<ARTICLES>Precarious Employment and the Transformation of the Japanese Labor Market (1980s-2010s)

Abstract

The dual labor market in Japan is depicted as having evolved from inequalities between a core and stable working force in large firms, and a peripheral one in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to inequalities between regular and non-regular workers, both in large firms and SMEs. In other words, working in a large firm is no longer a sufficient condition to earn a stable and high income. This article examines the permanence and evolutions of the Japanese labor market between the 1980s and 2010s, by shedding light on the mechanisms causing the increase of new forms of precarious employment. It especially shows that two major factors explain the diversification of the employment forms, while the primary labor market kept stable. First, many nonregular workers are employed in four main service industries, at the expense of regular employees. Second, large firms started to hire non-regular workers in the 2000s, which in turn became a new layer of the working population, which can be depicted as a semiperipheral labor force.