Female workers as a buffer in the Japanese economy.

The Japanese lifetime-employment system gives the average Japanese worker stronger job security than the average American worker.' However, lifetime- employment guarantees apply only to the core, "regular" work force. Peripheral workers, including temporary, day. and part-time workers, are more vulnerable to contract termination. These workers are predominantly female and are widely believed to serve as a buffer for the regular work force. Moreover, Japanese women are disproportionately represented among those groups not covered by the lifetime employment system and so are more vulnerable to contract termination. Temporary employees are workers employed for a period of not less than a month but not more than a year and day laborers are workers employed on a daily basis for a period of less than a month. Women, in turn, accounted for 79 percent of temporary workers and 75 percent of day laborers in manufacturing. Analysts have argued that Japanese companies were harmed by their inability to shed excess labor during the severe recession following the first oil price shock in the mid-1970s.