Freeters: Young Atypical Workers in Japan

Yuki Honda
Institute of Social Science
University of Tokyo

NB: This is an unpublished manuscript and not for further circulation.

Introduction

Freeter is a label attached to young atypical workers in Japan. The numbers of freeters have
remarkably increased in Japan since the mid-1990s. The estimated total number of freeters
has quadrupled during the last two decades, amounting to over two million at the turn of the
century (Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare 2003). According to another estimation by the
Cabinet Office based on a broader definition of freeters that includes those who are seeking
regular jobs, the total number of freeters numbered more than four million in 2001(Cabinet
Office 2003).
The word freeter first appeared in Japanese society in the late 1980s when young people
enjoyed abundant labor opportunities brought about by the bubble economy. The marked
increase in number of freeters, however, took place after the bursting of the bubble. During
the prolonged recession since the early 1990s up to the mid-2000s, many youths have been
shut out of regular employment and chosen to become freeters.
But it is too simplistic to see freeters as just the victims of the economic recession. A
careful examination of social factorsboth macro and microbehind their increase, work
conditions and attitudes reveals that the growing discrepancies in the relations between social
systems in Japanese society are directly related to this phenomenon.
Japanese post-war society has been characterized by close linkages between three key
social systems, namely the family, school, and company(Inui 2003). Families offered strong
financial and motivational support for their childrens schooling. Schools actively sorted and
distributed youth in conformity with companies labor demands. Companies employed youth
immediately after their completion of schooling and provided intensive in-company training.
What made these relations possible were companies strong demands for a young labor force
based on the steady growth of the economy, even after the oil crisis of the 1970s.
This inter-system scrum has continued through the latent permeation of the
post-industrialization of Japanese society until about 1990. Since then, however, the sweet
relations between these three systems came to a deadlock. Freeters are the people who fell
into the widening chasm between these systems, losing their former support and facing the
Honda: Freeters page 2
uncertainty common to post-industrial societies. At the same time, they are the latent
objectors to the mainstream structure of Japanese society. Not a small part of freeters refuses
the life of the company-man, which has become the negative symbol of mainstream Japanese
society. In this sense, freeters can be seen as the potential pioneers of the coming society.
Their present lives and future prospects, however, tend to be grim with the little possibility to
achieve the economic and social independence.
This chapter aims to describe these understandings based on empirical data and findings
about freeters. The next two sections examine macro and micro factors behind the increase of
freeters. They are followed by another section that describes the actual state and attitudes of
freeters. The last section gives an outline of present discourses and policies about freeters
are and criticizes their limitations.

Macro-level factors of increase of freeters:
Accidental shock and structural change

The most direct cause of the increase of freeters can be attributed to the fact that
employers have restrained from recruiting young people as regular workers under the
prolonged recession, which started with the collapse of the bubble economy in the early
1990s. In Japan, case law rules and social norms have been constructed on the basis of the
long-term employment system to accord workers comprehensive employment security.
Therefore, the main way for companies to regulate employment is to restrict hiring new regular
workers, the core source of which has been new high school leavers and university graduates.
The biggest impact was on the labor demands for new high school graduates. The total
number of job openings offered to new high school graduates drastically declined from
1,343,000 in 1990 to 643,000 in 1995, and then to 272,000 in 2000. In place of new high
school graduates, Japanese companies began to hire more and more atypical workers
part-timers, dispatched workers and contract workerswith lower personnel cost and higher
employment flexibility. A substantial number of freeters could not find adequate regular jobs
at their exit from schools and universities and chose to become atypical workers.
In order to fully understand the reason for employers reluctance to employ new workers
in the 1990s, however, it is indispensable to take into consideration factors other than
economic ones. These non-economic factors functioned as a kind of accidental shock that
accelerated the companies restriction of hiring new workers.

Demographic structure
First is the demographic factor. The present Japanese population structure by age has two
Honda: Freeters page 3
sharp peaks. One is the first baby-boomer born just after the Second World War and the other
is their sons and daughters born in 1970s called second baby-boomers. The former left schools
and universities in the period of high economic growth in 1960s and successfully found regular
jobs. The latter also grew up to school-leaving age around 1990 when companies were quite
eager to hire youth coming out of schools and universities at the height of economic prosperity.
As a consequence, two huge age groups of regular workers came to exist in the Japanese labor
force in the late 1990s (Figure 1).
Both of these two age groups functioned to hinder companies from hiring school leavers in
the late 1990s and the early 2000s. Because of the seniority-based wage system of Japanese
companies, the personnel expenses for the older first baby-boomers, now middle-aged,
imposed a heavy pressure on the companies financial structure. It has been empirically
demonstrated that the more middle-aged regular workers a company has, the less it hires new
young regular workers (Genda 2001a). The second baby-boomers employed as regular
workers around 1990, whose volume is even larger than the first (see Figure 1), also affected
companies demands on successive age-cohorts under the shrinking economy (Nitta
2003:144-146). The marked increase of freeters in 1990s was partly a result of these
demographic factors.
Figure 1 Numbers of Employed Workers
(by age, type of employment, in 2002)
0
1,000,000
2,000,000
3,000,000
4,000,000
5,000,000
6,000,000
7,000,000
8,000,000
1
5
-
1
9
2
0
-
2
4
2
5
-
2
9
3
0
-
3
4
3
5
-
3
9
4
0
-
4
4
4
5
-
4
9
5
0
-
5
4
5
5
-
5
9
6
0
-
6
4
6
5
-
6
9
7
0
-
7
4
7
5
-
other
contract workers
dispatched workers
part-time
workers('arubaito')
part-time workers('paato')
regular workers
officers

Source: Basic Survey on Employment Structure (2002)

