Temporary Agency Workers Interpreters in Japan: 'Premium' Office Flower?

Research Proposal

Working Title: The Haken Interpreter: A ‘Premium’ Office Flower?

Julija Knezevic

This project is broadly situated in the area of ‘women and

employment’. It explores the working conditions of women and

particularly mothers in Japan who are employed in one specific

labour category. This category is female ‘registered-type’ haken

workers working in large companies. Women in this employment

category are temp-agency registered workers on rolling short-term

contracts. Within this category, I examine in-house interpreters

specifically. Examination of their working conditions includes both

macro-analysis (employment rates, compliance of working conditions

with the Haken law) as well as micro-analysis consisting of scrutiny

of the actors (i.e. the client company, the agency) as well as the

personal circumstances of the women (i.e. social class, education,

family). The exploration aims to achieve a holistic view of what

working as an in-house haken interpreter involves and what

opportunities are available to women in terms of their career

trajectories. I also examine how gender and the ‘triangular’ haken

employment role impacts on their work and lives. Through thoroughly

examining the female haken interpreter as a case example, the

project seeks to develop an understanding of an under-researched

‘irregular’ employment category in terms of the sociological concept

of ‘precariousness’. The question that therefore guides the research

is ‘In what ways does the triangular employment status of temporary

agency-employed female professional interpreters (i.e., ‘haken’),

combined with their gender, construct elements of ‘precariousness’

in this category of irregular work in Japan?1

Thesis hypothesis 1

Escalation in government and corporate backing for triangular employment arrangements in Japan in the last decade is constructing the female professional haken employment category as ‘precarious’.

Thesis hypothesis 2

Revival of the social categories of the ‘salaryman’ and the ‘office

lady’ in Japan in the last decade is constructing the female

professional haken as gendered ‘pink collar’

Thesis Outline

Introduction

Chapter 1: Literature Review

Review of literature discussing full-time temporary work in Japan,

women in temporary work in Japan, in-house interpreters in Japan,

and the policy environment around temporary work in Japan.

Chapter 2: Sociological understandings of irregular work as

‘precarious’ and ‘gendered’ (i.e., ‘pink collar’)

Chapter 3: Haken legislative and policy environment (data chapter)

Chapter 4: Temporary Work Agencies (data chapter)

Chapter 5: Professional female full-time interpreters (data chapter)

Chapter 6: Is the professional female haken a premium ‘office lady’?

Chapter 7: Is the professional female haken a precarious worker?

Conclusion

Introduction to the Japanese employment category ‘haken’

2

Temporary work1 is seen by some as a ‘welcome (and inevitable)

development’ as we have now overcome ‘initial concerns about job

quality and insecurity’ (Forde and Slater 2004). In stark contrast,

others see irregular work including temporary agency work as being

‘entrenched with discrimination’ (Wakita 1999). Temp-agency work is

widely recognised as dominated by part-time female workers employed

in low-wage administrative or secretarial positions (Houseman and

Osawa 2003). However, this characterisation of temp-agency work

leaves out a significant group of women in Japan who are employed

through agencies as ‘temporary’ staff in higher-waged ‘professional’

white collar employment with large companies. In Japan, these full-

time working women registered with temporary employment agencies are

known as ‘haken’ (i.e., temporary agency) staff,2 and are on the rise

as a category of labour (see Table 1).

Haken work tends to be advertised along with the phrase ‘long-term’

(chooki) to imply that the employment is secure. However, job

contracts given for haken positions are on average ‘3 months’ (see

Table 3) with the explanation that it is ‘just a formality’ (katachi

dake) and that the actual assignment will be ‘long-term’. In

practice, companies ‘suddenly’ cut assignments (especially following

the GFC) by citing the ‘3-month’ contract. The contract ‘legally

1 Temporary work or, rather, temporary agency work, is characterised as a so called ‘Triangular Employment Relationship’ (see Figure 1) where a temporary agency worker forms an employment contract with a Temporary Work Agency but works under the direct supervision of the client firm. The Triangular Employment Relationship is unique to temporary agency workers and is not found among part-timers or casuals. Temporary workers (haken) constitute 7.7 per cent of the irregular labour force in Japan, whist part-time (pato and arubaito combined) amount for 67.2 per cent (Fu 2012, p. 24).

2 3

disembeds work and workers from de facto employing organizations,

offering neither explicit nor implicit contractual commitments for

continuous employment either with the de jure employer or with the

de facto employer’ (Kalleberg et al 2000). Haken workers therefore

lack labour protection (Shire 2002), and ‘the ease with which time-

limitations (one or three-years depending on the occupation) can be

ignored, and the ambiguity of occupation-based regulations, which

make manipulation and abuse of the regulations quite simple’ is

problematic (Kamata 2000). Thus, the legality of the phrase (chooki)

‘long term’ temporary work is now being questioned in Japan.

