







































Education, Language and Sociology Research 
ISSN 2690-3644 (Print) ISSN 2690-3652 (Online) 

Vol. 1, No. 2, 2020 
www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr 

Original Paper 

Realization of Gender Equality in the Workplace 

Feminist Perspectives of a WLB 
Yoriko Ishida1 

1 General Education Division, National Institute of Technology, Oshima College, Japan  

 

Received: September 1, 2020  Accepted: September 9, 2020  Online Published: September 15, 2020 

doi:10.22158/elsr.v1n2p23      URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/elsr.v1n2p23 

 

Abstract 

It has been a long time since people focused on the term “work-life balance” (WLB). It is an 

exaggeration to say that a WLB is in vogue like gender equality. Also, in academic fields in Japan, 

Europe, and the United States, WLB studies have been vigorously discussed, and a number of papers 

have been published since the 21st century. A WLB policy has been misconstrued as applying only to 

women because the ideology of the sexual division of work has not been totally dispelled; many women 

work away from home compared to the old days. This gives a false impression that if working women 

can easily take maternity leave or childcare leave, many women will have an opportunity to work, 

which appears to result in gender equality in society. In this interpretation, it has been considered 

important that company quality should be improved to make maternity leave or childcare leave 

available to female employees. This paper traces the historical context and previous studies about 

appearance of the term “WLB,” analyzing what a WLB policy should be to realize real gender equality. 

Keywords 

Work-Life Balance, sexual division of work, gender equality, feminist thought, paid and unpaid works  

 

1. Introduction 

It has been a long time since people focused on the term “Work-Life Balance” (WLB). It is an 

exaggeration to say that a WLB is in vogue like gender equality. Also, in academic fields in Japan, 

Europe, and the United States, WLB studies have been vigorously discussed, and a number of papers 

have been published since the 21st century. However, the term can be confusing because what was 

originally meant by a WLB, the real goal of WLB, and what a WLB should be has not been correctly 

understood; it has been misconceived. This paper starts by clarifying what “balance,” as used in a WLB, 

really means and examines an interpretation of a WLB from the perspective of feminist thought. 

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A WLB policy in Japan overwhelmingly correlated with “measures to counteract the falling birthrate, 

and ‘gender equality.’” Therefore, a WLB policy has been often mistaken as a means for receiving 

maternal leave and childcare leave, for women only. However, a WLB policy should be originally 

interpreted as being essential for men as well as women. The Council for Gender Equality, held on May 

24, 2007, by the Japanese government, states that a WLB policy carries a propensity for trivialization 

of combining working and raising children just for women (Note 1). Nevertheless, a WLB policy has 

been misconstrued as applying only to women because the ideology of the sexual division of work has 

not been totally dispelled; many women work away from home compared to the old days. In other 

words, because the ideology that women should perform domestic duties has been strongly rooted, it is 

naturally easy for working women to be caught in a dilemma between work and households. This gives 

a false impression that if working women can easily take maternity leave or childcare leave, many 

women will have an opportunity to work, which appears to result in gender equality in society. In this 

interpretation, it has been considered important that company quality should be improved to make 

maternity leave or childcare leave available to female employees. This paper clarifies that there is a 

mistake in this interpretation of a WLB. A WLB policy change should make it possible for individuals 

to work and live with respect. Therefore, the sexual division of work must be dispelled in order for both 

sexes to participate in both work and life as they wish. That is to say, a WLB policy should encourage 

real gender equality; that is, the policy should dispel the notion of sexual division of work. In a society 

where gender equality has not been promoted in workplaces and households, it makes no sense to 

accelerate a WLB policy. A WLB policy has an urgent need to promote gender equality, not the matter 

of time allotment. This paper traces the historical context and previous studies about appearance of the 

term “WLB,” analyzing what a WLB policy should be to realize real gender equality. 

 

2. Historical Context and Previous Studies about a WLB 

2.1 In Europe and the United States 

In 1963 the Equal Pay Act was enacted in the United States and equal opportunity for employment was 

legalized through Article 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination by race, 

gender, nationality, or workplace harassment. In the 1950s, academic researchers launched a study of 

role conflict between work and family (Note 2). The term WLB appeared frequently in 21st-century 

government documents and mass media in the US and the issue of role conflict between work and 

family gained increasing recognition because of the lack of balance between work and home life had 

had an unwanted effect on family and private lives as well as a significant negative effect on 

individuals’ mental health and enhancement of labor productivities, behind which is the fact that 

Family Socialization, and Interaction Process, published by Arlie R. Hochschild in 2001, played an 

essential role in influencing (Hochschild, 2001) (Note 3). Hochschild’s research showed that although 

most people in the US supposedly tended to express that “family is more important than work,” they 

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could not help devoting much time to their work in real life, which significantly restricted their private 

and family lives, resulting in enormous stress in their lives (Yamaguchi, 2009). 

The most important point in a WLB in the US is that many family-friendly companies appeared. 