Labor Participation of Women
The second non-economic factor of the Japanese companies restriction of new hiring is the
change in young womens life course pattern, which took place in the 1980s and 1990s. This
Honda: Freeters page 4
factor intensified the effects of the demographic factors described above. The usual life course
of Japanese women has been characterized by its M-shape pattern of labor force participation
according to age. In other words, the labor force participation rate was high in their early- and
mid-twenties, declining considerably in their thirties and rising again in their forties. The
reason of decline in thirties is that many women chose to stop working when they got married
or had a baby.
Since the 1980s, however, several changes in this pattern can be observed. As shown in
Figure 2, the most remarkable change is the rise in the participation rate in the second half of
twenties from 49% in 1980 to 70% in 2000. The participation rate in the first half of thirties has
also risen from 48% in 1980 to 57% in 2000, pulling up the bottom of M-shape. These facts
mean that more and more young Japanese women have come to remain in labor force during
1990s. This trend magnified the pressure of the work force volume of the second baby-boomer
upon companies (Nitta 2003:147-148). Indeed, the number of 25-29 year old women at work
increased by almost 1 million during just a decade, being 2.5 million in 1990 and 3.4 million in
2000.

Figure 2 Labor Market Participation of Women by age (%)
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
75
80
20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49
1970
1980
1990
2000

One of the reasons for young womens volition to continue working might be the enactment
of the Equal Employment Opportunity Law (Danjo Koyou Kikai Kintou Hou) in 1985. This law is
often criticized of its limitations, a typical example of which is that it brought about the
introduction of the double-track personnel system of the career-oriented sogo shoku
(comprehensive course) and the non-career-oriented ippan shoku (general course). Survey
data on the work experience of female university graduates shows, however, that the
difference of labor force participation rate around age 30 between these two tracks rapidly
shrank during the 1990s such that many more ippan shoku women came to work as long as
Honda: Freeters page 5
sogo shoku women (JIL 1999:99).

Expansion of Post-secondary Education
The third non-economic factor having influenced the youth labor market in the 1990s is the
expansion of the post-secondary education. As described at the beginning of this section, the
labor demands for new high school graduates drastically decreased in the 1990s. Thus the rate
of those neither fully employed nor going on to post-secondary educational institutions among
new high school graduates increased from 5% in 1990 to 10% in 2003.
Figure 3 Number of University Graduates (by destination)
0
100000
200000
300000
400000
500000
600000
1
9
9
0
1
9
9
1
1
9
9
2
1
9
9
3
1
9
9
4
1
9
9
5
1
9
9
6
1
9
9
7
1
9
9
8
1
9
9
9
2
0
0
0
2
0
0
1
other
went on to graduate
schools
employed

Among university graduates, however, the corresponding rate has increased much more
markedly from 12% in 1990 to 23% in 2003. This figure gives us the impression that Japanese
companies are even more reluctant to hire new university graduates than high school
graduates. But the reality is different. The critical point is the total numbers of new university
graduates. As shown in Figure 3, the numbers of new university graduates have increased by
nearly 150 thousand during the last decade. Throughout the same period, the numbers of new
university graduates who found jobs at their graduations were almost constant, being slightly
over 300 thousand. Therefore the critical reason for the increasing rate of those not in
employment nor in education among new university graduates has not been the decline of the
labor demands for university graduates but the excess of its supply. The obvious worsening of
the employment condition of new high school graduates drove them to go on to higher
education, if only their household economy and their academic achievement afford to. The rate
of those who went on to universities and colleges among new high school graduates increased
from 31% in 1990 to 45% in 2001. This educational pattern of individuals resulted in the
massive generation of freeters with university degree.
Honda: Freeters page 6

Changes in Industrial Structure
The above three factorsdemography, women and higher educationof the macro-level
background of the increase of freeters in 1990s are not economic but sociological factors. An
economic factor, however, should not be overlooked. That is the longitudinal change in the
industrial structure. Figure 4 shows that, different from other OECD countries, an obvious
decline in the manufacturing sector did not occur in Japan until the early 1990s. Since the
mid-1990s, however, the manufacturing sector began to reduce its weight in the total labor
force while the service sector gained its weight. The rate of labor force in the service sector was
58.7% in 1990, 61.0 in 1995 and 64.2 in 2000.

Figure 4 Rate of Labor Force in Manufacturing Sector
(by year and country, %)
20
25
30
35
40
45
1
9
7
7
1
9
7
9
1
9
8
1
1
9
8
3
1
9
8
5
1
9
8
7
1
9
8
9
1
9
9
1
1
9
9
3
1
9
9
5
1
9
9
7
1
9
9
9
JP
US
UK
GE
FR
IT

Source: OECD (2001) Labour Force Statistics 1980-2000

The manufacturing sector has traditionally welcomed less-educated youth, especially junior
high school and high school graduates, as regular workers (Brinton 2000:300). The service
sector, on the other hand, depends greatly on other types of workers than regular workers with
secondary education. Finance, insurance, real estate and business services are areas that
usually require workers with university education. Retail, food services and consumer services
are areas that typically utilize irregular workers. Moreover the dependence of the service
sector on irregular workers has become even heavier during the last decade. The rate of
part-time workers in wholesale, retail and food services has almost doubled from 18.1% in
Honda: Freeters page 7
1990 to 35.3% in 2000. The reason of the preference of these areas for irregular workers is
their cheapness and flexibility of working hours. Different from factories in the manufacturing
sector that can operate production lines constantly, shops and restaurants need to arrange
their work formations flexibly according to the consumers behaviors during a day, a week, or
a year. Thus the increase of the service sector reduces the total labor demands for young
regular workers and enlarges the demands for irregular workers, a part of which consists of
freeters.

