出版社：Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training
摘要：The purpose of this study is to discuss the types of family policy traditionally adopted by Japanese companies and the family problems they entail. First of all, I examined issues such as the payment requirements of family allowance and the method of selecting employees for transfer. The results suggest that companies assumed the normal model to be a male worker in a household with a full-time housewife, and undertook personnel management on that basis. Companies expected their employees' wives to ease their husbands' stress when it spilled over from work into the home, but forbade their employees from bringing stress from family and home life into their work (the unidirec- tional stress spillover hypothesis). Next, I examined two problems in the family being paid attention to in recent years—namely, work-family conflicts and a decline in wives' marital satisfaction. These are caused by long working hours and led to mental health disorders among employees and their families. Companies were having to cope with employees suffering from depression and taking time off work. In reality, therefore, the boundary between work and family or home life was ex- tremely fluid, and a bi-directional impact arose. In recent years, work life balance has been advocated. This is a rationale and policy to the effect that work and family or home life should be balanced, and is premised on the bi-directional hypothesis of work and family. In future, human resource management will need to be steered in this kind of direction.
