Kei Suemori

末盛 慶

English

末盛, 慶

4335

スエモリ, ケイ

Suemori, Kei

4337

Nihon Fukushi University Institutional Repository / 日本福祉大学機関リポジトリ

日本福祉大学社会福祉学部『日本福祉大学社会福祉論集』 第 125 号 2011 年 9 月	Labour force participation of married women has been promoted in Japan. Sociologistsand psychologists in Japan have been paying attention to the effects of married women'swork on marital relations and their children's lives as well as in the United States (Gottfriedet al., 1988; Hara, 1987; Makino, 1987; Percel and Menaghan, 1994; Sodei et al., 1993; Suemori,2002).One of the major issues is effects of maternal employment on their children behaviours andwell-being. The studies on this theme demonstrate that working status (working/not-working) of mothers doesn't have significant and consistent effects on children's behaviourand mental health in Japan as well as the United States (Gottfried and Gottfried, 1988:Nagathu, 1982; Suemori, 2002, 2005).On these results of previous literatures, recent relevant studies tend to pay attention toworking condition and characteristics , not working status (Crouter et al., 1999). However,effects of conditions of mothers' work on their children's lives are not fully investigated inJapan. Therefore, this study examines the relations between mothers' work conditions andearly adolescents' psychological adjustment by using quantitative data in Japan.	Before we attack main subject on this paper, we'll look into basic statistics of women's andmaternal employment in Japan. There're three points on women's labour force in Japan.Firstly, labour force of Japanese married women has been increased, we'll see the basic sta-tistics on working status of women's labour force in Japan.1167 thousands women were worked in 1975. More recently, 2329 thousands women areworking in 2010 (Table 1). In three decades, Japanese women labour force has been increasedabout two times.In addition, the ratio of women's labour force also has been increased from 32.0% in 1975to 42.6% in 2010. Based on these statistics, it becomes more popular that women have jobs inJapan.135〈Research Note〉Mothers' Work Conditions andEarly Adolescents' Psychological Adjustment in Japan－Work Socialization Hypothesis vs. Work Stress Hypothesis－Kei SUEMORIHowever, these trends don't necessarily raise the status and power of Japanese women.The second feature is increase of women who work as temporal worker. Because, its rise havebeen brought by increase of women who work as a part-time, not as a full timer (Figure 1).In addition, this tendency is recently more definitive as world economy become new-economysystem and globalization. In a long-term economic recession in Japan, it is more tangiblethat women's employment status has been unstable than that of men's status.Third point is that most women in Japan still resign their jobs when they get married orespecially give birth to a baby. Japanese women's representative career / family course isthat they work as a full-time after graduated their school, afterwards they quit their jobswhen they have a baby, they come back to labour market as a part-time worker as their chil-dren were grown up.Japanese have more egalitarian attitudes on gender role than in the former days (Figure2). But, employment system in Japan is still male-oriented, work and family role system isalso gendered.	There are two theoretical backgrounds on connections between the conditions of parents'work and children's adjustment.The one is work socialization hypothesis that jobs that facilitating occupational orienta-tion increase intellectual flexibility (Kohn and Schooler, 1983). This hypothesis claims thatoccupational self direction socializes workers in ways that are generalized to life off the job.People who work in high complexity and self direction tend to place emphasis on individualautonomy in non-work life such as family domain, while people who work in high confor-mity tend to behave more traditionally.Parcel and Menaghan (1994) demonstrated that occupational complexity of mothers is re-lated to the extent to which they create a positive home environment that provides cognitivestimulation and emotional support for their children.Some studies in Japan have applied this theoretical framework to examine relation be-tween the characteristics of parent's work and children's adjustment.Nakai (1991) examined the relations between parent's educational level, occupational社会福祉論集 第 125 号136Table 1. Trend of Women Employment in Japanyear Women (thousands) Sum of Men & Women (thousands) Ratio (women/ total)1975 1167 3646 32.0%1980 1354 3971 34.1%1985 1548 4313 35.9%1990 1834 4835 37.9%1995 2048 5263 38.9%2000 2140 5356 40.0%2005 2229 5393 41.3%2010 2329 5462 42.6%※This statistics means employees onlyLabor Force Survey in Japanstatus and their parenting based on 324 adults data. Results indicated that the higher theireducational level, occupational status, the more parents have value that puts emphasis onautonomy in their child-rearing.Apparently, these results seem to support Kohn's hypothesis. However, she didn't con-trolled parent's educational level in analysing the effects of their occupational status on par-enting value. Previous studies pointed out that parent's education is influential to therelation between occupational characteristic and their parenting value: the effects of occupa-tional characteristics on parenting value was diminished in controlled by their educationallevel. This study couldn't present