Among various macro-level factors described above, the demographic factor is transitory and
its effect will diminish as time passes. Around 2015, when the first baby-boomers retire from
labor market and the second baby-boomers get older, Japanese companies may revive their
demands for young regular workers. The effect of the industrial factor, however, will continue
in the future. It is difficult to suppose that Japanese companies will give up the utility of
irregular workers. Therefore the severe condition of youth labor market will not easily be
improved at least in the next several decades.

Micro-level factors of choosing to be freeters

The previous section reviewed the macro-level factors acting on the increase of freeters
based on statistical data. In this section, using qualitative data, I will review micro-level factors
behind individual choice to become freeters. The Japan Institute of Labour (JIL) conducted
semi-structured interviews of 97 freeters in 1999 and published all of the recorded discourses
as a research report (JIL 2000). Through the reexamination of this data, micro-level factors in
three social systems are identified as critical causes of becoming a freeter (Honda 2004a).
These systems are family, education, and labor market. Individual personality of youths is
affected by changes in these systems. Young people in Japan facing such problems choose to
become freeters.

Family: Household Living
First, the important factor inside ones own family is the limitation of the household budget. For
example, if ones father is fired or has his salary cut, or suddenly gets ill or idies, a young
member of the family immediately loses the financial support necessary to continue schooling,
and must contribute to the household, usually by engaging in part-time labor.
The financial limitations of the family have the biggest impact at the point of graduation from
high school. Japanese high school graduate who fail the entrance examination of universities
usually continue to study as ronin and try again next year. In the case that ones family is not
Honda: Freeters page 8
affluent enough to support him or her, however, s/he often must earn their own living or study
expenses as a part-time worker during their ronin period. As it is a tough task for them to
pursue both studying and working at the same time, some of them give up studying and never
advance to university.

When I was a high school student, my parents told me that if I want to go on to a university
I must pay my study expenses by myself. After I failed in the entrance examination to a
university, my mother recommended me to work at a hamburger shop near my house. At
first I expected to try to enter a university again next year. But as time passed, I came to feel
more and more interested in the part-time job at the hamburger shop and lost the will to
continue studying (female, 21 years old).

The risk of giving up studying and being absorbed in part-time work is not limited to ronin.
Even if one passes the entrance examination and successfully becomes a student at a
university or a college, the same pressure to engage in both studying and working remains.
The fact that they often become more interested in their part-time work than in studying at
educational institutions points to a problem in the Japanese education system.

I entered the department of technology of a university but felt uninterested. I began working
as a part-timer at a restaurant and was happy while working. I worked intently and the
manager appreciated my ability. I respected him and he told me how interesting and
important service work is. I decided to aim at working in a hotel, an ultimate form of service,
and left the university (male, 23 years old).

Moreover there are, of course, many youth who cannot even think about going on to higher
education from the start because of the financial limitations of their family. As a large part of
the higher education in Japan consists of private institutions, the study expenses press heavily
on the household economy. Although families have covered costs of their childrens schooling
somehow or other when the fathers employment and income were stable, nowadays not a
small number of them have lost their former financial capability.
Moreover the problem within the family is not limited to financial limitations. Japanese
parents, who did not have much difficulty in finding good jobs (stable and promising jobs) on
the whole when they left school several decades ago, tend not to give sincere and beneficial
advice to their sons and daughters faced with todays severe labor market conditions. In some
cases parents give only negative pressures to their children, blaming them for idling away their
time. In other cases, parents spoil their children, not prompting them to make a realistic choice
Honda: Freeters page 9
but just leaving them indecisive and hesitant about their future. These limitations of familial
functions, both financial and advisory, are grave factors in the increase in number of freeters.

Education: Guidance and Curriculum
Second, there are two problematic factors with the education system that relate to the
increase of freeters: the guidance factor and the curriculum factor. The guidance factor is
again divided into two dimensions: its lack and its rigidity. By lack of guidance, I mean the
insufficient provision of information about higher educational institutions and/or employers to
students. For example, a young woman wished to go on to a technical college of photography
in Tokyo when she was in high school. The high school, however, being located in a region far
from Tokyo, did not provide any information and advice about the college. Thus she had to
collect information and to apply to the college totally by herself. After she passed the entrance
examination, she barely knew that the expense and the conditions of study were quite
demanding, including a residence with a darkroom for developing films. She resigned to study
at the college and chose to become a freeter in Tokyo.
Recently the lack of guidance has been observed in many high schools, especially in
general/academic courses. Morota (2000) points out that in the late 1990s high school
teachers in charge of career guidance have three tendencies in their guidance practices:
entrusting students with the career decision, refraining from enforcement of specific career
choice, and resigning from guiding disobedient students. These tendencies originated in the
Japanese educational policies in the 1990s that attached importance to students individuality
and diversity.
At the same time, these tendencies that value individual students free will and choice are
rooted in the reformation of traditional guidance practices. In Japanese high schools, teachers
usually strongly recommend individual students to take a job in a specific company or to go on
to a specific educational institution after graduating from high school based on his/her
academic records. These kinds of guidance practices, characterized by rigidity, still survive in
not a small number of high schools. The stiffness of guidance, however, tends to result in job
mismatch and early drop out from recommended companies or educational institutions
(Brinton 2000, Honda 2003).

I think the guidance in high school is too realistic. If a student dreams of becoming a singer,
teachers just say Well, that is out of question or No kidding! They wanted to push all the
students into some companies or universities neatly (female, 20 years old).

I had no future desires when I was a high school student. The reason why I entered the
Honda: Freeters page 10
department of technology of a university was that I was in the science course in the high
school and a teacher recommended it. But soon I found that the department did not fit me
(male, 23 years old).

