首页
登录
职称英语
Unlike an earthquake, a demographic disaster does not strike without warning
Unlike an earthquake, a demographic disaster does not strike without warning
游客
2023-12-06
34
管理
问题
Unlike an earthquake, a demographic disaster does not strike without warning. Japan’s population of 127m is predicted to fall to 90m by 2050. As recently as 1990, working-age Japanese outnumbered children and the elderly by seven to three. By 2050 the ratio will be one to one. As Japan grows old and feeble, where will its companies find dynamic, energetic workers?
For a company president pondering this question over a laboriously prepared breakfast of steamed rice, broiled salmon, miso soup and artistically presented pickles, the answer is literally staring him in the face. Half the talent in Japan is female. Outside the kitchen, those talents are woefully underemployed, as Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Laura Sherbin of the Centre for Work-Life Policy, an American think-tank, show in a new study called "Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Japan".
Nearly half of Japanese university graduates are female but only 67% of these women have jobs, many of which are part-time or involve serving tea. Japanese women with degrees are much more likely than Americans(74% to 31%)to quit their jobs voluntarily. Whereas most Western women who take time off do so to look after children, Japanese women are more likely to say that the strongest push came from employers who do not value them. A startling 49% of highly educated Japanese women who quit do so because they feel their careers have stalled.
The Japanese workplace is not quite as sexist as it used to be. Pictures of naked women, ubiquitous on salarymen’s desks in the 1990s, have been removed. Most companies have rules against sexual discrimination. But educated women are often shunted into dead-end jobs. Old-fashioned bosses see their role as prettifying the office and forming a pool of potential marriage partners for male employees. And a traditional white-collar working day makes it hard to pick up the kids from school.
Even if the company rule book says that flexitime is allowed, those who work from home are seen as uncommitted to the team. Employees are expected to show their faces before 9 am, typically after a long commute on a train so packed that the gropers cannot tell whom they are groping. Staff are also under pressure to stay late, regardless of whether they have work to do: nearly 80% of Japanese men get home after 7 pm, and many attend semi-compulsory drinking binges in hostess bars until the small hours. Base salaries are low: salary-men are expected to fill their pay packets by putting in heroic amounts of overtime.
Besides finding these hours just a bit inconvenient, working mothers are unlikely to get much help at home from their husbands. Japanese working mums do four hours of child care and housework each day—eight times as much as their spouses. Thanks to restrictive immigration laws, they cannot hire cheap help. A Japanese working mother cannot sponsor a foreign nanny for a visa, though it is not hard for a nightclub owner to get "entertainer" visas for young Filipinas in short skirts. That says something about Japanese lawmakers’ priorities. And it helps explain why Japanese women struggle to climb the career ladder : only 10% of Japanese managers are female, compared with 46% in America.
Japanese firms are careful to recycle paper but careless about wasting female talent. Some 66% of highly educated Japanese women who quit their jobs say they would not have done so if their employers had allowed flexible working arrangements. The vast majority(77%)of women who take time off work want to return. But only 43% find a job, compared with 73% in America. Of those who do go back to work, 44% are paid less than they were before they took time off, and 40% have to accept less responsibility or a less prestigious title. Goldman Sachs estimates that if Japan made better use of its educated women, it would add 8.2m brains to the workforce and expand the economy by 15%—equivalent to about twice the size of the country’s motor industry. [br] Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Laura Sherbin consider the work status of Japanese women
选项
A、sinister.
B、stressful.
C、deplorable.
D、disorderly.
答案
C
解析
细节题。由题干巾的Sylvia Ann Hewlett和Laura Sherbin定位至第二段。最后一句中的关键词woe—fully意为“可悲地”,说明Sylvia Ann Hewlett和Laura Sherbin认为,女性未能充分就业的现状是很不幸的,四个选项中,deplorable意为“可悲的”,与woefully意思相近,故[C]为答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3248348.html
相关试题推荐
The______schoolsinBritainwouldadmitchildrenwithoutreferencetotheiracad
Punditswhowanttosoundjudiciousarefondofwarningagainstgeneralizing.
Punditswhowanttosoundjudiciousarefondofwarningagainstgeneralizing.
Punditswhowanttosoundjudiciousarefondofwarningagainstgeneralizing.
Oneofthefirstthingsthatshouldstrikeanyhalfobservantparentisthe
Oneofthefirstthingsthatshouldstrikeanyhalfobservantparentisthe
Oneofthefirstthingsthatshouldstrikeanyhalfobservantparentisthe
Oneofthefirstthingsthatshouldstrikeanyhalfobservantparentisthe
Oneofthefirstthingsthatshouldstrikeanyhalfobservantparentisthe
Unlikeanyothercreatureonthisplanet,humanscanlearnandunderstand,
随机试题
CampingFirst,theequipment.【1】______.and
[originaltext]Hello,Jane.Nicetomeetyou![/originaltext][originaltext]MayI
解释医疗保险保单中的免赔条款。
A.绝对致死剂量(LD) B.最低致死剂量(MLD) C.半数致死剂量(LD
某ICU护士实施个体化护理,每天上班护理一个患者,患者需要的全部护理由她全面负责
关于信用衍生工具,下列论述正确的有( )。 Ⅰ.主要品种包括信用互换、信用联
债券收益体现为()。 Ⅰ.利息收入 Ⅱ.资本损益 Ⅲ.无风险收益 Ⅳ.再
属于处方辅助部分的是A.君药B.臣药C.佐药D.使药E.药引
寒湿腰痛,可选( ) A.独活寄生汤 B.四妙丸 C.肾着汤 D.左归
HAMA的所有项目均采用的是( )级评分法。A.0~2的3 B.0~3的4
最新回复
(
0
)