Faculty of Foreign languages

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of the vocational training program for job seekers (hereinafter called the job seeker support training in Japan) by analyzing the training experience and employment situation of its participants. The 2008 global financial crisis and the subsequent economic recession, ensured corporate downsizing, leading to the dramatic rise of unemployment among male workers and an increase of public assistance recipients. In order to prevent a further increase of public assistance recipients, the emergency human resources development program was employed as the second safety net, which was later made permanent as the job seeker support system. The system provided the participants with vocational training free of charge while simultaneously subsidizing an allowance during the training period. Although the program did not necessarily target the poorest of the poor it set the conditions for the applicants to qualify for the program such as fixed amount of assets and income consequently, making people having strong financial difficulties its target. Existing scholarship shows that Japan's social policies are still based on the premise of 'man as the principal breadwinner' model. However, so far 60% of the job seeker support training participants have been women. Contrary to expectations that women, were not the intended recipients of the policy, women formed the majority of all training participants. What experiences do participants have of the vocational training and what are the reasons for their choice of occupation after they finish the training? Did the job seeker support system fulfill its objective of providing participants with job assistance and decent life after all? What are the different outcomes for male and female participants? To answer above questions, this study analyzed changes in the employment and living conditions prior to and after the training, as well as the experiences of people participating in the training. It applied qualitative research methods and conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 male and female participants of the training program. Through an analysis of the survey results, I examined the results of the system's designed objective ('output') as well as its unintended results ('outcome'). The results of the study reveal that the training program does not meet the demands of women participants, mainly the program contents lack variety and focus on " women friendly jobs " that do not necessarily help them find secure jobs. A more fine-grained program, as well as the study of fine-grained and effective curriculum to meet a variety of needs is required. However, the results of participants' educational background and gender analysis show that women with secondary education were satisfied with the existing training. They felt the joy to learn in training. Also, one of the unintended results was that the training created a 'place' that allowed the development of interpersonal relationships between the participants. This study, revealed the previously unknown reality of women and made them the subject of research, and further suggests that it is high time to begin the discussion on adopting the gender perspective in vocational training and employment support policies.

In Japan today, "promoting the advancement of women" as a workforce is a political goal. In 2011 the job seekers support system was established as vocational ability development, the question is whether the vocational training provided in the job seeker support system (hereinafter referred to as the job seeker support training) actually contributes to the advancement of women's employment and work-life balance, that is, is the training women receive promoting their empowerment? The purpose of this paper is to clarify whether the training had any effect on improving women's work-life balance and promoting their empowerment. In order to investigate this problem, the author conducted detailed interviews with women who partook in the job seeker training. The results show that by taking the training women could choose their desired occupation which allowed them to balance housework with childcare, and improved their motivation for career improvement in the long-term perspective, and thus the training has promoted the empowerment of women. Furthermore, it became clear that it is necessary to evaluate the effects of vocational training for women from the viewpoint that cannot be measured only by quantifiable evaluations, such as participant's post-training increase in income or their regular employment rate.