Gender Gap in Japanese Higher Education
Hiroshi Kan Inoue
Kyushu Institute of Technology
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to explore the cause and mechanism of the gender gap in
Japanese higher education in spite of an institutional equality of the entrance
examination. Four hypothetical arguments are examined. The first one is that the labor
market may regulate women’s behavior pursuing a higher education. The second one is
that the educational experience of women in colleges which may be a form of
consuming behavior. The third one is that the normative attitude or value consciousness
about women’s life-course and social roles may regulate their educational choice.
Final one is that the strategic behavior of women as related to their social status
regulates their experience of choosing universities and academic disciplines. Except for
the third argument about consumption, three other arguments are justified and proved by
some evidence. However, the trends of these factors are changing so that they, in turn,
will decrease the gender gap in higher educational experience.
The gender gap of higher educational situation is very well-known. A smaller number
of women go on to universities. And they often choose particular department or
discipline, though this is changing.
Most of existing research has not necessarily focused on this gap itself, dealing with
it as one of causes to the unequal distribution of social resources and social
opportunities including occupational opportunity. In other words, they discussed
concerned the gap as related to phenomena of social stratification. For example, women
are less educated and have had less human capital and less work experience and weak
tenure so that they are less access to authority and autonomy in occupational arena. In
the research framework adopted in such a discussion, the explained target is the
structure of employment concerned gender. The educational system is treated as factors
explaining the gap of employment or occupational opportunities. See Wolf & Fligstein
(1979a; 1979b), Karabel & McCelland (1987), Sakamoto & Powers (1995), and
In this paper, I will shift the framework to focus the educational outcome as a
consequence of social processes. The gender gap of educational experience is the target
which should be explained. On this framework, an existing hypothesis states that the
labor market requires more human capital and then, this results in more egalitarian
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circumstances and more opportunities for women who enter universities. At the same
time, the school system―from elementary to high-school―raises value of equality or
anti-sexism as to change role of women to men, and it, in turn, promotes more women
to enter universities as well as job market. A contradictory hypothesis is that any school
system maintains sexism as a belief system which, in turn, inhibits women to pursue
higher education and employment.
These discussions seem to be a little confused; it is better to separate them into four
hypotheses. Another idea is to view the educational gender gap statically and
dynamically. The empirical facts prove the existing of gender gap, and also the trend of
decreasing of the gap as shown below in figure 1. This leads to two questions. Why and
how does the gap exist? Why and how does the convergence appear? Basically, the
following discussion is not normative as policy-oriented, but rather positivistic.
EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE OF GENDER GAP
In Japan, there are still a gender gap in the admission to universities in spite that the
legal system allows the equal chance for men and women. First, the rate of female
students is different from the rate of male students. Figure 1 shows the trend of entrance
rate to four-year universities. Japanese higher education has adopted mass-educational
system. Clearly, more women have entered universities over time, but fewer women
have entered than men, though the disparity has decreased.
60.0
%
male
50.0
total
40.0
30.0
female
20.0
10.0
0.0
54
57
60 63
66
69 72
75 78 81 84 87 90 93 96
year
99 02
05
08
Figure1. Transition of rate of students going on to universities
Notes: The data source is ‘Basic Survey of Schools’ by the Ministry of Education
2
Second, 89% of students of the junior college (meaning a two-year college) were
women in 2008. Third, there is also another kind of gender gap in an area of higher
education. There is unbalanced number of students in many departments. Among about
445 departments reported in ‘Basic School Survey ‘ by the Ministry of Education, more
female students belong to about 170 departments than male students. These include
departments of classical humanities (for example, literature), education, nursing,
nutritional science, health and welfare, and so on. More male students belong to the
departments related to natural and technological sciences, and most part of social
sciences. What are the causes of these gender gaps in higher education?
DO THE LABOR MARKET AND WORKPLACE EITHER REJECT OR
WELCOME WOMEN?
The Japanese labor market and workplace have been blamed for discriminative
treatment of women. Let’s pick up some arguments.
1. Industrial sectors are segmented in terms of gender.
2. In companies, job-posts are divided to unskilled ones and skilled ones. The latter are
more responsible jobs. More women are employed for former posts.
3. There exists a normative orientation that men are preferred rather than women even
if both of them have same ability.
4. Women occupy fewer management posts so that they have less autonomy and less
authority in organizations.
5. Part time jobs are women’s jobs.
6. The gender gap of wages is observed.
About 4, for example, Ishida (1993) should be referred as he analyzed a lack of
autonomy and less authority of women in companies and other organizations. Here, I
will look at only the data of the wage gap. The ‘Basic Statistical Survey of Wage
Structure’ conducted by the Ministry of Welfare and Labor shows us that the disparity of
starting salary between men and women are 94.3 of high school, 96.2 of junior college,
95.5 of undergraduate-clerical, and 96.3 of undergraduate-technical respectively, where
the disparity is defined as the ratio of women’s wages to men’s wages, that is, calculated
as (women’s wage/men’s wage)*100.
