From Homogeneity to Division: Class in Contemporary Japan

While plenty of my time this semester has been devoted to this sociology course on class, another fairly large chunk of my time has gone to studying first-year Japanese. While almost all the emphasis of this course has been placed entirely on domestic issues, I thought it would be cool to take a peek at class in another country that I was interested in. Here's an excellently written article that gives a great overview of the contemporary Japanese class and labor structure. The article observes that while a paradigm shift seems to be underway among popular perception of Japan as a homogeneous society to one that is class stratified, it was in fact that way to begin with, the difference in perception largely due to the current economic downturn and job instability that Japan is experiencing. The stratification described seems strikingly similar to what we've been discussing about classes in America; "on one end of the spectrum [are] the new rich who have almost instantly amassed vast wealth in such areas as information technology, new media and financial manipulation," while on the other end are
"the unemployed, the homeless, day laborers and other marginalized members of society." However, the majority of the Japanese labor market, workers in retail, service, and companies in other industries, have been experiencing shifts in labor practices that may have left them worse off, both in terms of finances and quality of life.

Traditionally, Japanese corporations have operated under a "paternal-familial" style of management, where employees are treated as the "family" of the company, and supervisors become actively involved in their workers. However, this model is changing in favor of those that are more cost effective, given the recent economic downturn. Recently, employers have shifted toward casualizing the work force (hiring more part-time employees who are not eligible for company benefits.
According to the article, "many of these non-regular workers form the ‘working poor,’ a class of individuals who attempt to work hard in vulnerable jobs but are unable to get out of the cycle of underemployment and undersubsistence." Employers have also been shifting toward performance-based models of pay, where employees must meet certain performance goals in a timely manner in order to gain pay increases. This has led to employees often working overtime to meet the goals, and greater job insecurity in the case where employees are unable to meet the goals. All of these practices lead to lower financial returns and lower qualities of life for the vast majority of Japanese workers who have experienced them.

In addition, the article also posits that Japan has shifted from a culture of industrial capitalism to one of cultural capitalism, focusing on the production of symbols and meanings rather than the amount of goods produced. This is exemplified by the shift in Japanese products such as cell phones to allow for more customization (which the consumer base now prefers) over the standardized versions of goods that were prevalent before. This mirrors the social class stratification of the nation, as different versions of the same product considered to be of a "higher status" value are prioritized, rather than the possession of the good itself, since the subsistence needs of the population have been met.