Matahara: An Issue with a Larger Context

Japanese women often have to make a difficult choice: career or family? And when women attempt to do both, have a job and children, they are sometimes faced with anger and harassment at the hands of their employer. In recent years, the issue of maternity harassment, known more colloquially as “matahara”, has come to light in Japan. Matahara is the harassment of pregnant women in the workplace. The Issue: Maternity Harassment Despite being a developed nation, Japan is behind in terms of gender equality. The nation still adheres to conservative gender roles, expecting the women to rear children. Many Japanese employers are resistant to pregnancy amongst their female employees. Some view pregnant women as a drag on a company’s work, because the woman’s reduced workload or maternity leave puts more work on other employees. Subsequently, there are employers who deliberately ignore requests for reduced work, revoke titles, or sometimes even fire pregnant employees. This overt mistreatment of women appears quite illegal because it is. There are laws in Japan meant to protect women in the workforce. For example, the Labor Standards Act requires employers to give pregnant women lighter workloads if they ask for it. However, existence and enforcement are two different things. The Japanese government does not have a strong track record of enforcing such female non-discrimination legislation. As a consequence, Japanese women are facing tremendous pressure in the workplace and often resign their positions when they become pregnant. If they don’t resign, women must deal with unfair and often cruel working conditions, which unenforced laws fail to prevent. Approximately 60 percent of women in Japan opt for resignation after the birth of their first child. Yet, there are women who seek to maintain both a career and a family and fight back when confronted with those who work to keep them from that balance. The Voices: Speaking Out Against Matahara On June 24, victims of matahara spoke out at a press conference where they urged the government of Shinzo Abe, to address this maligned trend in the Japanese workplace. Yukari Nishihara was amongst the women who spoke at the event, recounting her experience with her employer ignoring her requests for less heavy lifting in her work as a caregiver. According to The Japan Times, Nishimara compared her employer’s treatment to “encouraging miscarriage”. Four other women discussed their experiences with matahara at the press conference, and many more women have unfortunately found themselves in similar situations. According to a survey conducted by the Japanese Trade Union Conference (JTUC), out of 626 respondents, 26.3 percent said they had experienced matahara themselves and 27.3 percent reported that they knew someone who had experienced it. This press conference was organized by Matahara Net, a Tokyo-based nonprofit dedicated to supporting victims of matahara, as well as educating the public on the issue. The organization is lead by Sayaka Osakabe, a 37 year old former magazine editor, who herself experienced matahara in the workplace. Osakabe suffered two miscarriages and when she asked her employer for a leave of absence if she became pregnant again, to ensure the safety of the pregnancy, she was denied. Osakabe was essentially told if she had a child, she didn’t have a job. She fought back against this discrimination in a labor tribunal and eventually reached a settlement. Since founding Matahara Net with two other victims, Osakabe has been an outspoken advocate for women’s rights and preventing matahara. This year, the U.S. Department of State gave Osakabe the International Women of Courage Award for her work to change the way families and women are treated in the Japanese workplace. Matahara Net has also achieved some success in combating maternity harassment in the workplace. Last October, Japan’s Supreme Court handed down a ruling in favor of a matahara victim, after she had both the Hiroshima District Court and Hiroshima High Court dismiss her claims. The female plaintiff sued her employer, a Hiroshima based health co-op where she worked as a rehabilitation therapist, for gender discrimination and violations of the Labor Standards Act. The Supreme Court’s decision is significant for the nation, enforcing that women cannot be demoted or discriminated against in any matter due to pregnancy. The Larger Context: Demographics, Economics, and Quality of Life When it comes to combating matahara, it should not be just an issue addressed by victims, but Japanese society as a whole, since the nation is currently experiencing rapid aging and a dropping birth rate: a threatening combination. According to government data, Japan’s population growth in 2015 to be -0.16 percent, meaning the Japanese population is in fact shrinking. In 2014, Japan’s population dropped by 268,800, as the one million births did not offset the 1.27 million deaths. The current fertility rate for women is 1.4 births per woman, well below replacement rate. The number of births in Japan is actually at an all-time low and the number is expected to continue to decline. A possible contributing factor to the declining birth rate, is that more and more young people in Japan are choosing to get married and start a family later in life; they want to start careers before committing to children. The cost of having children in Japan is high: childcare is expensive and competitive, as well as time-consuming. The OECD’s Better Life report noted Japan’s significant wage gap between men and women (26.6 percent), as well as its long-hour workplace culture. These negative aspects of the Japanese workplace of clear that women face large economic obstacles when it comes to raising a child and maintaining a job. This declining birth rate is troubling for Japan, a nation with high life expectancy and a growing number of dependents. Dependents are those under the age of 15 and over the age of 64, a dependency ratio is calculated to understand how much pressure is put on the working age population (ages 15-64) to support dependents. The Pew Research Center reports that Japan’s total dependency ratio was 57 dependents per every 100 workers back in 2010. They estimate that this total ratio will grow to 92 dependents per 100 workers by 2050, showing the increased pressure to be put on the workforce to support those older and younger than them. The total dependency ratio is growing primarily due to an aging population. The number of dependents over the age of 64 is expected grow from 36 per 100 workers in 2010 to 72 by 2050: a 36-point jump, whereas the number of dependents under the age of 15 is only expected to raise 4 points by 2050. Notably, Japan has one of the longest life expectancies in the world, with Japanese women having a life expectancy of 87 and men having one of 80, according to the World Health Organization. This means that Japan’s elderly population is not only growing in size, but also living longer, so the burden of support on the workforce is both increasing and lengthy. When it comes to economics, the push to remove pregnant and childbearing women from the workplace is having a negative impact. Women are less likely than men to join the workforce in Japan; 62 percent of women participate in the workforce in comparison to 81 percent of men. This nineteen-point gap is an economic burden for Japan, because keeping women out of the workforce is inefficient. The OECD notes that female education is on the rise and comparable to that of men, but these women aren’t being utilized in the labor market. Despite 62 percent of women having a tertiary education in 2012, they still remain employed at lower rates than men. Japan could have a more efficient and intellectually diverse workforce if women were more welcomed in the workplace. The state has made a great investment in its women through education, but not protecting them from discrimination, like matahara, diminishes the investment. Bloomberg stated that closing the gender employment gap in Japan could lead to a 13-point bump in the nation’s GDP. Matahara and other forms of discrimination against women in the workplace affect the entirety of Japanese society and demand a governmental response. The Response: Abe’s “Womenomics” Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made it clear that the economy is of great importance when it comes to his policies. His economic reform, commonly referred to as “abenomics”, focuses on raising the nation’s GDP and fighting stagnation. Included in Abe’s economic reforms are policies specifically geared towards improving the conditions of women in the workforce, nicknamed “womenomics”. These female-focused reforms include a goal to have 30 percent of managers be women by 2020 and overall rhetoric encouraging women to “shine” in the Japanese economy. These policies have been largely criticized for not focusing enough on the situation of all women, who face great adversity in the workforce. Osakabe has voiced her concerns with Abe’s policies, emphasizing that Japan need to focus on improving its workplace culture for all women. Matahara is a large issue for individual women in the workforce, who hope to pursue both a career and family, and the issue has a much larger context, considering Japan’s aging society and declining workforce. The implications of matahara are large, so the response must be large as well.