The guidance in high school pressured me terribly! Teachers never considered what I wanted
to do. They only forced me to make choice (female, 22 years old)

To sum up, recent career guidance practices in Japanese educational institutions, especially in
high schools, tend to split into two extremes: the lack of guidance and the excessive rigidity of
guidance. Both cases are important factors in the increase of freeters.
Another problem in the Japanese education system is the irrelevance of the curriculum to the
students interest and learning intention. This gap leads to disinterest in studying and
eventually dropping out of educational institutions without any concrete plans.

I entered the English literature department of a university because I was interested in
foreign languages and reading books. But the content of education was different from what
I expected. Though I was willing to explore literature by myself, professors assigned
students uninteresting works one after another and just told us to translate them into
Japanese. I felt that it was a waste of time (female, 20 years old).

As students were not very diligent, professors did not expect much from students and just
continued talking at the front of the classroom with little regard for students interests. It had
no relevance to me (female, 20 years old).

Until about 1990 Japanese education, especially higher education, could enjoy strong
demands both at its entrance and at its exit. At its entrance, strong educational demands from
households caused constant excess of applicants to the supply of opportunity. At its exit,
strong labor demands from employers resulted in a smooth transition of its graduates to the
world of work. Because of these two strong demands, Japanese higher education expanded
without a severe effort to improve the relevance of its educational content both for individuals
and for industry.
Since the mid-1990s, however, the weakening both of household living and of labor
demands from industry has deprived the Japanese educational system of its former repose.
The entertainment industry and the technologies of consumption also pose problems for the
education system as they distract students from studying. The system, however, has not been
able to adjust itself fully to the change of its environment, because of its inertia. Thus the gap
Honda: Freeters page 11
between the educational system and society has been widening in terms of both its guidance
practice and its curriculum content, resulting in the massive production of freeters.

Labor Market: regular, irregular, special
The third system that is directly related to the choice of youth to become freeters is the
labor market: the shrinkage of the labor market for regular workers, the expansion of labor
market for irregular workers, and the increase of attractiveness of the special labor market for
liberal professions.
As discussed above, since the early 1990s the employers labor demands for young regular
workers remarkably declined. The important fact is that what disappeared most drastically was
good jobs for youth. Even under the recent severe labor market condition, one can find jobs
if s/he does not mind labor conditions and job contents. In reality, however, not a small number
of young people has come to hesitate to take whatever regular jobs s/he can find because work
conditions for young regular workers are getting harder and harder. The working hours for
regular workers in twenties and thirties have been getting longer since the early 1990s. The
quantity of job assignments is also increasing. At the same time, wage levels and company
welfare are falling. As job vacancies in large companies are decreasing, most jobs that youth
can find are those at small and unstable companies.
As a result, youth tend to avoid these bad jobs in private sectors and apply for public
sectors, in which the number of persons accepted is also decreasing. Because of the
intensification of the competition for these better jobs, those who failed in the selection tend
to choose to become freeters. Therefore the reduction of the regular labor market is
exercising pushing effects for freeters.
On the other hand, labor demands for young irregular workers have been getting more and
more abundant since the early 1990s. In addition to that, the contents of irregular jobs are
sometimes more attractive to youth than regular jobs. As seen in the former quotation, some
types of personal service, selling at retail stores and serving at restaurants for example, can be
felt more worth doing by youth than monotonous tasks at factories. The ease of jobs, the small
restraint by employers and superiors and the freedom of getting and quitting jobs are also felt
to be merits of irregular jobs. These pulling effects of the irregular job market are
indispensable to understand the increase of freeters.
Other pulling effects for freeters come from the special labor market, which refers to
jobs requiring unconventional routes of entry than the usual entrance selection processes to
companies. JILs interview data contains examples of freeters aiming at getting these kinds of
jobs as musicians, actors, dress designers, photographers, illustrators, playwrights, nail artists,
professional athletes, patissieres, and so on. These jobs require special talents and skills and
Honda: Freeters page 12
are usually pursued not in the form of full-time employed workers but of liberal professions.
The autonomy and artistry of these jobs attract not a small part of youth, especially in
metropolitan areas. In order to get these jobs, however, one needs to muddle through a
lengthy period of trials and selections: auditions, apprenticeships and contributions of ones
pieces of works, for example. Even if one can successfully find ones way to the job at which
s/he aims, it is often difficult to earn ones living only through remunerations to these jobs.
Thus one usually has to work as a part-timer while challenging or engaging in these jobs,
contributing to the growth of the number of freeters.

Individual personalities of youth: vocational attitudes
Recent changes in the three systems described above, namely family, education, and labor
market, are forcing youth to confront more complicated and risky choices regarding their
future careers. Faced with this difficult requirement, the vocational attitudes of youth tend to
split into two extremes: too much vagueness and too much accuracy.
Some youth, whose vocational perspectives being quite vague, postpone their choice until
after leaving school. They often do not take any action toward making career decisions,
applying neither for job vacancies nor for entrance examinations of other educational
institutions, while they are at schools and universities. They graduate from schools and
universities without any concrete directions and prospects, in most cases engaging in
part-time jobs. Many of them are, however, far from being insincere and insouciant but are
quite serious and prudent about their future. But their prudence makes them hesitate to
choose from enormous variations of potential futures, while realistic options for them are more
and more limited by labor demands.

When I was in high school I was interested in dressing, cooking and art. I could not decide
which to choose and did not want to go on to an upper school while I was still hesitating. I
needed more time to make up my mind. I also felt that I would be able to discover something
more fascinating to me (female, 19 years old).

I wanted to go on to a technical college. But I did not find what I wanted to learn. I thought
I could not endure study at a technical college if the course was not the one I really wanted
to do (female, 22 years old).