clear evidence about the effects of occupational status andparenting value.Naoi (1989) attacked this research question. She also examined the relations between par-ent's occupational complexities and their parenting value. It is remarkable that this study ac-curately tried to apply the measure on Kohn's occupational complexities, that theycontrolled parent's educational level in analyzing the effects of their occupational complexi-ties on parenting value.The results suggested that parent's occupational complexities were not significant fortheir parenting value. Parent's occupational complexities had a significant effect on parent-ing value in correlation analysis. However, by controlled their age and educational years,Mothers' Work Conditions and Early Adolescents' Psychological Adjustment in Japan137Figure 1. Ratio of temporal employees in Japan (by sex)２０１１２０１０２００９２００８２００７２００６２００５２００４２００３２００２２００１２０００１９９９１９９８１９９７１９９６１９９５１９９０Labor Force Survey in JapanFigure 2. Trend of Traditional gender role attitude in Japan *1Labor Force Survey in Japanthis relation diminished statistical significance. On these results, Naoi stated that parent'soccupational complexities has not definite effects on parenting value in Japan.There were same line in this study in Japan. Kataoka (1987) investigated the associationsbetween parent's social economic status and parent-adolescent relationships. The results in-dicated that parent's social economic status has no effects on their parenting behaviours: dis-cipline, parental control. She also claimed that Kohn's theoretical framework didn'tnecessary account for the relation between parent's job and parenting value and behavioursin Japan.The second perspective is work stress hypothesis that effects of parents' work conditionson an individual ultimately influence their marital relation and children (Perry-Jenkins etal, 2000). Relevant studies suggest that work stress results in less responsive and more nega-tive interactions with family members (Repetti and Wood, 1997)Crouter et al (1999) examined the associations between parent's job pressure, role overloadand their children. The data were 190 dual-earner families, mothers, fathers, and their chil-dren answered questionnaire. The analysis indicated that parent's job pressure increasedtheir role overload, and their role overload decreased quality of parent-child relationships.Theofore, decline of parent-child relationships promoted negative condition on children's ad-justment.Many studies in United States were executed on this issue based on work stress hypothsis,few study was not done in Japan.Given these theoretical backgrounds and previous studies, the present study has two hy-potheses.First, women who work as professionals tend to involve their children more self directly.Children whose mothers work as professional position has more autonomy, and has betterpsychological adjustment. This hypothesis is based on Kohn's theoretical discussions.Second, women who are satisfied with their jobs tend to involve their children more re-sponsively. As a result, children whose mothers are satisfied with their work have betterpsychological adjustment. This hypothesis is based on work stress theoretical framework.This paper also tries to expand our understanding of interface between work and familyby considering comparative perspectives (Ishii-Kuntz, 1994).	The respondents were drawn from random probability sample of mothers, lived in thewest area of Tokyo in 1998. The data were 528 sets of mothers and their oldest children in in-tact families.Mothers' mean age was 41.2 years old. Fathers' mean age was 44.0 years old. Focal childrenwere early adolescents, their age ranged from 12 to 14 years old.Independent variables are mothers' occupations and job satisfaction. Mothers' occupation社会福祉論集 第 125 号138is measured as an operational variable on work socialization hypothesis. Occupation variableconsists of several category of occupation: manager, professional, officer, sales staff, factoryworker, non-worker, the others.Mothers' job satisfaction is an operational variable on work stress hypothesis. These vari-ables are composed of five items answered by mothers: job contents, human relations in workdomain, wages, hours of work, general job satisfaction.Dependent variables are adolescent's sociability and sense of independence as adolescents'psychological adjustment. Mother's children themselves answer these variables.Control variables are mothers' and fathers' education and income. These variables arebased on mothers' answers.Generalized linear models show that mothers' occupation is not related to early adoles-Mothers' Work Conditions and Early Adolescents' Psychological Adjustment in Japan139Table 2. General Linear Model on Adolescents' Psychological Adjustment	sum of square df mean square F valueMothereducation 2.280 1 2.280 .374income 0.073 1 .073 .012Fathereducation 6.009 1 6.009 .985income 1.252 1 1.252 .205Mothers' ocupation 2.157 3 .719 .118Mothereducation 19.536 1 19.536 3.189income 11.601 1 11.601 1.894Fathereducation 1.298 1 1.298 .212income .855 1 .855 .140Mothers' ocupation 5.467 3 1.822 .297*p<.05 **p<.01Table 3. Multiple Regression Analysis on Adolescents' Psychological Adjustment	    Mothereducation .012 .150 .100 .150income .068 .069 .121 .070Fathereducation .038 .134 .043 .134income -.077 .068 .027 .068Mothers' job satisfaction .132* .097 .054 .097*p<.05 **p<.01cents' psychological adjustment (Table 2).Multiple regression analyses indicate that mothers' job satisfaction is significantly relatedto sociability, not related to sense of independence (Table 3).The more mothers are satisfied with their jobs, the higher their children answer the itemsof sociability (Figure 3).		