The end of lifetime employment in Japan?: Evidence from national surveys and field research
The end of lifetime employment in Japan?: Evidence from national surveys and field research
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DOI：
10.1006/jjie.2001.0493
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发表时间：
2001-12-01
影响因子：
2.9
通讯作者：
Kato, T
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kato, T
本文利用来自全国调查的定量数据和我们最近实地研究的定性数据，为日本著名的终身雇佣制（或正式劳动力的隐性长期雇佣合同）最近的转变提供了证据。总的来说，与流行的终身制雇佣结束的说法相反，有证据表明这种做法在日本是持久的。具体来说，我们发现几乎没有证据表明，从20世纪80年代末泡沫经济破裂之前到泡沫后时期，日本员工的工作保留率有任何重大下降。总的来说，我们的实地研究证实了工作保留率的主要发现，生动地描述了日本的大公司一直试图通过严重依赖将员工转移到子公司和相关公司以及裁员来实现其重组和缩小规模的目标，从而避免裁员。最后，裁员的负担似乎不成比例地落在了年轻员工和任期较短的中年员工身上。
Using both quantitative data from national surveys and qualitative data from our recent field research, this paper provides evidence on the recent transformation of Japan's celebrated practice of lifetime employment (or implicit long-term employment contracts for the regular workforce). Overall, contrary to the popular rhetoric of the end of lifetime employment, evidence points to the enduring nature of this practice in Japan. Specifically, we find little evidence for any major decline in the job retention rates of Japanese employees from the period prior to the burst of the bubble economy in the late 1980s to the post-bubble period. In general, our field research corroborates the main finding from the job retention rates by describing vividly that large firms in Japan have been trying to accomplish their restructuring and downsizing targets by relying heavily on transfers of their employees to their subsidiaries and related firms and hiring cuts, thus avoiding layoffs. Last, the burden of downsizing appears to fall disproportionately on young workers and middle-age workers with shorter tenure.