Some youth point out the lack of experience of decision-making in their younger days as the
reason of their indecision.

Honda: Freeters page 13
I did not know what to do after the graduation. I had never decided my own future. Well, Ive
only followed the advice of my parents so far. Now I must find a job, but I cannot choose
what job to do (female, 24 years old).

On the other hand, there exist some youth whose vocational attitudes are quite specific, or in
other words, whose targets of aspiration are too restricted. They tend to stick to specific jobs
or schools. When they fail to realize their dreams, they often give up all other possibilities and
lose interest in developing their future careers.

I intended to go on to a technical college of dressing. But I failed the entrance examination.
I did not try to enter other technical colleges, because the only college I wanted to go was the
one I didnt get into. I preferred becoming a freeter to putting up with going to another
college (female, 18 years old).

I wished to find a job related to movies in the future and tried to enter a movie course at a
university. But when I failed the examination of the university I wanted neither to try next
year as a ronin nor to go another university, and chose instead to become a freeter (female,
19 years old).

Though it is often pointed out that the vagueness of the vocational attitudes of youth is the
principal cause of the increase (Ministry of Labor 2000: 158, for example), it is important to
remember that the excessive accuracy or limitedness of vocational attitudes, while being the
exact opposite of the vagueness, also tends to lead youth to freeters. Both vagueness and too
much accuracy are forms of maladjustment of youths personality to their vocational
environment that is becoming more and more complicated and fluid. The rapid deterioration of
the normal pattern of vocational life course is forcing Japanese youth either to stand at a loss
or to adhere to some impatient choices. The formation of proper vocational attitudes, often
advocated in recent youth policies in Japan, has become a far more difficult task in todays
reality than in the near past.

The micro-level factors of increase of freeters in Japan are principally observed in disjunctions
within and between these three social systemsfamily, education, labor marketand
individual personality. As described at the beginning of this chapter, Japanese youth have been
protected by the harmonious scrum among other three social systems. Since the early 1990s,
however, family, education, and labor market respectively changed their conditions and faced
their own problems and limitations. Japanese youth have lost their way, without readiness to
Honda: Freeters page 14
confront their difficulties.


Attributes, Working Conditions and Attitudes of Freeters

The former sections described why freeters increased rapidly in the 1990s. This section
proceeds to describing who freeters are: their social attributes, working conditions and
attitudes. In other words, the characteristics of freeters as a social group are outlined in this
section.

Attributes
JIL estimated the numbers of freeters using the data of Basic Survey on Employment
Structure (JIL 2002). JIL defines freeters as youth who are 15-34 years old, not studying at
an educational institutions, not married in case of women, working under the name of paato
/ arubaito or not working with a wish to work as paato / arubaito. This estimation by JIL is
useful in tracing the nationwide composition of the most basic attributes of Japanese freeters.
Figure 5 shows the change in the numbers of freeters by gender. Freeters, increasing
remarkably between 1992 and 1997, have continuously contained more women than men. As
described below, this gender composition of freeters is related to the gender bias in family,
labor market and youth themselves.
Figure 5 Numbers of 'Freeters' (by gender)
270
420
490
730
320
530
610
1000
0 500 1000 1500 2000
1982
1987
1992
1997
(thousand)
men
women

About half of freeters are 20-24 year olds, and one-fourth are 25-29 year olds. For male
freeters the proportion of the youngest group, aged 15-19, is larger than for female workers
(18% for men and 11% for women).
The educational backgrounds of freeters by gender are shown in Figure 6. A little more than
Honda: Freeters page 15
half of freeters are those who left schools after graduation from high schools. Among male
freeters the proportion of both those without high school diploma and those with university
education is higher than among female freeters. On the other hand, nearly 30% of female
freeters experienced short-term (2 years) higher education. On the whole, female freeters
have a higher level of education than male freeters, while not a small part of male freeters
are those who did not succeeded in finishing high school.
Concerning the regional composition, about one-third of freeters live in Tokyo Metropolitan
area. The concentration to this area is a little more prominent in case of male freeters (39%)
than female freeters (33%).
Figure 6 Educational Background of 'Freeters'
(by gender, 1997)
21.1
9.4
56.2
53.2
10.1
28.8
12.5
8.4
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
men
women
less than high
school
high school
2 years college
university and
graduate school


