## Guilt, Gender, and an Inclusive Recovery: A Lesson from Japan

_IMF Blog, September 9, 2020_

## Source details

**Canonical URL:** [Guilt, Gender, and an Inclusive Recovery: A Lesson from Japan](https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2020/09/09/blog-090920-guilt-gender-lesson-from-japan)

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## Bibliographic details
- Authors: Chie Aoyagi
- Published: September 9, 2020

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### Impact of Japan’s COVID-19 shutdown on women
- Close to one million women—the majority of whom worked in temporary and part-time positions—left the labor force between December and April.
- Japan’s voluntary month-and-a-half shutdown of the economy in April due to COVID-19 has had a higher cost for women than men.
- Amid massive disruptions to childcare and schools, women often face greater responsibility and guilt for being neither the ideal mother nor the ideal employee.

### Experiment and findings on work-life tradeoffs
- Survey of nearly 1,000 working-age Japanese men and women on preferences for job attributes affecting work-life balance, including overtime, job insecurity, risk of departmental transfer, and risk of geographical relocation.
- Women are more willing than men to sacrifice significant salary in exchange for greater work-life balance.
  - For certain age and salary ranges, mothers are willing to sacrifice approximately $3,000 more in annual salary than men to avoid relocation risk.
  - Mothers would forego roughly $6,500 more than men to avoid 45 + hours of overtime per month.
- Men who do not have children are on average more willing to trade wages for work-life balance than those with children.

### The “guilt gap”
- Women reported higher feelings of guilt than men for missing child-related activities (e.g., school events), cooking, and taking care of parents because of work.
- Higher levels of guilty feelings correspond to greater willingness to pay for more work-life balance.
  - Women who would feel highly guilty for missing a child’s event or not caring for their parents are willing to sacrifice $12,000 in their annual wage to avoid 45+ hours a month of overtime.

### Policy implications and recommendations
- Evidence supports wider use of “limited-regular” contracts that set limits on overtime and mandatory relocations for workers in traditional, permanent jobs.
  - Wider availability of such employment options would increase productivity and thus wages for those currently under non-regular contracts.
  - Men and women alike benefit, but these contracts may appeal especially to working mothers, the majority of whom are currently non-regular employees with lower pay and job security.
- Policymakers need to be sensitive to gender-based differences in guilt to ensure limited-regular contracts do not further entrench gender gaps or create new glass ceilings for women.
- Mobility across contracts is important:
  - Workers should be able to switch contracts based on life stage (for example, preferring limited-regular contracts when children are small, and potentially preferring different arrangements later).
- Japan’s work-life balance ranking: an OECD index ranked Japan 35th out of 40 countries in terms of work-life balance.

### Building resilience and the path forward
- The pandemic and widespread teleworking have shaken the long-standing stereotype of Japan's “salaryman.”
- Evidence shows working men and women in Japan value a reasonable office-home balance.
- With the right policies, the pandemic can serve as a catalyst for empowering women and creating flexibility that supports gender equality and a more resilient society.
- Gender equality must be a top priority to build resilience for the future.

*Chie Aoyagi — September 9, 2020*

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## References

- [IMF Working Paper](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/11/27/Guilt-Gender-and-Work-Life-Balance-in-Japan-A-Choice-Experiment-48701)

_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2020/09/09/blog-090920-guilt-gender-lesson-from-japan_