The Silent Revolution in Japan: Female Labour Market Success from an Aggregate Perspective

Abstract

We use labor market data spanning 1988–2018 to show how labor market outcomes in terms of the number of standard and non-standard jobs have strongly outperformed projections based on labor market participation rates and size of active population. As we show, a substantial part of this employment growth originated from an increase in female labor market participation. We further document a general decline of the gender pay gap, and of the pay gap between standard and non-standard employment. Part of this female success actually came at the expense of men, particularly so for the period 2010–2018, during which male regular employment declined while that of women strongly increased. What is more, women were making these inroads particularly within formerly male-dominated industries, such as construction, manufacturing, and banking & insurance. Notably, this success did not originate from firms increasingly struggling to identify suitable male candidates: On the industry level, we find no significant correlation between job opening ratios and gender differentials in employment growth.