NEAR Conference, Niigata June 29, 2024: Employment precarity in Japanese higher education: Changing employment contract length between 2002 and 2022

Conference website

Elizabeth Oba, National Institute of Technology (KOSEN), Toyama College

Theron Muller, Waseda University Faculty of Human Sciences

Summary

The global higher education sector has been subject to increasing employment precarity. However, how these larger global trends impact Japanese higher education remains unclear. Thus, this presentation analyzes job listing data posted to JRECIN in 2002 and 2022, examining how the proportion of jobs with and without employment terms changed. The specific research question investigated is: How has employment precarity at Japanese higher education institutions changed between the early 2000s and today, especially in light of recent changes to Japanese employment law concerning conversion from contract to permanent employment? Promoted as intended to increase employment security, Japanese employment law changed in 2013, with staff able to request permanent employment after five years. Thus, understanding how employment contract terms have changed will clarify whether the change in the law realized its desired effect. Further, employment practices within Japanese higher education may reflect employment practices outside the industry. Therefore, whether the law’s change may have had its desired effect more broadly is also examined. Understanding how policy changes influence employment conditions is important to inform policymakers’ future decisions and to better hold officeholders to account for the decisions they make.

Prerecorded Video

Beth and I prerecorded our presentation in advance of the conference. This is a more or less accurate reflection of what we presented on the day at the conference, although there was some interesting discussion during the question time that isn’t reflected in our recording.

Our Slide Deck

Acknowledgments

As we noted in our presentation and our prerecording, we are grateful to the rest of our research team who unfortunately couldn’t join us in Niigata:

• Dr. David Beglar, Temple University, Japan Campus
• Everett Morrison, Kindai University
• Jason Henwood, Ritsumeikan University
• Dr. Julia Kimura, Mukogawa Women’s University

Data generously provided by: 国立研究開発法人科学技術振興機構 JREC-IN Portal（研究人材のためのキャリア支援ポータルサイト）[JREC-IN Portal (career support portal site for research personnel) ]