Japanese working class lives : an ethnographic study of factory workers

240 Pages·1998·2.23 MB·English

by  Roberson, James E

Japanese Working Class Lives
Small companies have a much larger role in the Japanese economy and society
than is often realized. Seventy percent of Japanese employees work in firms of
100 workers or less rather than in large companies.
James E.Roberson has made an ethnographic study of the lives of Japanese
workers in small firms and examines their experiences of working life, leisure
and education. This unique case study of the Shintani Metals Company
illustrates the ways in which employees lives extend beyond their work.
Japanese Working Class Lives provides a valuable alternative view of working
life, outside the large corporations. Roberson demonstrates that the Japanese
working class is more diverse than Western stereotypes of be-suited salary
men would suggest.
James E.Roberson received his Ph.D. from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa
and currently teaches anthropology in Japan.
Japanese Working Class Lives
An Ethnographic Study of Factory
Workers
James E.Roberson
London and New York
First published 1998
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

© 1998 James E.Roberson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Roberson, James E.
Japanese working class lives: an ethnographic study of factory
workers/James E.Roberson.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Metal-workers—Japan—Case studies.
2. Small business—Japan—Employees—Case studies.
3. Shintani Metals Company—Employees.
I. Title.
HD8039. M52J36 1988 97–27162
305. 9' 671' 095222–dc21 CIP

ISBN 0-203-17369-4 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-26504-1 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-17212-8 (Print Edition)
Contents
List of illustrations vii
Acknowledgements ix
Note on Japanese names xi
1 Japanese working class lives: problems and perspectives 1
Work and workers in Japan 3
Interpretive perspective 12
Methodology and organization 18
2 Getting there and getting in 20
Getting there 21
Getting in 22
A look back 28
3 Shintani Metals: company history 31
Shintani to 1983: experience and enterprise 32
The late 1980s: the problems of prosperity 39
The 1990s recession: bursting bubbles and beyond 47
Conclusion 54
4 Shintani Metals: organization, experience and relationships 56
Formal factory organization 56
The work experience 74
Informal social relationships 77
Conclusion 82
5 Paths to Shintani: school boys, working men 83
Introduction 83
Junior high graduates 85
High school graduates 91
Vocational school and university—graduates and drop outs 100
Conclusion 103
6 Paths to Shintani: factory girls, working women 105
Introduction 105
Factory girls and office ladies 109
v
vi Contents
Working mothers and wives 113
Conclusion 118
7 Paths from Shintani 121
Comings and goings 121
Going, going, gone 124
What next? 131
Room to move 133
8 After-Hours: sponsored leisure events 137
Introduction 137
Kinds of sponsored events 139
Interpretations 143
Conclusion: company size and corporate focus 152
9 After-Hours: nakama leisure events 155
The nature of nakama 155
Partners, places and patterns of play 158
Conclusion: of play and people in Japan 169
10 Private Time 171
Introduction 171
Family women and men 172
Private self 175
Conclusion 188
11 Conclusion: of contexts and connections 190
Notes 194
Bibliography 203
Name Index 219
Subject index 222
Illustrations
FIGURES
4.1 Shintani Metals Company: factory layout 59
4.2 Shintani Metals wages by age (male) 66
4.3 Shintani Metals wages by length of employment (male) 66
TABLES
4.1 Shintani Metals Company and Kinsei Fine Metals Organization
(October 1989 to December 1990) 58
4.2 Wages of Shintani Metals regular female employees 67
4.3 Firm size and wages 68
4.4 Shintani Metals Shinwakai schedule of donations 72
4.5 Monthly work hours: comparison of the Shintani Metals Company
(1990) with other Japanese manufacturing firms (1987) 75
4.6 Yearly work hours: comparison of the Shintani Metals Company
(1990) with Japanese and American national averages (1987) 75
5.1 Educational backgrounds of people employed at the
Shintani Metals Company (1990) 85
6.1 Regular and part-time female employees at the
Shintani Metals Company (1989–90) 108
7.1 Men and women leaving the Shintani Metals Company
(October 1989 to August 1991) 133
8.1 Recreational facilities by firm size 145
5n3 The Japanese Ministry of Education’s Basic Survey of
Schools, 1993 197
5n4 Breakdown of employment by industry among 1993
high school graduates 197
10n2 Comparison of leisure pastimes 201
vii
Acknowledgements
It is now spring of 1997. Much time has passed since I began the course of
study, travel and life that has led to the publishing of this book. In the passage
of these years, I have met many people in Japan, Hawaii, Florida and elsewhere
who have been important in helping to bring me and this work to where we are
now. I do not easily separate the professional and the personal. Anthropology
and the study of Japanese culture and society are for me both, and as in all
things, the human dimensions, interrelations and feelings are what I value
most.
My research in Japan was supported by a Fulbright Graduate Research
Fellowship (6/89–6/90) and by a Japan Foundation Doctoral Dissertation
Fellowship (6/90–12/90). Support for writing my Ph.D. dissertation in the
Department of Anthropology at the University of Hawaii included a Sanwa
Bank Foundation Research Fellowship (1/91–12/91), a Center for Japanese
Studies Graduate Research Fellowship, University of Hawaii (received from
the University of Hawaii Japan Studies Endowment—Funded by a Grant from
the Japanese Government; 1/91–12/91), and a Social Science Research Council
Dissertation Fellowship in Japanese Studies (1/92–12/92). I would like to thank
each of these institutions and the people involved for their support and efforts.
I would also like to acknowledge permissions received from the editors of
Ethnology and of the American Asian Review to use materials previously
included in articles published in their respective journals (Ethnology, Vol. 34,
No. 4; American Asian Review, Vol. 13, No. 2).
There are many individuals I would like to thank, whose kindness, concern,
interest, intelligence, and sometimes whose criticism, I have received and
benefited from. I will here mention only a few, to whom I am especially indebted
and grateful. Takie Sugiyama Lebra of the Department of Anthropology at the
University of Hawaii was teacher and mentor, and I am also thankful for the
personal kindness that she has shown. Though much time and distance has
been traveled, Robert Lawless remains influential in my notions of what
anthropology should be and what anthropologists should do. I have enjoyed
the scholarly insights, suggestions, criticisms, help and kindness of many others,
but especially of Patricia Steinhoff, L.Keith Brown, Jack Bilmes, Yoneyama
ix