Equal Pay for Equal Work-Part 2

August 23, 2024 ［No.126-2024］

FUJIMURA Hiroyuki
President, The Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training

 

 

 

-    Work Situation of Younger Age Groups

Let us assume that the individuals who have children are between 25 and 34. In this age group, 14.6% of men and 31.4% of women work as non-regular employees. According to the 2023 Basic Survey on Wage Structure, the monthly salary for male regular employees between 25 and 29 was 271,400 yen, while it was 229,100 yen for non-regular employees. These figures for men between 30 and 34 were 307,000 yen and 238,100 yen, respectively. For women between 25 and 29, the salary was 252,600 yen for regular employees and 206,800 yen for non-regular employees. These figures for women between 30 and 34 were 270,200 yen and 210,500 yen, respectively.  

The gap in household incomes between married couples between 30 and 34 who are regular employees and those who are non-regular employees is 128,600 yen per month. When an average bonus is added, the income gap becomes 2 million yen per year, showing that regular employees have significantly higher incomes than non-regular employees.

However, a higher household income does not guarantee that a couple will have children. Having said that, if their household income is below a certain standard, they will be hesitant about having children. Securing the younger population’s income so that they can have children has been one of the key policies of the government.

 

-    Implementation difficulties

The Japanese government has set the following criteria to help companies decide if different employees are in fact responsible for the same tasks: the details of their work; what core work is assigned to them; their levels of responsibility; whether they can be transferred to other locations; and how far away such new locations are.

Let us assume that Akiko is a part-timer at a supermarket who has worked there for over 10 years. She makes purchase orders and handles customer complaints. As far as these tasks are concerned, both Akiko and a regular employee are responsible for the same job. However, being a part-timer, she is almost never asked to work overtime. Also, while Akiko might go and help another store within the distance she can commute, she will not be relocated to another branch that is so far away that she would need to move house. As a result, Akiko and a regular employee have different responsibilities. This provides a reasonable explanation as to why there is a certain wage gap between part-timers and regular employees.

If workplace role divisions are observed closely, there are almost no situations where regular and non-regular employees are assigned exactly the same tasks. Therefore, although I understand the thinking behind the government’s policy of “equal pay for equal work,“ I must say that it will be difficult to implement in the real world.