Tuesday, November 26, 2013

New Paradox for Japanese Women

Version 0.2

Short comments on The New Paradox for Japanese Women: Greater Choice, Greater Inequality by Toshiaki Tachibanaki as translated by Mary Foster from 女女格差


Mostly creating this post to show one of the typical graphs from the book:



Labor Force Participation


However, I'll note that overall I was kind of disappointed in the sociological extensions of his economics-based analysis. The book has already been returned to the library, but the memorable example that comes to mind was assumptions of parity that didn't consider such obvious possibilities as gender bias in remarriage patterns. In particular, I remember his stretching for a sociological explanation when the more likely and obvious explanation was that some of the older men were remarrying younger women... It was an interesting and thought-provoking volume, but he should have had an actual sociologist look it over for such obvious flaws. (However, it is also possible that some of the apparent flaws were actually do to the translation. That wouldn't be much of an excuse since the author is fluent in English...)