Gender Gap on Japan's Precarious Employment and Well-Being in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Gender Gap on Japan's Precarious Employment and Well-Being in the COVID-19 Pandemic | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Gender Gap on Japan's Precarious Employment and Well-Being in the COVID-19 Pandemic Eriko Teramura This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8571710/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract This study examines the gender disparity in precarious employment and individual well-being of Japanese workers during the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in 2020. The gender gap in Japanese working places is much larger than other developed countries (i.e., western countries) and examining the gender gap at Japanese workers’ well-being is contributable to elucidate its mechanism. By using large-scale data of government statistics, we comparatively examine the employment and well-being of Japanese workers at four periods—before the pandemic (2019), after the pandemic (May 2020, December 2020 and April 2021). This study mainly confirms the following two points. First, the working hours of women in non-regular employment decreased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and this effect was particularly pronounced among middle-aged and elderly part-time women with families. Second, during the COVID-19 pandemic, although the anxiety of non-regular workers increased more than those of other attributes, there was no significant change in life satisfaction and job satisfaction for any type of workers. The authors assume that the above finding is due to a social structural issue caused by the large wage gap between men and women. In other words, women with families are dependent on men for the main household income in Japan. work-life balance gender disparity Precarious Employment COVID-19 well-being Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8571710","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":572668953,"identity":"e639b47f-d306-422d-90d1-65f07d23cec1","order_by":0,"name":"Eriko 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Pandemic","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"work-life balance, gender disparity, Precarious Employment, COVID-19, 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The gender gap in Japanese working places is much larger than other developed countries (i.e., western countries) and examining the gender gap at Japanese workers\u0026rsquo; well-being is contributable to elucidate its mechanism. By using large-scale data of government statistics, we comparatively examine the employment and well-being of Japanese workers at four periods\u0026mdash;before the pandemic (2019), after the pandemic (May 2020, December 2020 and April 2021). This study mainly confirms the following two points. First, the working hours of women in non-regular employment decreased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and this effect was particularly pronounced among middle-aged and elderly part-time women with families. Second, during the COVID-19 pandemic, although the anxiety of non-regular workers increased more than those of other attributes, there was no significant change in life satisfaction and job satisfaction for any type of workers. 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