JILs estimation does not give information about more detailed social characteristics of
freeters, such as family backgrounds and work experiences. In order to grasp these points we
must use other principal data about freeters which comes from a questionnaire survey also
conducted by JIL in 2001(JIL 2001). Though the sample of this data is regionally limited to the
Tokyo area, it explores manifold realities of freeters. The samples of the JIL data consist of
freeters and non-freeters, about one thousand each, 18-29 years old, so that comparison
between these two groups is possible. Non-freeters are students, regular workers and
housewives.
One of the characteristics of freeters observed in the JIL data is that their family
backgrounds tend to be more disadvantageous than that of non-freeters. For example, the
rates of freeters whose parents are poor or rather poor are 16% and 34% respectively,
while the corresponding rates for non-freeters are 11% and 27%. Freeters are more likely to
come from less affluent families than non-freeters. Moreover the rate of freeters whose
fathers experienced higher education is 30%, being 6% less than that of non-freeters. These
facts support the recognition that Freeters relatively lack familial resourses, both economical
and cultural, compared to non-freeters. At the same time, however, it is important that the
Honda: Freeters page 16
social inequality in the probability of becoming freeters is not absolute but relative one.
Freeters are not necessarily those from most needy families.
Concerning past work experiences of freeters, it is significant that about 30% of them
21% of male freeters and 34% of female freetershad regular jobs just after leaving schools.
The rate of those who became freeters just after graduation from schools and universities is
57% for male freeters and 46% for female freeters. In other words, not a few freeters once
had a chance to work as regular workers and then chose to become freeters. The main
reasons why they left their regular jobs (M.A.) are that the job was not interesting (40%), that
they had other things to pursue (33%) or that they did not get along with their colleagues
(30%). These differ from the main reasons for quitting regular jobs among non-freeters who
attach importance to working conditions such as payment and working hours (32%), or family
and health conditions (27%).
About 40% of freeters in the JIL data say that the most desirable form of work at the
present is freeter-type work, while another 30% desirie regular jobs. The most desirable
forms of work in which they wish to engage three years later, however, are regular jobs (43%)
or independent jobs (24%), those wishing to continue freeters being just 4%. They seem to
consider freeters as a transitory period within their life course.
The reality, however, might be going wrong with their expectation. Figure 7 shows the
numbers of freeters by birth cohort and age based on the JIL estimation (JIL 2002). Cohort A
is the oldest birth cohort, born between 1963 and 1967. Cohort B is born between 1968 and
1972, and the youngest cohort C is born between 1973 and 1977. The noteworthy point is the
difference between cohort A and cohort B in the decrease of the freeters population
between age 20-24 and 25-29. Compared to cohort A, within which the numbers of freeters
remarkably decreased by 32% between age 20-24 and 25-29, the rate of decrease of the
numbers of freeters between age 20-24 and 25-29 within cohort B is quite lower, being just
7%. This implies that the younger the cohort, the more difficult it is to graduate from
freeterhood. In other words, the dead-end character of freeters has grown stronger in
recent years.

Honda: Freeters page 17
Figure 7 Numbers of 'Freeters' (by birth cohort and age)
0
100000
200000
300000
400000
500000
600000
700000
800000
900000
cohort A cohort B cohort C
15-19
20-24
25-29
30-34


Working conditions
The JIL data also give us information about the working conditions of freeters. Concerning
occupations, more than half of freeters engage in service jobs (36%) or sales jobs (28%), the
corresponding rates for regular workers being only 13% and 19% respectively. Compared to
regular workers whose principal jobs are clerical (29%) or professional (20%), the
corresponding rates for freeters are far lower, being 11% and 10% respectively. Thus a kind
of job segregation can be observed between regular workers and freeters in Japan.
Table 1 shows the distribution of working hours per week within freeters based on the JIL
estimation (Kosugi and Hori 2004). Throughout the period in Table 1 a little more than half of
freeters work 35-48 hours per week. A steady change is observed, however, in the proportion
both of those working more than 49 hours and of those working less than 35 hours. Both for
male and female, recently the number of freeters working fewer hours has been increasing.
This fact suggests that the freeters will to work is declining recently under the prolonged
hardship in youth labor market..


Table 1 Working hours of freeters (by gender)

Less than
22 hours
22-34
hours
35-48
hours
more
than
49 hours
no answerTotal
1982 6.8 8.8 53.7 30.1 0.4 100.0 Male
1987 6.4 9.7 52.0 31.1 0.8 100.0
Honda: Freeters page 18
1992 4.3 8.7 58.4 26.5 2.1 100.0
1997 8.7 16.0 57.0 16.2 2.2 100.0
1982 8.9 16.3 60.5 14.2 0.2 100.0
1987 7.8 17.6 58.9 15.3 0.4 100.0
1992 4.8 17.1 67.4 9.1 1.7 100.0
Female
1997 12.1 25.5 54.8 6.4 1.2 100.0
Source: Kosugi and Hori (2004), p.8


Table 2 shows the income of freeters compared with other types of employment. Though the
average working hours of freeters are about 80% of regular workers, the average income of
freeters is no more than about half of regular workers. This results from the difference in
income per hour between freeters and regular workers. The income per hour of freeters is
less than two-thirds of regular workers. Japan is known as one of societies in which the wage
gap between regular workers and part-time workers is large. Moreover the gap is widening
recently. Although there are policies and social movements toward the fair treatment based on
merit in Japan, its realization seems to be difficult without such a solid measure as EU directive
banning discrimination regarding wages and working conditions.

Table 2 Income of freeters (by gender, type of employment)
Gender type of
employment
working
hours per
week
Last year
income
Income per hour
compared with
regular workers
Male regular workers 50.8 343.9 100
'freeters' 40.6 175.0 64

Dispatched
/contract workers 46.2 263.6 84
Female regular workers 44.8 285.0 100
'freeters' 34.8 138.0 63

Dispatched
/contract workers 38.0 219.0 91
Source: Kosugi (2002), p.43

Attitudes
As described in the former section, freeters tend to have either too vague or too accurate
Honda: Freeters page 19
vocational prospects. In addition to that, there can be observed other characteristic aspects in
the attitudes of freeters. First is the aversion to the life of the company-man. Some freeters,
mainly male, express an aggressive abomination or a passive weariness against being tied
down to a company (kaisha).

