周辺市場・若年女性労働者の「より難しい仕事の遂行意欲」の規定要因-自己有能感の重要性-  [in Japanese] Factors Behind the "Willingness to Perform More Difficult Jobs" of Young Females inthe Marginal Labor Market: The Importance of Self-Confidence  [in Japanese]

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the factors that influence the "willingness to perform more difficult jobs" among young females who remain in the marginal labor market. While an increasing number of young people have taken marginal jobs, Japan is becoming a society in which more females are being required to be economically independent by continuing to work. Consequently, a contradiction is growing. Establishing a training system for occupational capacities will not resolve the contradiction because of the very logic behind training systems, namely that the lack of "willingness to perform more difficult jobs" should be attributed to individual responsibility. This logic will lead to income gaps between those who have willingness and those who do not. "Young females who stay in the marginal labor market" must be analyzed, as this contradiction can be seen most clearly among them. Since previous researches have focused on the fact that young female workers' "willingness to perform their full occupational capacities" is being weakened because of their limited job experience, the question of whether their "willingness to perform more difficult jobs" will increase or not if their job experience is broadened has remained unanswered. This paper proposes and tests this hypothesis, and obtains the following two findings : (1) broadened job experience alone does not increase young females' "willingness to perform more difficult jobs, " but their self-confidence does. (2) Broadened job experience is the most effective way of developing their self-confidence. These findings imply and suggest the following : (a) Social policies should switch their priority from the reform of the life and education domain to the labor domain. This is particularly important for the marginal labor market. Social policies must ensure that workers in the marginal market will attain a future-oriented ethos, including self-confidence and the willingness to perform more difficult jobs, because those workers are the most likely to face the obsolescence of their skills. (b) Equality in the workplace has been emphasized mainly from the viewpoint of ensuring equal opportunity for the formation of capabilities and the fair selection of competent and willing workers. This paper adds a new reason for placing importance of equality in the workplace : it socializes workers to attain self-confidence and the willingness to perform more difficult jobs. (c) Further research is necessary to illuminate how individual occupational empowerment is possible, especially for the socially disadvantaged.