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Race for the Exits: The Unraveling of Japan's System of Social Protection
Contrary to all expectations, Japan's long-term recession has provoked no sustained political movement to replace the nation's malfunctioning economic structure. The country's basic social contract has so far proved resistant to reform, even in the face of persistently adverse conditions. In Race for the Exits, Leonard J. Schoppa explains why it has endured and how long it can last. The postwar Japanese system of "convoy capitalism" traded lifetime employment for male workers against government support for industry and the private (female) provision of care for children and the elderly. Two social groups bore a particularly heavy burden in providing for the social protection of the weak and dependent: large firms, which committed to keeping their core workforce on the payroll even in slow times, and women, who stayed home to care for their homes and families.

Using the exit-voice framework made famous by Albert Hirschman, Schoppa argues that both groups have chosen "exit" rather than "voice," depriving the political process of the energy needed to propel necessary reforms in the system. Instead of fighting for reform, firms slowly shift jobs overseas, and many women abandon hopes of accommodating both family and career. Over time, however, these trends have placed growing economic and demographic pressures on the social contract. As industries reduce their domestic operations, the Japanese economy is further diminished. Japan has also experienced a "baby bust" as women opt out of motherhood. Schoppa suggests that a radical break with the Japanese social contract of the past is becoming inevitable as the system slowly and quietly unravels.

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Race for the Exits: The Unraveling of Japan's System of Social Protection
Contrary to all expectations, Japan's long-term recession has provoked no sustained political movement to replace the nation's malfunctioning economic structure. The country's basic social contract has so far proved resistant to reform, even in the face of persistently adverse conditions. In Race for the Exits, Leonard J. Schoppa explains why it has endured and how long it can last. The postwar Japanese system of "convoy capitalism" traded lifetime employment for male workers against government support for industry and the private (female) provision of care for children and the elderly. Two social groups bore a particularly heavy burden in providing for the social protection of the weak and dependent: large firms, which committed to keeping their core workforce on the payroll even in slow times, and women, who stayed home to care for their homes and families.

Using the exit-voice framework made famous by Albert Hirschman, Schoppa argues that both groups have chosen "exit" rather than "voice," depriving the political process of the energy needed to propel necessary reforms in the system. Instead of fighting for reform, firms slowly shift jobs overseas, and many women abandon hopes of accommodating both family and career. Over time, however, these trends have placed growing economic and demographic pressures on the social contract. As industries reduce their domestic operations, the Japanese economy is further diminished. Japan has also experienced a "baby bust" as women opt out of motherhood. Schoppa suggests that a radical break with the Japanese social contract of the past is becoming inevitable as the system slowly and quietly unravels.

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Race for the Exits: The Unraveling of Japan's System of Social Protection

Race for the Exits: The Unraveling of Japan's System of Social Protection

by Leonard J. Schoppa
Race for the Exits: The Unraveling of Japan's System of Social Protection

Race for the Exits: The Unraveling of Japan's System of Social Protection

by Leonard J. Schoppa

Overview

Contrary to all expectations, Japan's long-term recession has provoked no sustained political movement to replace the nation's malfunctioning economic structure. The country's basic social contract has so far proved resistant to reform, even in the face of persistently adverse conditions. In Race for the Exits, Leonard J. Schoppa explains why it has endured and how long it can last. The postwar Japanese system of "convoy capitalism" traded lifetime employment for male workers against government support for industry and the private (female) provision of care for children and the elderly. Two social groups bore a particularly heavy burden in providing for the social protection of the weak and dependent: large firms, which committed to keeping their core workforce on the payroll even in slow times, and women, who stayed home to care for their homes and families.

Using the exit-voice framework made famous by Albert Hirschman, Schoppa argues that both groups have chosen "exit" rather than "voice," depriving the political process of the energy needed to propel necessary reforms in the system. Instead of fighting for reform, firms slowly shift jobs overseas, and many women abandon hopes of accommodating both family and career. Over time, however, these trends have placed growing economic and demographic pressures on the social contract. As industries reduce their domestic operations, the Japanese economy is further diminished. Japan has also experienced a "baby bust" as women opt out of motherhood. Schoppa suggests that a radical break with the Japanese social contract of the past is becoming inevitable as the system slowly and quietly unravels.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780801444333
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Publication date: 03/15/2005
Pages: 272
Product dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.88(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Leonard J. Schoppa is Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia. He is the author of Education Reform in Japan: A Case of Immobilist Politics and Bargaining with Japan: What American Pressure Can and Cannot Do.

What People are Saying About This

Frances Rosenbluth

This creative and important book addresses the most profound conundrum posed by Japanese politics in the past few decades: Given economic collapse and the failure of reform, why aren't the Japanese up in arms? The writing is lively, the research thorough, the argumentation consistently helpful. Leonard J. Schoppa's take on the relationship between exit and voice will interest comparativists and political economists, and his special attention to the plight of women in the Japanese labor market will attract readers in gender studies. Race for the Exits also has much to say to those interested in how public policy can address market failures.

Mary C. Brinton

Leonard J. Schoppa deftly analyzes Japan's economic and policy malaise of the early twenty-first century by probing how individuals and firms have pursued private solutions to problems that might better be solved by institutional reforms. This is a deeply perceptive, well-informed account of what has gone wrong in the past decade and why women in particular are opting out of a system that no longer works for them.

Patricia A. Boling

Leonard J. Schoppa offers a close analysis of reforms to liberalize the Japanese market and policies aimed at supporting working mothers so they can raise children and continue in lifelong careers. His combination of the two topics—using the notion that Japan has long had a set of policies that supported economic growth and social protection but that those policies are breaking down—is quite impressive.

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Related Subjects

Current Affairs & Politics
History
Public Affairs & Policies
Asian History
Japanese History
Japanese History - Social Aspects
Social Policy by Region
Japan->Social policy
Current Affairs & Politics
History
Public Affairs & Policies
Asian History
Japanese History
Japanese History - Social Aspects
Social Policy by Region
Japan->Social policy

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