There are two types of haken: ‘the registered type’ (toroku gata) and

‘the employed type’ (jyoyo gata) (Fu 2012, pp.19-25). Studies show

that the registered-type of haken is the ‘main stream’3 employment

for clerical work for women (Mizuno 2006). On the other hand, the

‘employed type’ (jyojo gata) are predominately men involved in

technical and manufacturing work. Haken constitute only 7.7 per cent

out of the non-regular workforce dominated by part-timers and

casuals (paato and arubaito 67.2 per cent) and contract entrusted 17.2

per cent (MIC 2007). But, in contrast to part-timers (with an

exception of pseudo part-timers) and casuals, haken have more

responsibility placed upon them, which is a reason companies cite

for hiring them (MHWL 2012).

3 According to the Japanese Temporary Workers Survey by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (2005) 75.8 per cent of the total female haken population is registered. Moreover, government statistics (Survey on Fundamental Employment Structure 2002) show that 64.0 per cent of these registered-type haken workers are in administrative occupations (jimushoku) (Mizuno 2006, p. 48).

4

Haken work4 is a highly contested category in the scholarly

literature. Some label it as work with ‘poor working conditions’

which serves as a ‘dual back-up function’5 (Mizuno 2006), but some

economists see it as a ‘choice’ (Futagami 1998, p. 26). Haken

workers face ‘mobility’ issues6 and although entitled to ‘regular

employment after working on the same assignment for 3 years’, direct

hire is highly unusual (Kadokura 2007). Companies also utilise

their own ‘in house’ haken7 agencies so that haken workers can be 4 Haken work has been defined as ‘contingent’ work (fuantei koyo) and recognised as a social problem (after the infamous Haken Mura uprising in 2009), however this definition and general understanding of a haken worker is that of a blue-collar (uneducated) male, working in the manufacturing industry (for example, a line worker at Toyota).

5 Mizuno comments that haken work serves as a ‘dual back-up function’ for women wanting to work in permanent jobs but are unable to find such work, as well as for women who see haken hourly rates as ‘favourable’ and an opportunity to use their set of skills (senmonsei) compared to the severely underpaid part-time or arubaito (casual) employment. She bases her findings on a survey of 290 women working as temporary-agency employed haken.

6 Companies commonly change haken’s job title or move them to a different business division to circumvent the Haken Law and to avoid employing them directly in permanent positions (Kadokura 2007).

7 ‘In house’ haken Agencies are concentrated in the finance industry with haken employees commonly channelled into ongoing part-time positions, but can also be found in the manufacturing industry. For example, an NHK documentary talks about a large firm setting up ‘in house’ haken for retired men (managers) which functions as ‘demarcation line’ between them as a ‘former’ manager and the ‘new’ manager (who was once their subordinate). The company has Haken Agency on the second floor of its building and haken staff must go there first thing in the morning to collect their laptops and then go to their respective work-stations and sitat the back of the table (the position lowest in the hierarchy on the team). An HR manager comments how this ‘measure’ has been successful in limiting ‘power issues’ (sempai kaze) in the team by making the retired manager a subordinate haken (NHK February 10, 2010). Although my project doesnot examine ‘in house’ Haken Agencies (as haken interpreters are not generally employed through them), I raise this point in order to note just

5

laid off at any point in time as per business needs (Kamata 2009).

The employment status of office haken is unstable, but is promoted

in rhetoric as ‘long-term’8 (chooki). Corporate unions prohibit haken

from joining due to their non-regular employment status and it is

mainly NGO groups9 who raise awareness on ‘unjustified dismissals,

illegal dispatch and management exploitation’ for haken workers (Fu

2012, p. 55). In short, critiques (such as Wakita, Imai, Shire, Fu)

see temporary work as ‘gloomy’ whilst the neo-liberal camp (for

example, Sato) emphasises the ‘choice’ that temporary-agency work

permits employees.

Figure 1 Haken in a Triangular Employment Relationship

Job-specific Supervision

Employment Contract

how extensive the haken issue is in Japan; in fact, the literature does not point to such practices existing elsewhere.

8 I have worked alongside an office clerk (jimushoku) haken woman who had worked at Fujitsu for 13 years. I know of other women in Niscom and Temstaff who have worked for 10 years as haken employees for the same client company. These lengthy assignments have been noted in the literature(see Wakita). The length of temporary employment assignments in other countries outside Japan varies and there are issues with the “0 hours-contracts” in the US, however the literature does not discuss any similar practice of temporary-agency employment contracts that roll-over continually.