Because there was no full-time homemaker, from the standpoint that prolonged work caused significant 

inconvenience to working women, there was a growing awareness that companies should have good 

policies on the work-family balance front. While expanded employment for women and wage growths 

on average, which led to a heightening of productivity, could make the whole American society richer, 

a lot of companies need considerations for female employees because of facilitating the use of human 

resources, because many working women hoped to be short-time employees, or to have flexible work 

to accommodate balancing a career and a family. This happened in 1980s, when we can glimpse a 

possibility that the sexual division of work remained strongly fixed in public also in the United States. 

Family-friendly policies in companies were to be gradually developed into an ideology of a WLB, 

including male employees and single persons, which emphasized on a preferred society where working 

people’s diversity was valued, and they were able to have more choices in both work and family life 

than ever before. 

WLB studies in the US are characterized by concentrated discussions on issues of family life, 

employment, and cultivation of human resources in companies, not on countermeasures to the falling 

birthrate, which means that the US did not face a fertility crisis in an economically advanced country. 

However, a WLB in Europe, with fewer children continuing to develop like Japan, was strikingly 

different from that in the US. In Europe, when the issue of a declining birthrate and a WLB entered 

scholars’ consciousness, a WLB in the public was considered in relation to the issue of measures to 

counteract the falling birthrate. Moreover, what made a WLB in the US different from that in Europe 

was that while the American government has always entrusted an initiative of a WLB to the private 

sector attaching great weight on a market environment, European countries, especially member states 

of the European Union, had an active involvement in taking an initiative for a WLB that focused on 

employment situations and balancing a career and a family. For example, formulation of working hours 

based on a WLB policy was legally defined in Europe. EU countries have enacted the Part-Time Work 

Directive in 1997 to push programs of equal treatment between full-time employees and other types of 

employees. Furthermore, EU countries have also enacted the Temporary Agency Work Directive in 

June of 2008, aiming to secure fair treatment in temporary labors. As for measures to counteract the 

falling birthrate in a WLB policy, EU countries were to follow a different path from Japan. It is worthy 

of attention in the history of a WLB that although the EU consists of various countries, whose histories 

and traditions vary, they constitute a common framework that transcends all differences, as far as a 

WLB policy is concerned, for which that in EU countries was to be differentiated from that in the US.  

As mentioned above, though EU countries succeeded in developing a policy that supported balancing a 

career and a family by reconfiguring working hours, they are aware that it is not enough for resolving 

an issue of the falling birthrate. It is noteworthy that EU countries took a step toward realization of 
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gender equality, considering the correlation between work and family at that moment, which means that 

EU countries were critically different from Japan, which has been obsessive about linking an ideology 

of a WLB and measures to counteract the falling birthrate. 

Therefore, in Europe and the United States, the ideology of a WLB has not been polarized between 

work and family but has been vigorously discussed from a multilateral perspective, being aware that 

work and family should have a deep relationship with each other. This is a logical result for Europe and 

the United States, especially EU countries, developing a consciousness of real gender equality, unlike 

Japan, which has recognized a WLB policy as a simple tool for seemingly pulsion of gender equality 

and measures to counteract the falling birthrate. 

2.2 In Japan 

Hagiwara states that a term, “a WLB” has become prevalent in an academic field in Japan since 2001, 

and it has become popular at the governmental level since 2003, when the Second Koizumi Cabinet 

started (Hagiwara, 2009). The Japanese government enacted next-generation upbringing support 

measures in 2003 to promote a policy on the work-family balance front in companies. Although this 

policy aimed at counteracting the falling birthrate, the government enacted the WLB Charter in 

December of 2007 to establish a society where people could achieve healthy and productive lives, and 

work in very diverse ways, freeing itself from the traditional mindset of supporting balancing for 

measures to counteract the falling birthrate (Note 4). Moreover, the State of Formation of a 

Gender-Equal Society was featured in the White Paper of Gender Equality 2007 by the Gender 

Equality Bureau Cabinet Office in Japan, continuing to focus on realization of a WLB for resolving the 

issues of gender equality and the falling birthrate in the White Paper of Gender Equality 2008 and 2009 

(Note 5), and the Declining Birthrate White Paper 2008 and 2009. 

It is written that “Everyone can work while fulfilling their sense of fulfillment and fulfillment of their 

duties, and at the same time, have a healthy and prosperous life where they can spend time for 

childcare/nursing care, and personal time for home, community, self-development, etc. Now, we must 

pursue the realization of harmony between work and life in society as a whole (Note 6), which would 

build a vibrant society and economy (Kuwashima, 2018). There is little room for criticism of agenda in 

the charter, but it should be pointed out that a WLB policy in Japan has some problems. Especially, 

from a viewpoint of feminist thought, an attitude toward a WLB in Japan could even head in the 

opposite direction, gender equality. As previously stated, a WLB policy in Japan is mindful of the 

notion of “measures to counteract the falling birthrate,” giving an initiative to companies with respect 

for companies’ independence in enabling female employees to balance their work and family. This 

seems to emphasize “gender equality” on the surface in the sense that it realizes ideal working 

conditions for female employees, but it works differently, because it gives the impression that women 

are regarded as machines to give birth. The reason why a WLB policy has an essential lack of real 

recognition of gender equality is that it has been developed with linking with “measures to counteract 

the falling birthrate.” 
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As mentioned in the previous section, the European government also equated measures to counteract 

the falling birthrate with the issue of WLB, but they became aware they cannot always negotiate an 

issue on the basis of a common understanding. In that sense, the Japanese government lags way behind 

European countries because of linking measures to counteract the falling birthrate with the issue of 

WLB. For increasing the number of children, women have to give birth and raise them. To do this, 

working women, as well as full-time homemakers, need to participate in bringing a baby into the world. 