If these factors are true, women expect narrower job chances and lower salary than
men’s. In consequence, those factors either restrain women’s motivation to pursue
university education and either impose social control in how to choose departments
which may give more opportunities to get jobs.
However, on the other hand, many researchers state that gender gap for
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employment as well as wage is decreasing. It means the higher education as a human
capital brings a higher return. As long as women behave rationally, they are motivated
to enter universities. However, this topic is very controversial one. In fact, Tanaka
(1996; 1999) doubted both of the blocking hypothesis and the liberating hypothesis, and
pointed out that the many women entering part-time job market and that the full-time
employment is occupied by unmarried women who would retire for marriage or
child-rearing, meaning that the short-term employment has increase and the long-term
employment has not.
%
70
68
66
64
62
60
58
56
19
80
19
85
19
90
19
91
19
92
19
93
19
94
19
95
19
96
19
97
19
98
19
99
20
00
20
01
20
02
20
03
20
04
54
year
Figure 2. The Transition of Wage Gap between both Sexes
Notes: 1.This figure shows the decline of gap according to the definition of disparity.
2. The data source is the ‘Basic Statistical Survey of Wage Structure’ 2004 by
the Ministry of Welfare and Labor.
IS A HIGHER EDUCATION A KIND OF CONSUMING BEHAVIOR?
T.Parsons (1951) assumed the function of an educational institution to be a form of
socialization and allocation of human resources in general. These functions are
hypothetically and empirically valid in a university, too. E.Carll and M.S.Lipset (1976)
assumed that the function of a university is composed of three goals: (a) socialization,
meaning the transmission of traditional values, either religious or secular, (b) innovation
and scholastic exploration―extending knowledge in various areas of natural science,
humanities, and social sciences, and educating creative intellectuals involving in it, (c)
applying knowledge and technology to attain goals built by leaders of government and
private sectors to contribute to community. Carll and Lipset also pointed out that, in
modern industrial stage, universities were controlled to attain these goals, and that, in
4
post-industrial stage, universities become more tolerant for expressive activities. Such a
consummatory function is not confined to the post-industrial society, but is observed
through the long history of universities. It partly means that the studying in universities
is a form of consuming behavior. G.S.Becker (1975) says that the benefit getting in
universities is not only monetary one. People expect various kinds of benefits, for
example, the social psychological ones, other than monetary gain after graduating.
Unfortunately, there is the suitable evidence to prove the hypothesis that going to
universities is a kind of consuming behavior especially for women and their parents. I
may describe two things. Research about social stratification tells us that an admission
to universities is correlated with status of his/her parent. Another evidence is a fact that
a lot of women students belongs to the department of humanities. If these are unreliable
proof, I provisionally have to put this argument aside.
ROLE EXPECTATION AS a PRESENTATION OF WOMEN’S VALUE
CONSCIOUSNESS
Is the labor market really changing to pull more women, especially highly educated
women? However, the labor market and workplace seem to deterring women’
attainment still now. The rate of employment of Japanese women is lower than the rate
of other OECD countries; moreover, the labor force rate of higher educated women is
not higher than lower educated women. Higher educated women are not employed as
much as less lower educated women. Tanaka (1999) showed the evidence that the
employment rate of highly educated women has not necessarily grown except in a very
restricted occupational sectors—for example, a school teacher.
First, let’s compare the employment rate between two classes of educational
attainment―women who have finished high school and women who have finished
undergraduate/graduate—among married women. According to ‘The Basic Survey of
Working Structure’ by Ministry of General Affairs, at the age from 20 to 29-year olds,
the employment rate of the former class is about 40% and the rate of the latter class is
beyond 60%. At the age of 30’s, the rate of the former is beyond 60% while rate of the
latter goes down to 50% below, though this percentage rises in the age of 40’s.
Next, the table 1 shows the comparative data of the labor force rate in order of the
educational attainment.
5
Table 1. Educational Attainment and the Labor Force Rate of Women
Junior high school
High school
Undergraduate/Graduate
USA
54.2
72
80.9
UK
50.7
79.8
88.1
Germany
51.1
57.6
83.4
France
65.5
57.6
84.5
Sweden
73
83.4
90.3
Japan
56
63
70.5
Notes: This is quoted from 'Circumstance of Working women 2004' by the Ministry of
Welfare and Labor; the original data comes from 'OECD Education at a Glance 2004')
Why does such a fact―the lower employment rate of highly educated women
appear? We have to pay attention to women’s attitude, that is, the value consciousness
concerning their types of life course. White Paper on the National Lifestyle 2006
shows the distribution in women’s ideal life-courses. Six types of life-courses are
recognized. The type of 'full-time housewife' is a course of a woman with children, who
leaves work after getting married or giving birth, and does not return to work. Women
of the 'return to work' type are those with children, who leave work after getting married
or giving birth, but want return to work after several years. The women of 'continue to
work' (or ‘balancing’) are those who have children but continue to work all their life.