9 For example, Japan Community Union Federation (JCUF, Zenkoku Union)6

Haken Workers

Labour Dispatch

Contract

Source: Fu 2012, p. 41

Table 1 Haken occupation by gender in Japan (unit: 1,000 people)

Occupation 2002

Total Male Female

2007

Total Male FemaleClerical 360

49.9%2914.2%

33164.0%

58836.6%

589.5%

53053.1%

Specialist

and

Technical

446.1%

2311.3%

214.1%

764.7%

416.7%

353.5%

Sales 486.7%

115.4%

377.2%

915.7%

264.3%

656.5%

Service 436.0%

94.4%

346.6%

724.5%

203.3%

525.2%

Agriculture, forestry and fisheries

0 0 0 40.2%

30.5%

10.1%

Transportation and Communication

4

0.6%

1

1.9%

3

1.5%

31

1.9%

26

4.3%

5

0.5%

Manufacturing and Construction

28

10.9%

14

26.4%

14

6.9%

636

39.6%

385

63.1%

251

25.2%

Unclassified

0 0 0 110

6.8%

51

8.4%

59

5.9%Total 257

100%

53

100%

204

100%

1608

100%

610

100%

998

100%

7

Client Firms

HakenAgencies

Source: Employment Structure Survey, Ministry of Internal Affairs

and Communication 2002, 2007.

Introduction to haken interpreters

White-collar office-based haken workers perform mainly auxiliary

business administrative functions in large companies; for example,

secretarial, document management and business communication support.

In Japan, the male to female ratio in clerical jobs is 9 to 1, and

so the office-based haken employment category can be seen as

gendered female (Fu 2012, p. 27). Additional to haken secretaries

and clerks are haken interpreters who are also recognised as falling

within the office haken category although they are concurrently

recognised as ‘specialists’ (senmonshoku). It is this tension between

the ‘haken’ employment category and the professional ‘specialist’

status of interpreters that my project addresses, as I discuss

further below.

Practising interpreters in Japan have very few options for full-time

employment outside the office haken category, as evidenced by the

fact that most advertisements for interpreting jobs are through

agencies. There are freelance interpreters in Japan who combine

lecturing, book translation or journalism with interpreting. It is

widely known in the industry that businesses that arrange bookings

for freelance interpreters (for example Simul) prefer to hire

graduates from own schools which offer lessons that are costly and

timely, thus competition for haken interpreting positions is fierce.

Less glamorously, in the office, haken interpreters sit close to

haken clerical workers which mean there is a constant ‘blurring’ of

8

their roles. They are often expected to serve tea, take copies, fix

printers, empty the rubbish bins, and answer telephone for all team

members. Thus haken interpreters might be understood as de facto

‘administrative support’ workers; a category, which economist define

as a ‘pink-collar’ occupation (Segal and Sullivan 1997, based on

the American Standard Occupational Classification, 303-389). Haken

interpreters are commonly referred to as ‘premium’ assistants (kokyu

ashisutanto), and so potentially fall in with secretaries in the so

called ‘pink collar’ category of workers, given Kapp Howe’s

definition of administration support workers and secretaries as the

‘pinkest of the pink collar occupations’ (1977, p.11).

The origin of the term “Office Lady” or OL is found in a popular

magazine in 1963 which talks about OL succeeding the then popular

term “Business Girl” or BG10. OL is a woman working in clerical (as

opposed to the managerial) track and dictionaries list OL as

honorific expressions referring to ‘female office workers’11. OL’s

work involves the ‘company acting in a paternal-like fashion as a

preparation for marriage’12. The traditionally pink uniforms they

wear represent “absence of rank and status” and they must use polite

grammatical forms of language when addressing men and senior

females13. OL’s working lives are filled with liminality and communitas,

epitomised by the stages of “separation, margin, and aggregation”14.

10 Ogasawara 1998

11 Laurence 2012, p. 184

12 Laurence 2012, p. 185

13 Ogasawara 1998

14 ‘Separation’ refers to many Japanese women’s first experience of living alone in a company dormitory, which is ‘symbolic’ of joining the new familyand the company assumes a paternal role of preparing women for marriage.

9

Given that OL’s working life is short as they are “encouraged”15 to

resign, get married and have children, work for them can be seen as

“a right of passage”16.

The literature suggests ’there is certain continuity’ between office

haken workers and the traditionally-named OL ‘office ladies’ in

Japan (Fu 2012, p. 107), and that ‘since the legalisation of haken,

many Japanese firms have now replaced (female) workers in the

auxiliary employment track with haken’ (Keizer 2007, pp. 7-8,

Futagami 2012, p.12). It is observed that haken ‘have no chance to

develop their abilities and skills’ which is a ‘serious problem from

a decent work and gender perspectives’ (Futagami 2012). Feminists

have observed that Japanese corporate culture is unable to separate

‘gender’ from ‘occupation’, thus “gender occupational segregation”

is reknown in the haken category of work (Sakurai 2001, Nakano

2006). It is this tension between the professional ‘specialist’

status of in-house interpreters and the gendered ‘pink collar’

Dormitories have strict curfew rules to ensure women’s chastity, the rooms are old, cramped and women must share a room. ‘Margin’ refers to OL being trained in flower arranging and tea ceremony, the culturally “sacred” skills. ‘Aggregation’ is the state women reach fed up with ‘discomfort of dormitories’ and ‘repetitive nature of the work’ and ready to resign and marry (Turner 1969). Moreover, women with degrees from prestigious universities are valued as they create “a more impressive pool of potentialmarriage partners for male employees” and because “an educated woman is likely to actively engage in education of her children”. Hence, women’s education is not valued in terms of a women being a high potential candidate as one would expect (Laurence 2012, p. 194).