That is, such a banal idea that creates an environment that enables working women to take easily 

maternity and childcare leave would halt the declining birthrate make a WLB policy head in the 

opposite direction, not in its proper one. While it is natural that only women give birth, what is the most 

important is an ideology of childcare. Behind a WLB policy in Japan is the fact that a conventional 

ideology of childcare still remains deeply rooted in the Japanese society, which is to say, women should 

dedicate themselves to the task of child rearing. In other words, the very child rearing must be the 

greatest joy in women’s lives, working outside the home being only secondarily concerned. A WLB 

policy in Japan shows that an ideology that child rearing must take priority over entering the world of 

work, so women should stay home to try particularly hard to do “the greatest joy,” in which there is no 

attitude to realize a real gender equality. 

Although it is seemingly understood that a WLB in Japan has to be a policy for promoting gender 

equality in the workplace, Europe and the United States regard gender equality from a higher 

perspective through a WLB, because there is no original “full-time homemaker.” Behind a WLB policy 

in Europe and the United States, where it is taken for granted that people enjoy gender equality in civil 

life regardless of a WLB policy, there is an attitude that it must be prepared for both men and women, 

rather than women’s taking childcare leave with little difficulty. It could be pointed out that while a 

WLB in Japan has been facilitated in order for women to maintain their jobs, Europe and the United 

States have been promoted because of ideologies that it is natural for men and women to carry on 

working and lead a more fulfilling lifestyle in both employment and family. 

 

3. Misleading Impression of a WLB 

What does a WLB mean, and how do we interpret the term “balance”? To tell the truth, interpreting 

balance seems to be complex and creates a misunderstanding. The latest studies of a WLB do not 

suggest a common definition or concept（Lewis & Campbell, 2007). Also, although a WLB has gained 

widespread use in Europe and the United States, they have not yet drawn boundaries between work and 

private lives (Aybras, 2007). However, WLB studies in Europe and the United States have analyzed the 

term from various directions as compared with Japan. This section discusses how we should interpret 

the term balance by analyzing what the term has been intended to mean in WLB studies in Europe and 

the United States, and what researchers have interpreted as a boundary between work and private. 

Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office in Japan defines a WLB in this way: “All individuals, 

irrespective of age or gender, will be able to participate in a variety of activities, such as work, 
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child-rearing, nursing, self-development, and community activities, to the degree of their own choice.” 

(Note 7). Translating a WLB into Japanese, the Cabinet Office mentioned it as “Shigoto (work) to 

Seikatsu (private life) no Chowa (evenness).” Simply understanding, balance means “chowa (evenness)” 

in Japanese, and “unbalance” means “fukinko” in Japanese. However, an antonym of a WLB should 

not be “a work-life unbalance.” That is, interpreting the term balance in a WLB could not be quite so 

simple. 

What kind of situation is it where “work and life are not in harmony”? An answer would be: Roughly 

speaking, when a person has “work to do,” he or she cannot do a “private thing,” or when he or she 

does a “private thing,” he or she cannot do “work to do.” In other words, “work” and “private” are 

“conflicting” states, which means that an antonym of a WLB should be “a work-life conflict,” not “a 

work-life unbalance.” In that sense, it can be said that the term a WLB is a very misleading term. 

When considered in antonyms, “unbalance” gives an impression of a problem of time allocation, 

resulting in creating a misleading impression that a good time allocation can solve a problem. To give 

an extreme example, some people think that a WLB can be achieved by “8 hours work, 8 hours private, 

8 hours sleep.” But a work life balance isn’t a simple matter of allocating time in actuality. A WLB 

does not choose between work and private and does not seek a time ratio. That is why the antonym of a 

work-life balance is now understood as “work-life conflict.” “Conflict” is a quality issue, not a quantity 

issue such as time allocation. 

It is not necessarily incorrect that work and private life are separate areas that are experienced by the 

same person. When focusing on an area and time, “work” and “privacy life” cannot exist on the same 

line, but attaching importance to a human beings living there, the two areas cannot always be separate. 

