Many older single women in Japan are struggling to make ends meet in their low-paid, nonregular jobs and are trapped in casual employment in a country with a persistently wide gender gap.

These women are one of the most neglected demographic groups in the nation’s social security system, which is designed to best serve traditional families where the husband works full time and the wife stays at home and cares for the children.

FORCED TO LIVE WITH PARENTS

A single woman in Kyoto inwardly sighs every time her demanding boss says the company’s nonregular workers should work just as hard as its regular employees.

For the last four years, she has been working on a nonregular contract for the global marketing team of the company.

She used to work for a major manufacturer, also as a temporary worker, managing online ad projects and dealing with customers across a dozen countries.

Despite the experience, her current employer only offered her a fixed-term contract that is renewed every three months.

Although working full time, the 47-year-old barely makes 200,000 yen ($1,500) a month, with no seasonal bonuses.

She is as competent as her permanently employed colleagues at her job. Nevertheless, her salary remains low no matter how much she achieves at work.

She can only get by because she lives at her parents’ house.

The woman graduated from a university in 1998 amid a recession that left many in her generation jobless.

She sent her resume to nearly 200 companies, but just two offered her an interview.

She was also reminded of the country’s wide gender gap when a fellow male student said he’d received job brochures from dozens of companies.

She eventually secured a full-time regular position at a video production company. The job was demanding, and the firm barely paid overtime even when she had to work all night.

Completely burned out, she quit when she was 29.

After that, the woman had several part-time or temporary jobs.

“Trapped in a cycle of nonregular jobs, I feel frustrated being in a situation that I can't change no matter how hard I try,” she said.

Her current employer offers regular positions to male job seekers in their 30s even when they lack experience in the industry, and it’s her job to train them.

DISPOSABLE WORKFORCE

Easy to hire and fire, low-wage temporary workers are a convenient, disposable workforce for businesses.

In Japan, nonregular, or “hiseiki,” work is a blanket term that includes a variety of casual employment.

A nonregular job can be either part time or full time. It can last from a few months to more than a decade depending on the case.

Shizuka Wada is a freelance journalist and the author of the book “I’m always making minimum wage. Is it my fault, Mr. Lawmaker?”

She had been living in Tokyo on her own, supplementing her income as a writer with various part-time jobs in the hospitality and retail sectors.

Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and she lost her part-time job.

Wada, 57, said the older people get, the fewer career options they have.

To people her age or older, there are few jobs available other than working at supermarkets, convenience stores or care homes, or doing cleaning or security work.

Wages in these jobs hardly rise even as the cost of living does.

There are few policies designed to support middle-aged and elderly single women.

In May 2022, the Diet passed groundbreaking legislation to support vulnerable women.

But the new law was meant to help young women, single mothers and victims of domestic abuse rather than older unmarried women such as Wada.

“We have been made into believing that it’s our own fault that life is so hard,” said Wada. “But it’s not true--it’s because of a social structure created by the wrong policies.”

Women are overrepresented in nonregular employment.

There are 14.32 million of them, more than double their 6.69 million male counterparts as of 2022, according to government data.

The largest age group is 45 to 54, with 3.73 million women.

The share of adult women who have never married has risen sharply since the turn of the century, reaching a high of 17.8 percent in 2020.

The country’s employment, taxation and social security systems are designed to best serve traditional families even though people have come to have different values and lifestyles.

These systems reflect old-fashioned ideas that women do not necessarily have to be financially independent, or that marriage would solve their problems.

CHANGES NEEDED TO HELP OLDER WOMEN

A 2022 survey of 2,345 single women 40 or older found 84.6 percent holding a job but less than half of them, or 44.8 percent, were regularly employed.

Nonregular workers made up 38.7 percent while 14.1 percent were self-employed or freelance workers, according to the surveyor Wakuwaku Senior Singles, an advocacy group for older unmarried women.

Of all respondents, 33.3 percent earned less than 2 million yen a year. The figure jumps to 52.7 percent among nonregular workers and 48.6 percent among freelancers.

Although many of them had low incomes, 86.1 percent were the main or sole breadwinners.

Asked about their financial situation, 68.9 percent said it was rather or very difficult.

Women have long been a significant part of the country’s workforce. Keeping them in low-paid positions means the country fails to fully use their potential as competent workers as well as social security contributors.

“It’s wrong that women working 40 hours a week have to struggle to make ends meet,” said Utae Mori, a professor at the Osaka University of Economics. “The government should help create more permanent jobs for them and provide support tailored to each woman’s needs.”

Advocacy groups for women’s rights highlight three key issues to be addressed.

The first is social and political reform, including raising the minimum wage and prohibiting age discrimination in employment.

Secondly, specific measures need to be put in place to support older, single women, including vocational training, matching employers and job seekers, rent subsidies and public housing programs.

Finally, advocates stress the importance of communities where women in similar situations can share their experiences and help one another.

(This article was written by Erina Ito and Etsuko Akuzawa.)