15 Women's resignation upon marriage became the policy norm for many companies in 1960s (Kimoto 2004, cited in Nemoto 2008, p. 222).

16 Laurence 2012, p. 19410

designation of the haken employment category that my project

addresses, as I discuss further below.

Although temporary-agency employed haken are recognised as

comprising a ‘contingent’ form of employment (fuantei-shokugyo), this

understanding e statistically derived definition was

overwhelminglyhas been established through statistical studies of

blue-collar (male) haken workers in the manufacturing sector (99.1

per cent) (MHLW 2010). Office haken women have been overlooked, and

so it continues that rhetoric such as ‘women are still better off’

(josei wa mada ii) given the ‘high’ hourly haken rate is common in the

scholarly and popular literature. To date, there has been almost no

scholarly investigation of office haken as a part of the

‘contingent’ labour force. In fact, Keizer has written that there is

a ‘need for better understanding of the different types of non-

regular employment beyond the part-time model’ in Japan (2008, pp.

418-419).

Introduction to the concept of ‘precarious work’

Precarious work is defined in the dimensions of employment

insecurity, functional insecurity, work insecurity, income

insecurity, benefit insecurity, working-time insecurity,

representation insecurity, and skill reproduction insecurity

(Burgess and Campbell 1998). This multi-dimensional interpretation

of precariousness is useful as it encapsulates the complexity of

haken workers’ experiences, such as ’they do not think that they

have decent jobs, decent treatments, decent vocational training and

decent wages’ and ‘they feel so excluded from the core’ (Futagami

2010, p. 12).

11

Precariousness can be temporal (one’s job assignment is short or an

individual faces high termination risk); social (one lacks rights

and protections through industrial instruments, legislation, or

customs and practices); economic (one’s income is close to the

poverty line, access to social security is limited); and industrial

or work-organisational (a lack of control over working conditions,

work intensity and wages) (Vosko 2009, p. 2). The Trade Union

Advisory Committee to the OECD regards ‘the rise of precarious

employment as one of the most challenging and threatening features

of the new global economy’ (Evans and Gibb 2009, p. 13). The

increasing precarity of work has created a new social order, the

underclass, or the ‘Precariat’ (Standing 2009, 2011). Precarious

workers are ‘those who are at risk of having their workplace

entitlements denied, and who lack the capacity or means to secure

them’ (Health and Safety Executive, 4 June 2011).

A study on white-collar precarious work sees ‘shared precariousness’

between “creative class’ temping in high-end knowledge sectors and

workers in retail and low-end services” although the two “occupy

opposite ends of the labour market hierarchy” (Ross 2008, p. 31).

Despite the glorified image, “job gratification for ‘creatives’

comes at a heavy cost of longer hours in pursuit of the satisfying

finish, price discounts in return for aesthetic recognition, self-

exploitation in response to the gift of autonomy, and dispensability

in exchange for flexibility (Ross 2008). Although, ‘insecurity’ has

been identified in the professional and managerial category in the

‘West’ (i.e., ‘insecure professional’), the same cannot be said for

Japan (especially MNCs) where ‘re-regulation’ of labour market has

12

fostered even higher protection for these categories of permanent

(male) employees (see Keizer 2008, Vogel 2006).

Hence, I examine the working conditions of in-house haken

interpreters in light of the precarious work criteria developed by

Burgess and Campbell. I look specifically at professional haken

interpreters working in ‘long-term’ (chooki) positions (i.e., rolling

ongoing contracts) in Tokyo. This category of interpreters is

methodologically useful given these workers are anticipated to have

optimal working conditions, given their ‘premimum’ value (higher

hourly pay rate), and also their symbolic status as comprising

‘cosmopolitan women’ (kokusai joshi). Moreover, haken interpreters are a

‘lucrative’ worker category for temp-employee agencies (attracting

high profit margins ( kokyu tori) (see Table 1). Japan is a fertile

ground for studying temporary-agency work as the country leads the

world in global sales in the employment agency market (gaining a 24

per cent share in 2009) whilst speedily increasing its share17 (CIETT

2009, 2011). The growth of its irregular workforce (inclusive of

haken) is in line with other industrialized economies18 (Felstead and

Jewson 1999).

