Gender perspective on reconstruction of Japanese employment system

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24510370
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Gender
• Research Institution: Saitama University
• Principal Investigator: KANAI Kaoru 埼玉大学, 人文社会科学研究科(系), 准教授 (70511442)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 生命保険 / 営業職 / ジェンダー / 雇用 / 自営

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Japanese life-insurance industries have traditionally developed gendered strategies of sales and employment,the staple of which has been the employment of a vast number of middle-aged sales women and their direct reach out to potential clients. It is dramatically different from the popular sales strategies of American and European insurance companies, which rely on the professional male staffs.Although the sales women are called regular workers,　the employment is ambiguous.They are eligible to join the social security system and join a same union.However they are very easy to be layed off unless they success to sell life insurance. These characteristic of working condition are between employee and self-employed.Japanese traditional life insurance companies employ middle-aged women as sales staff on the assumption that women are naturally cut out for selling life insurance policies and caring for the customers. Gender norms play a significant role in the recruitment of new sales staff.

Free Research Field

ジェンダー論、労働経済論