Overtime over Dating

From Crisscross News

85% of newly hired female employees put overtime ahead of dating

Thursday, June 22, 2006 at 03:00 EDT　TOKYO — Eighty-five percent of newly hired female employees will put overtime ahead of dating, a survey conducted by the Japan Productivity Center for Socio-Economic Development foundation showed Wednesday. Natsuki Iwama, a researcher in charge of the survey, said, "As female employees are still a minority in firms, they may think that unless they work longer, their position in the companies will worsen."

The foundation conducted the survey between March and April on some 3,900 new recruits who participated in a training program it hosted. Asked what they would do if they were ordered to work overtime when they already had a date scheduled, 85% of them — both men and women — answered they would work. It was the highest figure recorded since the foundation began asking the question in 1972, it said.

It it interesting to see more and more stories about how young workers, especially women, are putting a priority on independence, and the traditional ages for marriage and having children (or more likely one child), is moving later and later in life. Not so many years ago single women over the age of 25 were called, rather meanly, "Christmas Cake", as who wants to have Christmas Cake after the 25th of December? I doubt you would hear this phrase used these days, as the average age for a woman to get married was 27.8 in 2004. Compare this to 25.2 in 1980 (Source: Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare).

This will get more interesting, as Japan's population will peak this year, and then the numbers will start declining. What will happen is the "greying" of Japan as the percentage of seniors and elderly increase. How Japan will approach and tackle this issue is a big question right now.

There is more here, from the Sydney Morning Herald.