Table 3 Contract length of Haken workers by agency type

Type of Haken Agency

Less than 3 months (%)

3-6

months

(%)

6-9

months

(%)

9-12 months (%)

1-3

years

(%)

Other

(%)

General 81.8 12.4 2.9 1.0 1.7 0.1Special 17.7 25.5 20.4 11.0 22.1 3.317 Japan’s global sales share increased from 14 per cent in 2007 to 24 per cent in 2009, surpassing the US (CIETT 2009, 2011).

18

13

Total 80.4 12.7 3.3 1.2 2.2 0.2Source: Haken Business Report 2006, MHLW

Haken workers might be described as comprising an irregular or

‘precarious’ labour category. Types of irregular employment in Japan

include part-time (paato) workers who usually work 30 or more hours a

week but less than permanent workers in the same company and are

mainly married or older women; part-time (arubaito and freetas) workers

who are mainly students working less scheduled and shorter hours;

haken workers (which include full-time and part-time work) who are

employed and renumerated by haken agencies whilst day-to-day

supervision is given by the client firm to which they are

dispatched; contract (keiyaku) workers who have special skills and

work on fixed-term contracts formed directly with the company;

entrusted (shokutaku) workers similar to contract workers but the

term usually refers to those hired after mandatory retirement; and

others such as seasonal workers, ‘emergency workers’ (rinjiko) and day

labourers (hiyatoi rodosha) hired for limited duration (Fu 2012, p.

19). There are also ukeoi arrangements where subcontracting

companies send their workers to work at the facilities of the client

which also functions as a nonregular model (Imai 2003).19

19 In my personal experience working at Fujitsu, this company switched arrangements with my haken agency (then called Niscom) from the ukeoi to thetriangular model (namely, a relationship between the agency, the temporary worker and the client) apparently ‘for business needs’ when in fact the switch may have been used to circumvent legal scrutiny of renewals of my ‘fixed term’ contract. The same practice continues in large companies in Tokyo today (unpublished lecture notes, Hiro Itoh, 2013, Meiji University).

14

Although I draw parallels between the working conditions of part-

time workers and office haken, I do not discuss casual (freetas and

arubaito) workers in this project, because they seen by some as a

symbol of ‘irresponsible, self-indulgent and unproductive young

generations’20 who ‘casually switch between jobs’ and who are not

employed in white-collar jobs in MNCs (Fu 2012, p. 20). I also do

not discuss blue-collar haken workers because this category of

employment has already been examined at length in the literature,

and is a relatively uncontested category of ‘precarious’ employment

in Japan.

Office Haken Women

Office temporary work (haken) is predominately female employment in

Japan (Imai 2004:38) taken up by women in their 20s and 30s and

characterized by ‘mobility‘ issues as a haken worker Natsumi21 notes:

20 There are slight differences between arubaito and freetas; for example, an employer in a small family business may offer a permanent position to an arbaito employee depending on their commitment and performance whereas freetasare commonly viewed as prioritising their ‘private’ lives which is frowned upon in the ‘work is your life’ mentality and ethic that pervades the Japanese labour market.

21 Natsumi’s job was a typical feminine OL (Office Lady) position, and she took lessons in tea-ceremony, flower arranging and kimono-dressing in aspiring to become ‘the truly sophisticated Japanese woman’. Her job consisted of filing, answering phones and other miscellaneous office back-room tasks. Natsumi, unlike other haken interested in getting their job done, focused on nurturing human relationships and regarded work as ‘the men’s world’ (otoko no sekai) (Fu 2012, p.110). Although Natsumi epitomizes the traditional ‘office lady’ who joins a company in order to find a man and become a professional housewife, being a haken she experiences employment uncertainty.

15

I have worked as a haken in different workplaces… for eight

years. I was dispatched to the current workplace two years

ago when the previous one suddenly ended due to corporate

restructuring. I do not know where I will be after three-year

employment on the current job assignment….

(Fu 2012, p.108)

Unlike other irregular workers, office haken have a dual

relationship with the haken agency (haken-moto) and the client firm

(haken-saki) to which they are dispatched, the so called triangular

employment model (Fu 2012, p. 63). Haken are categorised as falling

within the irregular workforce, which accounts for 38.2 percent of

the total workforce22 or 20.42 million workers, whilst 40.3 per cent

of permanent workers have been turned into irregular workers in the

past decade (Japan Times, July 13, 2013). Given that the Japanese

firms have now replaced the traditional auxiliary ‘office lady’

worker with a haken woman worker (Keizer 2007, pp. 7-8), this pay gap

is likely to grow.

Weathers (2001) study on ‘female temporary workers in Japan’ largely

based on interviewing managers and 4 co-ordinators from 8 temporary

agencies in Tokyo (including Passona and Manpower) talks about

agencies testing one’s ‘personality’ as well as skills in order to

22 The survey was conducted in 2012 (released by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry on July 12, 2013) and it covered around 1 million people in Japan, including foreign nationals, aged 15 or older. Compared with the previous survey (conducted in 2007), the number of irregular workers out of the total workforce increased by 1.52 million whilst the proportion of employees who shifted to regular from non-regular work dropped by 2.3 points to 24.2 percent (Japan Times, July 13, 2013).