This study examined connections between mothers' work conditions and their adolescents'psychological adjustment by testing work socialization hypothesis and work stress hypothe-sis.The findings of present study supported work stress hypothesis. The more satisfied moth-ers with their jobs, the more sociability their children had. This result imply that it is impor-tant for adolescents to improve their mothers' quality of work life and work environment inJapan. Developmental research in the U.S. also illustrated that parent's experience at workinfluences their children's live (Crouter et al., 1999; Reppeti and Wood, 1997). The findingsof this paper and previous studies in the U.S. suggests that work stress hypothesis could beapplied to both culture.Work socialization hypothesis, however, was not supported by this study. Previous re-search in Japan also indicated that the idea of Kohn and Schooler could not be supported(Naoi, 1989). Through this analyses and previous studies, it might be difficult that work so-cialization hypothesis was supported in Japan.There could be two reasons why work socialization hypothesis wasn't applied in Japan.The first is that there might be differences in social meanings of occupational positions be-tween U.S. and Japan. It would be definite for American that each occupational positionmeans social status and difference among them. But it doesn't seem clear for Japanese differ-ence of social meanings or images of occupations.The second is that there could be differences on parenting value between two countries.Japanese parents recently tend to place more emphasis on autonomy in rearing their chil-dren than ever, but American parents place emphasis on autonomy than Japanese counter-parts.社会福祉論集 第 125 号140Figure 3. Mothers'Job Satisfaction and Adolescence's SociabilitySeveral limitations of this study need be recognized. First, this study didn't use the origi-nal measures of Kohn's occupational complexities. Second, in the absence of longitudinaldata, we can access only associations between mothers' work conditions and their children'spsychological adjustment, not the causal process. Third, this paper used local sample wholived in the west area of Tokyo, not national representative sample in Japan.*1 Traditional gender role attitudes is measured by one item "What do you think about the idea: Menshould play provider role, women should play domestic role."Crouter, A. C., Bumpus, M. F., Maguire, M. C., and McHale, S. M, 1999 "Linking Parent's Work Pres-sure and Adolescents' Well-Being: Insight into Dynamic in Dual-Earner"	35, 1453-1461.Gottfried, A. E., Gottfried, A. W. 1988,			Plenum Press.Hara, H. 1987. 			(Mother's Work and the Changes ofFamily Lives) Koubun sya.Ishii-Kuntz, M, 1994, "Work and Family life : Findings From International Research and Suggestionsfor Future Study" 15(3), 490-506.Kataoka, E, 1987, "Shituke to Syakaikaisou no Kanren ni Tuite" (Parent's Social Strata and their par-enting)  !	"#$#(Human Science Journal of Osaka University),13, 25-49.Kohn, M. L., and Schooler, C, 1983, %	&'			(			Norwood, NJ, Ablex.Makino, K. 1987. "Hahaoya no syurou to kazoku kankei" (Mother's work and family relationships)#)()#(Japanese Journal of Educational Sociology), 44, 50-70.Nagathu, M.1982."Hahaoya no syurou ga kodomo no jisyusei ni oyobosu eikyou" (The effects of ma-ternal employment on children's independece) ())))*(sociology), 26(3), 63-80.Nakai, M, 1991, "Syakaikaisou to Oyano Kachikitai" (Social Economic Status and Parrent's Value)Gendai Syakaigaku Kenkyuu (Contemporary Sociology Research), 4: 34-57.Naoi, M, 1989. "Shigoto ga paasonariti ni ataeru eikyou" (The effects of work on Personality) Naoi.M (Eds) #*((Sociology of housework) Saiensu-sya.Parcel, T. L., and Menaghan, E. G. 1994. 	+$+,New York: Aldine deGruyter.Perry-Jenkins M., Reppeti R. L., ＆ Crouter A. C., 2000, "Work and Family in the 1990s" 	62, 981-998.Reppeti, R. L., and Wood, J. 1997. "Effects of daily stress at Work on mothers' interactions with pre-schoolers" 11, 90-108.Sodei, T., Okamura, K., Nagathu, M., and Miyoshi, 1993, -$	#.(Dual Earner Fami-lies) Katei Kyouiku sya.Suemori, K. 2002. "Maternal employment and early adolescent's independence: The effects of occupa-tional career"#.)()#(Japanese Journal of Family Sociology), 13(2), 103-112.Suemori, K. 2005. "Hahaoya no Syugyoujoutai ga Kodomo ni Ataeru Eikyou" (Maternal Employmentand Child Development in the United States and Japan － The Review of Relevant Research) ShakaiFukushi Ronsyu (Journal of Social Welfare/NIHON FUKUSHI UNIVERSITY), 112, 117-132.Mothers' Work Conditions and Early Adolescents' Psychological Adjustment in Japan141

Mothers' Work Conditions and Early Adolescents' Psychological Adjustment in Japan－Work Socialization Hypothesis vs. Work Stress Hypothesis－

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Mothers\u27 Work Conditions and Early Adolescents\u27 Psychological Adjustment in Japan－Work Socialization Hypothesis vs. Work Stress Hypothesis－

Mothers\u27 Work Conditions and Early Adolescents\u27 Psychological Adjustment in Japan－Work Socialization Hypothesis vs. Work Stress Hypothesis－

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