The women of 'DINKS' ('double income no kids') are those who get married but do not
want to have children, and continue to work. A woman of 'work and not marry' group is
a woman who lives unmarried and work all their life. Finally, the other remained life
courses were labeled 'others'. Respondents are asked a question: "Which type is close to
your ideal life-course?" This question is included in the National Fertility Survey by the
National Institute of Population and Social Security Research's (IPSS).
The table 2 shows the trends of women’s ideal life-courses, and the table 3 shows the
educational attainment and the ideal life-courses of women from 24 to 35 year-olds.
Table 2. Trends in Women's Ideal Life-courses
Continue to work
Return to work
Full-time housewife
1987
20.3
34.4
36.7
1992
20.9
32.2
35.1
1997
29.3
36.9
22.2
2002
39.5
39.2
20.1
Note: 1. This table omits other three categories and those responding 'don't
know', and unclear responses.
2. The data source comes from IPSS.
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Table 3. Educational Attainment and Ideal Life-courses of Women for 24 to 35
year-olds.
Total
High school
Junior college
Undergraduate
/Graduate
DK,NA, and
unclear
Work
and not
5.2
7.0
4.2
DINKS
4.7
5.5
4.6
Continue Return Full-time
to work to work housewif
29.2
29.4
21.6
22.1
29.0
24.2
22.0
35.9
25.2
2.5
2.8
1.2
DK or
unclear
7.4
9.4
6.8
Others
4.1
3.8
46.9
23.2
14.2
3.3
4.6
0.0
0.0
44.4
22.2
11.1
5.6
16.7
Note: The data source comes from IPSS.
From these tables, the following arguments are possible.
1. Basically, women choose very different courses. Full-time work is never substituted
by being full-time housewife.
2. The choice of life course is varied by the level of educational attainment. The more
educated, the more motivated to work.
3. Most women wish to marry and almost 80% women wish to work so that they are
under pressure to take double roles—domestic role and working role. This fact
explains the so-called ‘M-curb’ of the employment rate and as well the entering to
the part-time job market.
4. Women’s attitude is changing. There is a tendency of choosing ‘work’ rather than
“housewife’, especially for highly educated women.
Although we realize the changing attitude, the women’s life course is different
from men’s and that, in turn, regulates the way of choosing higher education. About this
phenomenon, Nakanishi (1993) argued that such value consciousness doesn’t appear
naturally or by chance, but the school system plays a role in socialization to maintain
gender roles. She says that visible and invisible social processes to have both sexes
learn gender differentiated roles of gender. Women have learned gender roles before
entering universities in their families and school—elementary, junior high, and high
school. That is a cause of women’s choices in departments or majors in universities. She
calls it gender tracking. Here, we can realize a vicious cycle as such socialization
creates a labor market oriented to gender based segmentation. Inversely, in labor
market, companies tend to choose labor force in terms of gender differentiation. Thus, a
gender gap in universities is maintained by such a process.
The hypothesis that the cultural orientation reinforced in school systems fixes the
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gender role is sometime criticized theoretically and empirically. In fact, the female
employment rate has been increasing. For example, Suzuki (1999) concluded that
women’s employment leads to egalitarian orientation of gender role attitude. If this is
true, women may have more chances in labor market which, in turn, may encourage
unbiased university admission in regard to gender.
However, Tanaka (1999) doubted both of those contrastive thoughts—‘reinforcing
gender role’ hypothesis and hypothesis ‘weakening gender role’. In place of them, he
argued wage equalization in a labor market doesn’t necessarily produce egalitarian
household allocation. Only women make efforts to realize optimal time allocation
between paid work and unpaid work. If it is true, wage equality doesn’t lead to
increasing full-time employment of women and at most leads to part-time job entry.
This argument is familiar with ‘the rule of Douglas and Arisawa’. It says that the level
of income of head of household is negatively correlated with employment of other
members. That, is, the higher income of husband, less the wife employment. In
consequence, smaller number of women would go to university, and women refrain
from investment in human capital.
However, such a discussion doesn’t explain the cause why only women regulate their
time allocation in spite of decreasing wage inequality of higher educated people, and
also educational gap. One way of explaining this is to pay attention to the value
consciousness as stated above. Another way is to observe this situation from a
perspective based on rational choice theory.