Because originally both are the areas experienced by the same person, it is possible that the concept is 

irrational—sacrificing or choosing one for the other. In other words, when the balance of a WLB is 

described as “evenness,” it means that work and private life are in the opposite areas, and cause a 

problem about how people balance between them. But keeping in mind that work and private life are 

experienced by the same person, they are not in a conflicting relationship, but rather in a synergistic 

relationship that influences each other. It can be interpreted that work would be a success by a fullness 

of private life, and it would be enhanced by working well. Indeed, the WLB aims to create a virtuous 

cycle that is achieved by properly meshing the gears of both, not focusing on either work or private life, 

and making the ratio even. 

Even in Europe and America, initially, the negative aspects between the roles at work and at home were 

studied using the concept of conflict, which clarified conflicts between roles occur, mainly among time, 

stress, and behavior and values (Parson & Bales, 1955). As stated above, WLB studies in Europe and 

the United States since 2000 rid themselves completely of the awareness of the negative side of a WLB. 

Research interest gradually began to focus on the positive side, resulting in increasing of research on 

harmony and synergies between multiple roles in work and private life. The shift from a negative 

perspective to a positive perspective came from the realization that, unlike finite time, the source of 
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mental energy and ability is not always finite, and work and life have the potential to complement each 

other. Up to that point, it was thought that life takes time to be engaged in a work away. However, 

many research results show that having multiple roles reduces the psychological negative effect of a 

specific role, and enthusiasm for the role in a private life gives energy to an individual, which brings a 

significant benefit to work. 

Looking at the theoretical background of WLB studies in Europe and the United States in the 1970s, 

research has emerged that views home and work as two open systems. Showing a typical example, the 

spillover theory can be raised, in which a situation, consciousness, and emotions of an individual 

overflow to the other in the internal or interpersonal relationship of the individual. This is because, for 

example, if there is something unpleasant at work, he or she feels unpleasant feelings when returning to 

the home, or conversely, if the degree of satisfaction of work is high, the degree of satisfaction of 

family life is also high, which refers to the correlation between the two domains of home and work 

(Stains, 1980). On the other hand, the compensation theory, which discusses the complementary 

positions of home and work, presents examples in which something that cannot be obtained in home 

life can be realized in the workplace and vice versa (Staines, 1980). Both discuss home and work as 

two static areas and discuss how they depend on each other. However, there is also a criticism that these 

two theories have a narrow perspective and emphasize only emotional connections. On the other hand, 

the work/family border theory, which discusses how two areas are related in the experience of an 

individual from the viewpoint of the relationship among space and environment and human beings, 

captures a more dynamic aspect, where it focuses on what kind of negotiations, conflicts, and balances 

occur between people in various positions around the boundaries of two domains (Clark, 2000). 

Based on these theories, expressions such as a work-life integration and a work-life effectiveness tend 

to be preferred rather than the term, a WLB in Europe and the United States (Note 8). A work-life 

integration is a concept that integrates work and life and aims to become a synergistic existence of both 

work and family life and to enhance each other both publicly and privately. This is a further 

advancement of a WLB consciousness so far, in which balance is adjusted so that there is no bias 

between work and family life, and there is a difference from alternative understanding. By enhancing 

both work and private life, it aims to improve productivity and quality of life. Therefore, it is possible 

to create a synergistic effect for work and private life (Note 9). A work-life integration and a WLB 

differ greatly in grasping work and home. Originally, behind a background of appearance of the term a 

WLB, there should be an aim for correction that if an individual attaches importance to work, he or she 

has to put off family life by all means, and on the contrary, if wanting to give priority to home, he or 

she gives up career advancement. In other words, the idea of life-work balance was aimed at achieving 

a balance between the two, but as mentioned earlier, there was a risk that work and private life would 

be regarded as conflicting. On the other hand, a work-life integration does not make a home opposed to 

work. At first glance, it may seem that work is eroding a private life, but eliminating the line between 

both areas creates a synergistic effect that “if work is good, the private life will be good.” Instead of 
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simply balancing work and private life, if an individual shifts the two to the idea of integration, he or 

she no longer needs to limit one, and the worth of work and the worth of private life are linked. As a 

result, it becomes possible for both areas to obtain a sense of fulfillment at the same time. In this way, 

compared to a WLB that was expected to be only one-side fulfillment, in work-life integration, it can 

be seen that both have value (Lewis, Rapoport, & Gambles, 2003). 

In addition, a study by Poelmans, Stepanova, and Masuda (2008) analyzes the positive relationship 

between work and private life, pointing out a new direction of a work-life research by arranging prior 

studies about the balance of two life areas. While Lewis et al. emphasize the term “integration,” the 

term “enrichment” is the keyword in Poelmans’ paper. The terms introduce two types of enrichment. 

One is called “instrumental enrichment,” in which the abilities and skills acquired in one role area are 

brought into another role area and used effectively. This is the case, for example, when the 

problem-solving skills acquired in the workplace are used in home life to solve problems at home more 

effectively. The other is called “affective enrichment,” in which positive emotions, such as joy and 

happiness, are transmitted from one role domain to another, being similar to the positive spillover 

mentioned above (Poelmans, Stepanova, & Masuda, 2008). The paper by Poelmans et al. provides 

clues for new ideas about work and private life, because it is important to consider how to mitigate 

conflicts and promote enrichment in both work to private life and private life to work” directions in the 

overall harmony of work and private life. 