16

determine whether a talkative (oshaberi) person or a quiet (otonoshii)

person would ‘fit’ the client firm (p. 207). A study by Gottfried

(2008) on ‘gender and non-regular employment in Japan’ which she

bases on interviews with personnel involved in the temporary

industry, review of labour laws and social policies draws links

between ‘the embedded gender biases of the corporate-centered male

breadwinner welfare model’ and ‘the high incidence of nonstandard

employment among women’ (p. 180). An anthropologist Fu (2012)

discusses ‘dignity of dispatched workers’ in her book based on her

own experience as a haken in mid-2000s in two large companies in

Japan and sees haken as a particular form of ‘non-permanent’ labour.

Moreover, there are a number of studies on temporary staffing

industry and labour law (for example, Coe et al 2007, Vogel 2006,

Araki 2002, Goka and Sato 2004, Kubo 2008, Imai 2009, Shire 2002

among others).

Based on government surveys and questionnaires on the level of work

satisfaction Hiroki Sato argues that changing employment practices

in Japan are borne out of the need for economic development and out

of individual choices. The study records fairly high satisfaction

levels among temp workers (Sato et al 2001, p. 179).

There has, however, been no academic inquiry that looks specifically

at haken interpreters working in ‘in house’ settings. Given the

‘premium’ (symbolic) values attached to the interpreter as a

professional, highly educated and skilled worker, interpreters are

least expected to be found in the category of work associated with

precariousness. Thus, by examining the in house interpreters who are

a part of the office haken workers (the ‘mainstream’ of haken

17

employment) and an occupation to which many women aspire to, the

study aims to challenge the rhetoric of ‘women are better of’ by

portraying a shared precariousness with other ‘officially

recognised’ haken (i.e. blue-collar males).

Sato (2004) estimates that there are ‘around 200’ freelance

interpreters in Japan who tend to combine academic (and other) work

with interpreting practiced mainly in media and government-related

assignments. Full-time interpreting work seems to be available only

in the haken work category either through general or special

temporary help agencies. In-house interpreters (haken) are hired to

work on specific projects or for an executive in a given company

(MNCs)23 where interpreting settings can be sensitive24 or “a

nightmare for the interpreter” (Gurner 2001, pp. 117-20).

Interpreters represent a small proportion of haken workers on the

26-item occupation list of the Japanese labour ministry25 (5,705 out

of the total of 883,454 haken or 0.6 per cent), with average daily

wages of 14, 43426 yen whilst the margin temporary agencies charge is

38 per cent (Haken Business Report 2006). Corporate demand for haken

interpreters is evident in them being included in the original 13

occupations list (of more professional workers) in 1986, implying

that both business and the government are aware of the value of

interpreting services. 23 Larger companies hire haken workers rather than smaller firms. Only 3 percent of small companies hire haken workers compared to 16 per cent of largefirms with 1,000 employees or more (MHLW 2001a).24

25 The 26 designed occupations some examples of haken occupations that are regarded as more professional and specialised than the rest. Haken BusinessReport 2006, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) (2007a).

26 Average daily wages are based on an eight hour working day. 18

A theoretical approach to Female Haken Work

Preferencing Theory

According to Hakim’s categorisation of women in work, haken women

(full-time workers) fall into an ‘adaptive’ and ‘work-centred’

category as they are expected to invest in their professional

development, they obtain qualifications with the intention to work,

and they are committed to work in contrast with part-time women

(except for the pseudo part-timers) who tend to be ‘home centred’ as

they prioritise family throughout the life. Although women of course

do not make these ‘choices’ in isolation, Hakim’s typology is

somewhat useful in attempting to analyse a category of working women

in terms of their attitudes towards having a career.

Table 2: Hakim’s classification of women’s work –life preferences in

the twenty first century

Home Centred

20 per cent of women (varies between 10 and 30%)

Adaptive

60 per cent of women (varies between 40 to80%)

Work-centred

20 per cent of women (varies between 10 and 30%)

Children and family are the main priorities throughoutlife.

This group is most diverse and includes women who want to combine work and family, plus driftersand unplanned careers.

Childless women are concentrated here. Main priority in lifeis employment or equivalent activitiessuch as politics, sport, art, etc.

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Prefer not to work. Want to work, but nottotally committed to work career.

Committed to work or equivalent activities.

Qualifications obtained for intellectual dowry

Qualifications obtained with the intention of working.

Large investment in qualifications for employment or other activities.

Number of children isaffected by government social policy, family wealth, etc.

This group is very

responsive to

government social

policy, employment

policy, equal

opportunities

policy/propaganda,

economic

cycle/recession/

growth, etc

Responsive to

economic opportunity,

political opportunity

artistic, opportunity

etc.