A life as a regular worker (salary-man) is not happy being driven hard, is it? I want to do as
magnificent a work as I can. I want to have my ability be appreciated properly. I cannot
stand the presence of a ceiling in an organization. (male, 26 years old)

I feel that a regular job is too hard. It is my fixed idea that regular workers should be perfect
humans who can bear a huge responsibility and hardship. As I am not self-confident, I
cannot become a regular worker. I have neither the physical strength nor the vigor. (male,
25 years old)

This aversion or reluctance of freeters to belonging to a company as a regular member
seems to underlie both the vagueness and the rigidity of vocational prospects among them.
The reason for the ambiguous career visions of freeters is that they implicitly exclude the
usual standard career course to be employed at a company. The excessively explicit
vocational prospects of freeters usually target some professional or artistic jobs, which are
not organizational but individualistic forms of activities. Both cases are seeking their dreams
outside of ordinal Japanese companies.
These kinds of negative images of Japanese companies among freeters might have been
stirred by business scandals, successive bankruptcies and harsh dismissals which happened
one after another during 1990s. Japanese mass media, often reporting the severity of working
life within Japanese companies whose typical example is the karoshi (deaths by overworking),
might also have reinforced the inhuman images of Japanese companies. Though these images
may be often somewhat exaggerated, objective evidence exists that suggests they are at least
partly true. A questionnaire survey conducted by JIL in 2003 on labor unions and employers
reveals the fact that the labor loads for young regular workers have been getting heavier
recently (JIL 2004). Genda (2001b) also points out that the working hours of regular workers
in 20s and 30s have been increasing since late 90s. Freeters seem to be sensitive to these
tendencies and chose to evade the severity of young regular workers by their own accord. They
are latent objectors to dominant practices and culture within Japanese companies.
Honda: Freeters page 20

In this sense, freeter might be a rational and satisfactory choice for them. In reality,
however, the self-images of freeters, especially male freeters, are quite gloomy. Figure 8
shows the rate of those who give an affirmative response to the question that My career choice
has been successful in the JIL data. Observed in this figure the negative self-image of male
freeters, contrasts with female freeters.
One of the reasons why male freeters are not satisfied with their choice to become
freeters may be the fact that they are hardly treated as full-fledged adults. In Japanese
society the gender-norm that defines males as primary bread-winners of families is so strong
that male freeters, whose income and employment stability being quite low, cannot find their
place either in society as a whole or within the family. Many young females, including female
freeters, not only exclude male freeters from their potential candidates for marriage, but also
criticize them severely.

I think male freeters who pursue what they want to do are quite understandable. But if they
want to marry they are wrong (female, 24 years old).

For me, a male freeter is inadequate for a marital partner (female, 23 years old).

A married man must not be a freeter (female, 28 years old).

These statements clearly indicate the asymmetric property of freeters by gender (Honda
2002). Female freeters, who exceed male freeters in number, are far less depressed than
their male counterparts. The principal reason for females to choose to become freeters is that
Honda: Freeters page 21
they do not strive to develop careers. The gender discrimination in the Japanese labor market,
the low expectation by their parents for them to pursue occupational careers, and the gender
role deeply internalized within their attitudes all discourage females from forcing their way into
the world of work. Many female freeters, consciously or unconsciously, are waiting for
marriage as an exit from freeterhood.

I dont want to continue being a freeter for a long time. But as I am a woman I have ways
out such as marriage. So I dont feel I am in a pinch (female, 26 years old).

I think female freeters are quite O.K. because after all they become housewives (female, 22
years old).

Thus attitudes of freeters are considerably different by gender. This difference, however, has
rarely been focused on or pointed out in studies of freeters. Freeters tend to be treated as if
they are a genderless monolith, their common features such as youthfulness or insecurity
being emphasized. In fact, they are deeply embedded in the gender structure of Japanese
society, which has a strong influence on their perception of their current situation and future
possibilities.

Social and Political Discourses on Freeters

With the presence of freeters becoming more and more massive, the social and political
discourses on freeters have increased in Japan. Although there can be found some prudent
recognition that the main reason of its increase lies in the employers side, the dominant view
is that the principal problem is the vocational attitudes and abilities of young people such as
the lack of eagerness to work and their insufficient communication skills.
Under these circumstance the Japanese government launched a comprehensive program
for promoting the employment of young people titled Plan to Foster a Spirit of Independence
and Challenge in Youth in 2003. The focuses of this plan are the introduction of a
Japanese-type dual system, the establishment of regional employment support centers
targeting youths, the promotion of career education in elementary and secondary schools, the
stationing of job-supporters and career-counselors at employment security offices, and
strong support to business start-up projects. The aim of these measures is to rectify the
current situation of the youth labor market by bolstering human resource development
programs targeting young people and by encouraging their vocational independence.
As Inui (2003) points out, state intervention to support young peoples transition from
Honda: Freeters page 22
school to work has been very weak in Japan. Therefore this Plan is epochal as one of the first
attempts by the Japanese government to reconstruct the youth labor market.
This Plan, however, bears grave limitations. First, its quantitative coverage is too small
compared to the volume of freeters. The numbers of the targets of each program are tens of
thousands at most, far below the total number of existing freeters, which number in the
millions. Second, the Plan does not give careful consideration to the most risky people among
the youth population. High school dropouts, those who refuse engaging in even part-time jobs,
and Hikikomori (young people being confined to their own room for several months of years)
are at the highest risk of failing in establishing economic and social independence. Although
they need special attention and support, the Plan makes little reference to them. The targets
of the Plan are limited to those who are relatively active, are highly qualified and have high
potential as workers. Third and the most important is that the Plan concentrates on
invigorating Japanese youth and has almost no intention to urge employers to give proper
chances to youth. If the increase of freeters originates mainly in the employers reduction of
the recruitment of new regular workers, the most effective countermeasures to freeters
should be to appeal to and stimulate employers to recover the employment of youth. Of course,
as the employers reluctance to employ new young regular workers is due to the demographic
and industrial structure, the encouragement of employment recovery by public policy may
have little practical effect. The policy mainly targeted at the youth, however, can be no more
effective than that but has its own harm in shifting the responsibility onto the individual youth.
This kind of policy is apt to even exacerbate the view widely accepted in Japanese society that
regards youth as incompetent and ill-prepared for the working life.
In this sense, the Plan should be understood as just the very first step of Japanese youth
policy. It must be amplified both quantitatively and qualitatively, if it is not to be a mere
pretence of the justice of the current political arrangement, but, as it profess itself to be, an
earnest challenge to the youth employment problem.