In addition, Allis and O’Driscoll examine the relationship with the work role, comparing the family 

role with other private activities. According to them, whether it is a family role or private role, the 

longer the input time, the less conflicted the roles, while it was found that those who are more 

passionate about their private roles tend to be more enriched with their work roles. It has been 

suggested that dedication to the private role does not deprive the work of resources and enthusiasm, but 

rather enriches the work (Allis & O’Driscoll, 2008). It is well known that the importance of WLB is 

being rapidly recognized in Japan, but as mentioned at the beginning of this section, a WLB theory in 

Japan is confused by the term balance, for which many of the research dealing with the interface 

between work and private life, and the interpretation of a WLB in companies focus on the negative 

relationship between work and private life; that is, the conflict between work and family roles. The 

trend has continued even now. The fundamental cause for a neglect of problems to be achieved by the 

realization of a WLB lies in the misunderstanding of the term, balance. A WLB is certainly a matter of 

working style, but working style should be a matter of individual ideology of working rather than a 

simple matter of working hours. When understanding that an original meaning of a WLB is synergy 

between work and private life, it can be understood that it is necessary to enhance both of them, and it 

is important to both men and women, not only for women. That is why a WLB is a policy that can 

significantly influence achieving gender equality. The idea of shortening working hours to facilitate 

women’s work and domestic work to encourage them to work comes from the erroneous interpretation 

that a WLB is an allocation of time. This section has described an original interpretation of a WLB as a 
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theory, and the next section considers concrete a WLB practice. It analyzes how a WLB should be 

implemented so that it can contribute to the promotion of gender equality. 

 

4. A WLB to Realize Gender Equality 

4.1 A Paradox Caused by a Current WLB 

Today, the number of female employees is increasing, and women are advancing in the workplace and 

improving their social status. However, while men mainly put their careers first, women often leave 

employment due to marriage, childbirth, or childcare even if in their career progression. On the other 

hand, some women even give up marriage and childbirth because they want to continue their career. 

This means that it is difficult for many women to balance work and private life, forcing women to 

choose between them. Moreover, as is well known, the declining birthrate is progressing in Japan, and 

the government is considering one of the causes as “difficulty in balancing work and childcare,” having 

supported childcare for female workers since the 1990s as one measure to counteract the falling 

birthrate, and developing a WLB policy for female employees (Shimizu, 2008). The first step is the law 

concerning childcare leave (Law for Childcare Leave), which was enacted in 1991. Additionally, the 

Act for Measures to Support the Development of the Next Generation was enacted in 2003 to support 

families raising children throughout the society (Note 10). In this way, the policy that began with the 

support for women to balance work and family as part of measures to reduce the birthrate has expanded 

its content to support a WLB for men and women workers. However, looking at the background of 

implementation of a WLB policy in Japan, as mentioned earlier, there is a strong impression that its 

target is women, and there is a purpose to eliminate measures to counteract the falling birthrate. After 

all, even if the system to support a WLB of employees in companies is expanded, it will be used 

exclusively by women, resulting in a greater emphasis on women’s burden of family responsibility. 

Therefore, the working style that fixes the sexual division of work cannot be resolved forever. As 

always, women’s working and performing domestic duties conflict with each other, because men’s 

participation in domestic work has not been realized yet, not only creating a double tradeoff for women, 

but also being a barrier for men to achieve a WLB. 

Certainly, it cannot be denied that promoting a WLB also creates a situation in which women are more 

likely to develop their careers. However, when it causes too much stress on women, creating an 

impression that women can easily balance work and family, a paradox is established that promotes the 

sexual division of labor, which is an original barrier to gender equality. If the division of labor persists, 

as in the previous era, the phenomenon of women working outside the home will not occur in the first 

place. 

Compared with former days, thanks to the fact that the number of full-time homemakers has decreased 

and the number of women working outside the home has increased, it can be stated that a concept of 

sexual division of labor has been destroyed incompletely. As a result, when women tried to work 

outside, it became easy to fall into the dilemma state between work and the domesticities. Consequently, 
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the most problematic issue in the workplace is that only the words WLB and gender equality have 

wings in a situation where the concept of sexual division of labor is not completely dismantled. To 

achieve a WLB and gender equality, sexual division of labor is nothing but a barrier, not only for 

women but also for men. It is important to realize that a WLB is not just for women and that gender 

equality is still stagnant, not because of a WLB insufficiency, but an ideology of sexual division of 

labor’s firm establishment. A WLB, which dismantles the sexual division of labor, should be promoted 

(Note 11). 

4.2 Importance of Dismantling the Sexual Division of Labor 

The first study about the idea of a women’s sphere is “The Bonds of Womanhood: ‘Woman’s Sphere’ in 

New England, 1780-1835” by Nancy Cott. Since her study, women’s history in the United States has 

been developed in line with the women’s sphere (Aruga, pp. 32-33) (Note 12). “Sphere” has been used 

from the nineteenth century, meaning that men and women play their gender roles in their social lives. 