Not responsive to employment policy

Such as: income tax

and social welfare

benefits educational

policies school

timetables childcare

services public

attitude towards

working women

legislation promoting

female employment

trade union attitudes

to working women

availability of part-

Not responsive to

social/ family policy

20

time work and similar

work flexibility

economic growth and

prosperity and

institutional factors

generally.

Source: Hakim 1998, p. 138

This notion of ‘choice’ frequently features in discussion of haken

workers, and haken work is portrayed as an arena where ‘it is up to

the individual’ to make choices ‘and as such ‘it presents antithesis

of the post-war salaryman and the office lady model’ (Fu 2012, p.

129).27 A JASSA (2008) representative explains how haken means

‘entrance into an occupation (shuushoku), not ‘entrance into a firm’

(shuusha), thus haken, unlike permanent workers (who undergo job

rotations), has an increased chance of taking up a favorite job (Fu

2012, p. 127). Increased individualism is associated with irregular

workers (Coe, Johns & Ward 2011, p. 1092). Hiroki Sato28 sees it as a

‘gendered choice’:

Compared with regular employees, part-timers and dispatch

personnel (i.e. haken) – especially females in the latter case-

tended to attach greater importance to lifestyle as opposed to

their jobs. Hence we may conclude that, when workers in

atypical employment selected their mode of employment, they did

so with an emphasis on finding work that would be easy to fit

in with their personal lifestyles. This tendency seems

27 Japan Staffing Services Association which is a member of the Business Association of Japan-Keidanren

28 21

particularly striking in the case of female dispatch personnel

and part-timers of both genders. Indeed, atypical employment

does provide the worker with greater control over his or her

working hours than does regular employment, enabling it to meet

the needs of people who select one of these ways of working.

(Sato et al. 2001, p. 179)

The alternative view is that at a high cost as haken (office)

women’s life is ‘a web of gender, age and status discrimination’

(Weathers 2001). Fu suggests that haken are the disadvantaged

forced to engage in temporary work as a second choice to permanent

work (2012, p. 72). Haken (office) women work under ‘poor

conditions’ and gender difference among haken is attributed to the

‘gender occupational segregation’ with women deeply concerned about

‘the 35-years of age wall’ (Mizuno 2006). Looking at interpreters

as a case study, therefore, my project will examine whether gender

constructs the haken category of irregular employment in ways that

would prompt sociologists to identify the work as ‘pink collar’.

Methodology

This project is a case study where I apply ‘replication logic’ by

extending the case’s theoretical ramifications and generalise my

findings to a wider world (Yin 1984). In other words, I examine the

case example of haken interpreters to propose broader theoretical

observations in relation to the ‘wider world’ of precarious work in

Japan. I work from a critical research paradigm (Grace 2007) where I

predominately use critical reflection practice (Fook and Gardner

22

2007) to invoke participant’s reflection and ‘deconstruction’ of an

event in order to be able to analyse an event or a situation. This

approach is useful in terms of the methods of my project, given that

irregular workers are not necessarily in a social position to

immediately recognise the broader delineations of their working

situation. Accordingly, through repeated contact with respondents

and methods that encourage private self-reflection, I seek to elicit

not only data on the factual details of their situation in work, but

also their critical analysis of this situation.

Methods

My study is qualitative in nature as I am to ascertain the insights

and personal experiences of work by in house haken women

interpreters in Japan. Through collecting data on haken women’s

experiences I aim to test whether the Haken Law is actually

implemented, and what kind of gender discrimination women face as

temporary agency workers.

My document-based data pool consists of in-depth interviews,

surveys, and self-reflective essays in conjunction with my diary and

field notes.

In order to facilitate comparison with previous empirical research

(surveys) by economist on office haken (in Japan), I will include

questions on job insecurity used in the Social Change and Economic

Life Initiative (SCELI)29 in my questionnaire (to be emailed to 29 The SCELI research was carried out between 1986 and 1987 in six local labour markets – two in Scotland and four in England – with contrasting levels of unemployment and different patterns of economic change. SCELI questions have been used as a starting point in exploring the factors leading to subjective feelings of job insecurity (e.g. Burchell et al. 1999, cited in Charles & James 2003, p 531).

23

participants) and then follow the answers up in a face to face

interviews. The three questions are:

1) Do you think there is any chance of your losing your job and

becoming unemployed in the next 12 months?

2) How would you rate the likelihood of this happening?

3) If you were looking for work today how easy or difficult do you

think it would be for you to find another job as good as your

current one?

I will also use a follow-up approach where I ask participants

whether they ‘feel’ that their current job is secure or insecure,

thus adopting approaches identified by (Burchell et al. 1998, cited

in Charles & James 2003, p. 531). The SCELI questions invoke a

‘narrow conception’ of job insecurity based on the perceived risk of

unemployment and an evaluation of future job prospects. In order to

complement this ‘narrowness’, I will ask participants directly about

a job’s security which will provide a space for a much deeper and

richer discussion on the matter as required in qualitative research.