HUMAN CAPITAL BRINGS MORE CHANCE IN MARRIAGE MARKET.
The final hypothesis is that more human capital brings more chances in the marriage
market. One of goals of people, though not all, is to seek a higher social status,
especially, occupational status. People know their occupational status brings various
type of social resources—economical goods, social prestige and honor, political power,
authority, autonomy, knowledge and psychological satisfaction to prove and justify their
identity. In spite that there may be varying goals and dreams and different types of
life-courses, they behave consciously or unconsciously in the social stratification on
which they are ranked. Difference of their dreams is reflected on an array of various
resources in different dimensions. Some of them succeed to have higher status in many
dimensions—high income, education, authority and so on. Another part of them are
confined to a lower status of weak positions in many dimensions. For most people, their
status is inconsistent, meaning that they are ranked relatively highly in some dimensions
and lowly ranked in other dimensions―as for example, higher education, low income,
and less authority.
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Here, marriage may be imagined as a means of status seeking. In spite of the myth
of love, marriage often canalizes the flow of social resources. Therefore, status
inbreeding appears in marriage as, for example, Watanabe & Kondo (1990), Kalmijin
(1991) and Sharahase (1999) described. Table 4a and 4b show the status inbreeding in
marriage in terms of another method. The data is the outcome of the survey of ‘Social
Stratification and Mobility (SSM) 1995’
Table 4a. The Coincidence of First Occupation between Spouses
Male
Consistency
Total
0.5132
20～39 year-olds
0.4688
40～54 year-olds
0.5308
55～70 year-olds 0.5136
Benini
0.4422
0.3758
0.4369
0.4484
Female
Consistency
Benini
0.4692
0.3179
0.4277
0.2427
0.5022
0.3419
0.463
0.2959
Note: Data is the data of ‘The Survey of Social Stratification and Mobility 1995’
Table 4b. The Coincidence of Educational Attainment of Spouses
Total
20～39 years old
40～54 years old
55～70 years old
Males
Consistency
0.6462
0.6579
0.6543
0.6322
Benini
0.5032
0.3922
0.4968
0.4868
Females
Consistency
0.6594
0.7006
0.6571
0.6247
Benini
0.54
0.5618
0.4933
0.4878
Note: Data is the data of ‘The Survey of Social Stratification and Mobility 1995’
Of course, it is easy to suspect whether such inbreeding is a behavior of seeking
status. In fact, the homophily principle is widely believed. Status similarity is a key of
human behavior. However, what is important is that marriage seems to function in a
different way between both sexes. There two types of evidence that indicate this. One is
that women tend to marry with men with relatively higher status than men do. Another
one is that status affiliation of a woman is effected by her spouse’s status. Table shows
that status affiliation of woman depends on income of her husband.
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Table 5 Status Affiliation and Social Status
Age
Father' education
Father' occupational prestige
Her own education
Her own occupational prestige
Fer own income
Spouse's education
Spouse's occupational prestige
Spouse's income
Standardized
regression
coefficient β
0.041
0.021
-0.025
0.028
0.1
*
0.009
0.097
0.067
0.209
***
Note: 1.DataStatus identification as dependent variable.
2. The data is the data of SSM 1995.
3. The model is a usual multi-regression model in which
the dependent variable is status affiliation.
CONCLUSION
This paper has explored the gender gap of experience of higher universities between
men and women. In this paper, four hypotheses were examined, and among them,
three factors seem to explain variance to some extent. As long as the labor market is
structured by gender bias, the return is restricted even if the human capital is the same.
The value system makes it possible to chart a form of gender tracking for women.
Housewife is still meaningful status for women or at least an expected role. Fourth,
women are aware that marriage lead to more social resource and satisfaction.
On the other hand, there is changing trends. More women enter universities; the
circumstances of labor market and the women’s attitudes are changing so that, in turn,
the gender equalization in university admission is accelerating. When these trends are
fully synchronized, the current situation may change dramatically.
Before closing this paper, some implications may be allowed from the view of
institutional design or policy-oriented argument. Some researchers emphasize that there
are barriers for women in higher education as well as in labor market. OECD also
expressed a note about a relative lower employment rate of women. They say such a
situation is a loss of human capital. Of course, this paper never advocates a conservative
discourse. It is important that any institutional designer should take into account of the
distribution of individual different preference and of social results and functions coming
from that. Becker (1985) has pointed out that the estimation of social effect of
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investment is not effortless.
Acknowledgment:
1. The author appreciates that the committee of the survey of Social Stratification and
Mobility allowed the use of SSM data.
2. Special thanks to Robert Long, who is one of my colleagues and encouraged me for
my research and definitely helped me to finish up this paper in English.
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