It is the “women’s sphere” that organizes a private life in a household and a “men’s sphere” that 

performs an official life in a working place (Aruga, pp. 32). The ideology of spheres has doomed 

gender roles for men and women (Ishida, 2019). In Colonial America, a household functioned as a 

productive unit for living, and members of a family would work together both in the fields and inside 

houses to produce provisions and the common necessities of life. Although these productive labors 

would be wholly dominated by husbands, the heads of families, wives could be considered to be 

important members of the workforce. However, such qualities of family lives began to undergo change 

around the beginning of the nineteenth century because of the Industrial Revolution; the concept that a 

family should be a productive unit for living began to vanish. In other words, productive collaboration 

between men and women in Colonial America collapsed in the nineteenth century, with the division of 

productive activities into two domains. Men, who performed productive activities both in the fields and 

inside houses along with their wives before the Industrial Revolution, had followed a labor system of 

going to workplaces outside the home to earn their pay. Meanwhile, the understanding that women 

should be confined in households began gradually to deteriorate (Ishida, 2019). 

It wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution that work and employment came to be understood as synonyms; 

the workplace and home were different places, being held at different times, having different 

relationships and different norms. That is why there are two completely different cultures at work and 

at home today (Morf, 1989; Googins, 1991; Coontz, 1992). The mechanism by which sexual division 

of labor was fixed in Japan is very similar to the situation in the 19th century in Europe and the United 

States, although there is a gap of about 100 years. In Japan, the “female territory” appeared in the 

mid-1970s. Until the 1970s, many women were engaged in the family business, which might involve 

self-employment or agriculture. Many men began to engage in employment labor in urban areas during 

the period of high growth, and many of the women who married the men became full-time housewives 

(Tsutsui, 2014). In Japan, during the period of high economic growth, companies came to be based on a 

fixed division of roles by gender (sexual division of labor), and the employment system in the 
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workplace was developed accordingly. In such a situation, a male regular employee who “has a 

dependent family and works long hours to contribute to the company in order to earn the wages that 

deserves to support the family” was considered as the standard worker image. While such work styles 

contribute to the development of the Japanese economy and have secured long-term employment 

security for workers and stable working conditions at a certain level (Shimizu, 2008). 

When the ideology of sexual division of labor is considered a problem, the issues of paid work and 

unpaid work’ are discussed in pairs. In other words, sexual division of labor, which means that men 

work outside and women work at home, does not simply indicate the division of labor to work in, but 

also indicates that there is a problem of female disdain behind the fact that the former is paid work and 

the latter is unpaid work. Jeanne Boydston analyzes gender roles and industrialization in Home and 

Work, pointing out that domestic work has been undervalued by industrialization. She describes this 

phenomenon as the “pastoralization of domestic duties,” noting that women’s unpaid work has no 

economic value in an industrial society (Boydston, pp. 142-163). Because of this concept of labor, a 

family was no longer a ground of production and had become a private space, being the very opposite 

of official space, which now was industrial workplaces for men. The division of labor according to 

gender has been justified and endorsed by this concept. A family became a healing space for men who 

worked hard outside, which demanded femininity in the Victorian era and the placement of virtue in 

obedience, chastity, piety, and self-sacrifice to women, who must serve their family and home (Aruga, 

pp. 34-37). 

Not only in Boydston’s suggestions, but also in the field of feminism studies, the concept of work that 

is specialized in paid labor has been reexamined, which has delineated a direction that gender equality 

should be achieved in both work, by placing importance on domestic duties including nursing care and 

child rearing, which have been understood as private areas, as work (Note 13). When considering a 

gender bias behind paid work and unpaid work as well as fixing of sexual division of labor, it can be 

apparent that a WLB is not just a problem of allocating working hours. The work assumed by a WLB 

policy refers to paid work; however, in reality, life includes domestic duties, childcare, and nursing, 

which are “free,” and mostly carried out by women. Many working women are still engaged in unpaid 

work after returning from their work. In the WLB Charter, work is actually earned labor, and nonearned 

labor such as child-raising and nursing care is “private life.” Given this nontheoretical situation, Norio 

Hisamoto asserts that a WLB is actually an issue of a work-WLB, which should be seriously regarded 

as “a balance of work-work is serious” (Hisamoto, 2015). A WLB policy includes the concept of 

gender asymmetric work, which is the work of men and the work of women on the premise of sexual 

division of labor. Simply understanding a WLB as a policy that enables women to balance home and 

work is not only to promote sexual division of labor, but also place responsibility for domestic work, a 

perpetual work, just on women, which means that women no longer have the opportunity to enjoy the 

private life. That is, this situation should be considered as the opposite direction from gender equality. 

An imbalance in the sharing of domestic duties and child-rearing care for couples has also been pointed 
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out in WLB studies in Europe and the United States (Pleck, 1985; Nock & Kingston, 1988; Brines, 

1994). For instance, Hochschild describes the actual situation as a term, “second shift,” in which many 

women must perform domestic duties and childcare almost all alone when returning home after 

working (Hochschild, 1989). 

