforce and rising inequality. Under the intense pressure of fluctuating business environments and protracted recession, Japan’s policy-makers have sought to resuscitate the troubled economy by further liberalising the relationship between capital and labour while also seeking to reduce widening inequality by providing social safety nets a