Education and Early Career since the 1990s : A Comparative Study

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This study aims to clarify how the relation of education to early career formation has been changing for men and women since the mid-1990s in Japan, based on quantitative analysis of JGSS-2009 Life Course Survey data. The results of study are as follows : From the late 1990s onward, there are indications that the system supporting the Baby Boomer generation was in deadlock. The once highly standardized life course of Japanese women has diversified into multiple paths in the 20s of age : full-time employment, non-regular employment and not working. The tendency has been intensified that married wives are not working while unmarried women are working. It is also evident that early careers of young men have been unstable. The ratio of non-regular employment among young males has been rising and more college-educated men of young birth cohort tend to experience the unemployed time over the life course after graduation of college. In addition, analyzing the relations between social class backgrounds and the chance of going to university reveals that father' education more strongly influences one's chance of having university education after the late 1990s, when opportunities of higher education have been rapidly expanding. These findings, comparing with the life course changes in other advanced countries, suggest that the once dominant system of Japanese life course called as family-oriented has been"shrinking"rather than shifting toward another system. The panel survey following up respondents of JGSS-2009 Life Course survey will be planned in 2012-13. About 900 respondents of that survey agreed to be interviewed.