4.3 A Blind Spot of Sexual Division of Labor 

A correlation exists between sexual division of labor and paid and unpaid work in the previous section. 

In this section, going further, I examine the “responsibility for livelihood maintenance” caused by an 

ideology of sexual division of labor. In “Forget about ‘the ideal worker’: A theoretical contribution to 

the debate on flexible workplace designs, work/life conflict, and opportunities for gender equality,” 

Peter and Blomme argue how gender influences the boundary between work and private life from the 

perspective of self-determination theory and boundary theory, in which they analyze that in the 

relationship between work and life, the gender identity of both sexes has a greater effect than corporate 

attitudes. In other words, the role of women centers on their family, and the role of men centers on their 

work (Note 14). Also, in Japan today, despite of the fact that more women are engaged in paid work, 

there is no phenomenon in which more men are engaged in unpaid work in the home. Considering 

Peter and Blomme’s suggestions, it can be pointed out that paid work of women is an “auxiliary role” 

to make up for the lack of income for men, rather than so-called career development. In short, even if 

the number of working women has increased compared with the previous era, it does not mean that 

women can play active roles in a labor market regardless of gender and that working women become 

regarded as breadwinners. That is to say, as long as the family’s earning head remains male, and the 

unpaid work of women is a subsidiary, responsibilities of unpaid work at home are still the role of 

women. For example, when problems such as childcare and nursing care emerge, it is common for a 

working woman to give up her job or change the way of working so that her husband’s employment is 

not affected. This means that labors of husbands always take precedence over labors of wives, and that 

labors of the wives must be the subject of husbands’ acceptance and obedience. It is unlikely that a 

husband’s labors would be affected to maintain his wife’s because an ideology has been established that 

husbands are responsible for maintaining livelihoods. It has been reported not only in Japan but also in 

Europe that the major responsibilities for livelihoods are imposed only on men. According to Catherin 

Hakim, who has researched in the United Kingdom and Spain, it has become apparent that many 

coworkers think that a family’s breadwinner should be the husband. Even wives who advocate equal 

division of domestic duties against sexual division of labor do not insist on sharing livelihood 

responsibility (Hakim, 2003). What can be read from Hakim’s research is that it is proved to be 

incorrect that because women are engaged in domestic duties and deprived of opportunities to be active 

outside the home unlike men, an issue of “responsibility for livelihood maintenance” that always 

accompanies an ideology of sexual division of labor has a great effect just on women. Sexual division 

of labor and responsibility for livelihood maintenance negatively affect not only women but also men, 

since if a wife quits her job for any reason, her husband will have more responsibility to maintain her 
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livelihood, and he has no option to quit his job (Karkoulian, Srour, & Sinan, 2016). A fulfillment of 

responsibility for livelihood maintenance means a determination to continue working for a long period 

of time for a husband, and he will be overwhelmed by responsibility and the stress of supporting his 

family financially. 

Ogasawara points out that a significance of paid work for women has a considerable effect on a 

division of household chores (Ogasawara, 2005), which means that increasing in an employment rate of 

women hardly contributes to dismantling the system of sexual division of labor, “while a husband 

should have responsibility for livelihood maintenance, a wife must be mainly in charge of household 

chores.” From the point of view of feminist perspectives, it has already been noted that a persistent 

ideology of sexual division of labor has been an obstacle for the realization of gender equality in 

workplace. Further, although it has been pointed out that the sharing of domestic duties by married 

couples is important, family budget sharing has not been mentioned in this argument. A dismantling of 

sexual division of labor is not just a matter of eliminating a fixation of gender roles for domestic duties 

and works, but also an issue of who will maintain a living. Disassembling an ideology that a husband 

should work, and a wife must accept responsibility for domestic duties is not enough, and it is 

important for couples to eliminate the idea that husbands should be a breadwinners. Namely, 

significance of work for women, why women work, has an important meaning in the dismantling of 

sexual division of labor. Whether or not gender equality is realized should be measured by a meaning 

of employment, not by increasing in the employment rate of women. If women’s labor and men’s labor 

have the same meaning, there must be a tendency that men’s income does not influence women’s 

employment choices. That is, Douglas-Arisawa’s rule, in which the higher the male’s income, the lower 

the employment rate of his wife, ironically proves that the meaning of female labor is completely 

different from that of male labor. 