I will extend the three SCALI questions to test other dimensions of

precarious work (Burgess and Campbell 1998). I will leave a time

gap of 1 month between the survey and interview to see if they have

experienced worse conditions.

Secondly, I will use self-reflective (critical) essays by asking the

following 2 questions in order to elicit a critical reflection on

24

respondents’ haken job assignments as an in house interpreter. This

would be emailed to participants prior to interviews which would

once again serve as a follow-up.

Question 1: How do you feel about being asked to perform ‘non-

interpreting’ additional duties which are not stipulated in your

temporary employment contract or not verbally spoken about during

the interview with the client company or mentioned by the sales

representative or the coordinator from the agency? (Note: Please

include specific instances of such duties if any and describe if

they have concentrated in any particular time period of your

contract and whether they have diminished or increased over time.

Also please comment if you have spoken about the matter with the

client or the agency and if so how was the matter dealt with).

Question 2: Do you see your job as involving any aspects commonly

associated with the OL role and responsibilities and if so please

describe in what ways?

I believe that this activity should come at an ease for an

interpreter as we often use reflective practice in order to try

assess how well we personally did on the assignment, whether our

‘strategies’ worked or not and what improvements can be made for

future practice. Critical reflection theory (and process) gives one

an opportunity to ‘stand back’ and to analyse and articulate issues,

identifying their assumption on the way things are and how they have

dealt with these (Fook and Gardner 2007, p. 10).

There are general haken agencies (ippan haken) and specialised haken

agencies (tokutei haken), the former has registered 2.34 million out of

the total of 3.21 million haken (Haken Business Report 2006, MHLW).

Haken interpreters are recruited from both specialised and general 25

agencies depending on their relationship with the client company,

thus my research will encompass both types. In will recruit by

emailing the representatives of large temporary agency firms Temp

Staff, Adecco, Pasona as well as specialised interpreting agencies

ISS and Simul as a first point of contact. I will then introduce the

study and ask for their cooperation.

Specifically, I will ask them to email my study outline, consent

form, contact details, survey questions and reflective essay

templates to interpreters currently working on the assignments for

clients situated in Tokyo metropolitan area. The email will instruct

those interested in participating in the research to contact me and

email back completed forms, a survey and a self-reflective essay.

Once the interested person contacts me with all of the

documentation, then I will proceed to schedule an in depth semi-

structured face to face interview in Tokyo. I have planned

interviews for early April when there is a cherry blossom viewing

(hanami) season and people tend to be more relaxed and do less

overtime which would give me an opportunity to access as many as

participants as possible. I plan to interview 25 participants. I

plan to use a Skype interview as a back-up strategy in case I am

unable to interview participants during my stay in Tokyo.

Table 5 Summary of Detailed Strategies

Sampling strategy:

Purposeful Sampling Strategy targeting specific groups

(Snowball sampling using my industry contacts as a back-up strategy)

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Data collection

Face-to-Face in-depth Interviews accompanied by Self-reflectiveEssays (3-4 pages) and a Questionnaire (20 questions multiple choice) work emailed to participants beforehand

Primary sources such as Employment Etiquette Guides, Haken Contracts (with sensitive information redacted), Haken Industry Association Reports

Data collected from government policy, documents, and statistics, Asahi, Yomiuri, Sankei Newspaper, Nikkei Business Woman Magazine, NHK Documentaries, News and Reports

Research population

13 Women haken interpreters registered for ISS, Simul Interpreting (specialised) temporary work agencies aged 25 to 41 (the prime working age group comprised of both single andpartnered womenwith children)

12 Women haken interpreters registered for Temps Staff, Adecco, Recruit,(general) temporary work agencies aged 25to 41 (the primeworking age group comprised of both single and partnered women with children)

Research Limitations

Geographic

Focusing on MNCs in centralTokyo)

Time

(Need to conduct25 interviews during stay in Tokyo)

Openness

Participants may not be fully openabout their experiences of haken work

27

Ethics I have conducted preliminary research into the ethics procedure for the proposed project and foresee low risk as my study will not disclose any personal information such as the names of the companies or participants.

In conclusion, this project examines the working conditions of women

and particularly mothers in Japan working as ‘registered-type’ haken

workers working in large companies. I specifically look at in-house

interpreters who are temp-agency registered workers hired on rolling

short-term contracts. I aim to provide macro and micro-analysis, as

well as the personal circumstances of the women. I also examine how

gender and the ‘triangular’ haken employment role impacts on their

work and lives. Through thoroughly examining the female haken

interpreter as a case example, the project seeks to develop an

understanding of an under-researched ‘irregular’ employment category

in terms of the sociological concept of ‘precariousness’.

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