Research on Employment and Social Security System in 21st Century

在21^<st>世纪，女性劳动力的利用是老龄化社会经济发展和社会保障体系得以维持的关键。与此同时，为了降低劳动成本，提高在全球经济中的竞争力，日本的非标准工作安排也在扩大。本研究探讨了非标准工作安排在经济中的扩散过程、原因，以及非标准工作安排的增加对工作保障、工资和福利的影响。研究发现，非标准工作安排的增长是一种需求驱动的现象，因为企业降低劳动力成本的压力是企业改变正式员工和非正式员工最优组合、增加非正式员工的主要原因，这是因为企业不必为大多数非正式员工支付基于资历的工资、社会保险和失业保险。在劳动力老龄化的今天，这种成本节约尤为重要。同时，必须认识到已婚妇女需要从事非全时工作，以协调家庭义务与工作之间的竞争需求。因此，我们建议创造正规的全职工作，使工人能够选择灵活的工作时间表，以便平衡工作和家庭生活，增加妇女教育投资的回报，刺激经济增长和增加政府财政。

In the 21^<st> century, utilization of women workers is the key for economic development and maintaining social security system in the aging society. At the same time, growth of non-standard work arrangements is expanding in Japan in order to reduce labor costs and foster competitiveness in the global economy.This research examines how the growth of non-standard work arrangements proliferated in the economy, why this is happening, and what are the consequences of the growth of non-standard work arrangement in terms of job security, wages and benefits. It is found that the growth of non standard work arrangements is a demand driven phenomenon because the pressure to reduce labor costs is the primary reason why firms change the optimum mix of regular and non-regular workers and increase non-regular workers.This is because companies do not have to pay seniority-based wages and social security and unemployment premiums for most of the non-regular workers. This cost saving is especially important at a time when the labor force is aging.At the same time, it is important to recognize the need for married women to work part-time in order to reconcile the competing demands between family obligations and work. Thus we propose to create regular full-time jobs which enable workers to choose flexible work schedules in order to balance work and family life, increase the return on women's educational investments, stimulate economic growth and augment government finances.