Conclusion

According to the estimation by the Cabinet Office, Freeters now count as one out of nine
of total 15-34 years old people in Japan. Now that they are so voluminous, it would be
misleading to look for some inherent peculiarities within individual freeters as the cause of
their increase. The lengthening of the adolescent transition and the growing diversity in
adolescence and the paths to adulthood have been reported In many other post-industrial
societies(Mortimer and Larson 2002). The freeters in Japan can be understood as a variant of
this prolonged and disordered adolescence. The special feature of Japan is the abruptness of
Honda: Freeters page 23
the social change. The dysfunction of the usual inter-system relations has become apparent
just in a decade after early 1990s. This rapidness even intensified the confusion of Japanese
society and youth within it. Japanese youth, with neither sufficient financial resources nor
political voices, are directly subjected to the severity brought about by the widening gaps
between social systems. At the same time, they are latently prosecuting the problems inherent
to the existing social and economic structure.
What is needed is the drastic reorganization of systems and inter-system relations to
empower future generations. Japanese families, schools and companies no longer entertain
the usual mutual collusions and indolence. The task of re-designing these systems has just
started tottering along its way (Honda 2004b). The future of freeters will be the touchstone of
Japanese societys trajectory hereafter.

References
Brinton, M. C., 2000, Social capital in the Japanese youth labor market: Labor market
policy, schools, and norms, Policy Sciences 33, pp.289-306.
Cabinet Office, 2003, Kokumin Seikatsu Hakusyo (White Paper on Peoples Life).
Genda, Y., 2001a, Who really lost jobs in Japan? in T. Tachibanaki and D. Wise (eds.),
Labor Markets and Firm Benefit Policies in Japan and the United States,
The University of Chicago Press.
Genda, Y., 2001b, Shigoto no Naka no Aimai na Fuan (Ambiguous Anxiety within
Work), Chuo-Koron-Shinsha.
Honda, Y., 2002, Jenda toiu Kanten kara Mita Freeter(Gender Approach to Freeter)
in Kosugi, R. (ed.) Jiyu no Daisho / Freeter(The Cost of Freedom: Freeter),
Nihon Roudou Kenkyu Kikou (The Japan Institute of Labour), pp.149-174
Honda, Y., 2003, The Reality of the Japanese School-to-Work Transition System at the
Turn of the Century: Necessary Disillusionment, Social Science Japan,
Newsletter of the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, 25, pp.8-12.
Honda, Y., 2004a, Toranjisyon toiu Kanten kara Mita Freeter(Transition Processes of
Freeters), Shakai Kagaku Kenkyu (The Journal of Social Sciences), Vol.55,
No.2, Tokyo Daigaku Shakai Kagaku Kenkyusho (Institute of Social Science,
University of Tokyo), pp.79-111
Honda, Y., 2004b, The Formation and Transformation of the Japanese System of
Transition from School to Work, Social Science Japan Journal, Vol.7 No.1,
Oxford University Press
Inui, A., 2003, Restructuring Youth: Recent Problems of Japanese Youth and its
Contextual Origin, Journal of Youth Studies, Vol.6, No.2, pp.219-233.
Honda: Freeters page 24
JIL, 1999, Henka suru Daisotsusha no Shoki Kyaria (Changing Early Vocational Career
of University Graduates), Research Report No.129.
JIL, 2000, Freeter no Ishiki to Jittai (Attitudes and Lives of Freeters), Research Report
No. 136.
JIL, 2001, Daitoshi no Wakamono no Shugyo Kodo to Ishiki (Work and Attitude of Youth
in Metropolitan Area), Research Report No.146.
JIL, 2002, Wakamono no Shugyo Kodo ni kansuru Data Book (1) (Data Book on Youth
Work no.1)
JIL, 2004, Shinki Saiyo Yokusei de Futankan ga Zoudai (Increasing Work Burdens
Resulting from Restraint of New Employment), Business Labour Trend,
Feburary 2004.
Kosugi, R., 2002, Gakko kara Shokugyo heno Iko no Genjo to Mondai (Reality and
Problems in the Transition from School to Work in Kosugi, R. (ed.), Jiyu no
Daisho / Freeter (The Cost of Freedom: Freeter), Nihon Roudou Kenkyu
Kikou (The Japan Institute of Labour)
Kosugi, R., and Y. Hori, 2004, Jakunen Mugyo / Shuhenteki Freeter Sou no Genjo to
Mondai(Jobless Youth and Periphery Freeters in Japan), Shakai Kagaku
Kenkyu (The Journal of Social Sciences), Vol.55, No.2, Tokyo Daigaku Shakai
Kagaku Kenkyusho (Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo), pp.5-28.
Ministry of Labor (ed.), 2000, Roudou Hakusho (White Paper on Labor), The Japan Institute of
Labour
Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (ed.), 2003, Roudou Keizai Hakusho (White Paper on
Labor Economy), The Japan Institute of Labour
Morota, Y., 2000, Shinro to shiteno Mugyosya (The track of indecision) in Mimizuka, H., (ed.)
Kousotsu Mugyosya no Kyoikushakaigakuteki Kenkyu, (Research on Indecisive High
School Graduate from the approach of Sociology of Education), Kagakukenkyuhi
Kenkyuseika Houkokusho.
Mortimer, J. T., and R. W. Larson (eds.), 2002, The Changing Adolescent Experience,
Cambridge University Press.
Nitta, M., 2003, Jakunen Koyou Mondai Shinkokuka no Haikei (Backgrounds of
Worsening Youth Employment Problem) in Henka no Naka no Koyou System
(Employment System in Transition), Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai.
OECD ,2001, Labour Force Statistics 1980-2000, OECD