 

5. Conclusion 

It is fundamentally important to keep in mind that a WLB must be available equally to both sexes. It is 

not until this realization is achieved that a WLB contributes to gender equality. As mentioned in section 

three, a WLB is not a matter of work and private time allocation, but a matter of individual conception 

of both, as suggested by spillover theory. There is no room for a sexual difference. In a system in which 

only women are responsible for domestic duties, women, unlike men, find it difficult to find a 

significance in their work, and eventually women’s work becomes subsidiary. A realization of WLB 

must be a policy to eliminate the distorted division of labor created by gender, for which a false idea 

that a WLB should enable women to balance domestic duties and work must be dispelled. Creating an 

environment in which women can easily take childcare leave through a WLB policy promotes the 

concept of sexual division of labor, resulting in moving gender equality backward. To achieve gender 

equality in the workplace, it is essential that the concept of sexual division of labor should be 

dismantled and that women take responsibility for maintaining their livelihoods. It is also necessary for 
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women themselves to have the significance of working instead of simply providing support for their 

husbands. And to achieve these, a WLB policy must encourage men to take childcare leave. Gender 

equality should not be realized only in the workplace. It is not enough for women to participate in the 

workplace on an equal basis with men. As in the case of the front and back of a coin, if it is not realized 

that men also participate in domestic duties on a parity with women, actual gender equality cannot be 

realized. 

 

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Notes 

Note 1. http://www.gender.go.jp/kaigi/senmon/wlb/siryo/pdf/wlb07-1.pdf 

Note 2. Parsons, T. and Bales, R. F. Family Socialization, and interaction process. Glence IL: The Free 

Press, 1955. 

Note 3. It is interpreted that The Time Bind: When Work becomes Home and Home becomes Work by 

Arlie R. Hochschild, in 2001, has an enourmoue effect on a background about “a WLB” in the US 

(Yamaguchi, 2004). 

Note 4. http://wwwa.cao.go.jp/wlb/government/pdf/charter.pdf#search=%27 ワークライフバランス

憲章%27  
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2019.04.003
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-012372574-5.50011-9
https://doi.org/10.1086/493203
https://doi.org/10.1177/001872678003300203
https://doi.org/10.2307/2711179
https://doi.org/10.5149/9780807898833_pasley.8


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https://www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/kodomo/jisedai-suisinhou-gaiyou.html 

Note 5. The Gender Equality Bureau was established in 2001 as a division of the Japanese Cabinet 

Office tasked with planning and coordinating the policies of the Japanese government pertaining to 

gender equality. The Gender Equality Bureau conducts research on topics concerning issues of 

gender—compiling findings into an annual report called the “White Paper.” In 1994, the Headquarters 

for the Promotion of Gender Equality was created within the Cabinet of Japan. With the 1999 

implementation of the Basic Law for a Gender-Equal Society, both the Office for Gender Equality and 

the Council for Gender Equality were established by the Japanese Cabinet. During the governmental 

reforms effected January 6, 2001, the Gender Equality Bureau was established under the newly 

formulated Cabinet Office. Coupled with the Gender Equality Council, the Bureau is tasked with 

devising and coordinating plans regarding issues of gender equality in addition to executing plans that 

fall outside of the jurisdiction of any other ministry. When first founded, the Gender Equality Bureau 

was composed of 50 people with an equal balance of male and female members. The White Paper is an 

annual report published by the Gender Equality Bureau that contains both research and policy 

suggestions for issues of gender inequality. The main object of study for each White Paper remains 

largely consistent with the measures for gender equality established by the 1999 Basic Laws for a 

Gender-equal Society, although each new report attempts to address obstacles to the accomplishment of 

these measures. The 2010 White Paper—the latest year available online—focused on the education of 

Japanese women, calling for their increased education of the variety of career opportunities available to 

them in an attempt to avoid the closing of the next generation of Japanese women’s minds due to 

stereotyped perception of gender roles in society. The 2010 White Paper also pushes for combating the 

popular perception of gender equality being concerned with women only, stating that a gender-equal 

society would benefit both “the male worker and the housewife.” 

Note 6. http://wwwa.cao.go.jp/wlb/government/20barrier_html/20html/charter.html 

Note 7. http://www.gender.go.jp/english_contents/mge/wlb/society.html 

Note 8. A work-life integration is adopted by Intel (US) or AstraZeneca (UK), and a work-life 

effectiveness is by IBM (US). 

Note 9. Also in Japan, Machiko Osawa focuses on a term, “a work-life synergy” and argues about a 

misunderstanding of a word, “balance” in WLB. She points out that “both enrichment” and “both 

enrichment” bring about “interaction/synergistic effect,” and argue that synergy is the merit of 

improving the “quality” of work and life (Osawa, 2008). 

Note 10. https://www.mhlw.go.jp/content/11909000/000355354.pdf 

Note 11. In Japan, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act was enacted in 1986 to establish equal 

employment opportunities for both sexes, and the Basic Act for Gender-Equal Society was enacted in 

1999. It is noted in Article 4 that “fixed sexual division of labor” impedes gender equality, but it does 

not mean that legally compliant content is required for its dismantling. It is not legally binding because 

it is stipulated as “to be considered” in practice and is not a matter that actually punishes the violation. 
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Note 12. Much has been written about sphere ideology as follows: Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, “The 

Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America” in Signs 

1-1 (Autumn 1975), 1-29; Linda Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in 

Revolutionary America (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1986); Linda K. Kerber, “Separate Spheres, 

Female Worlds, Women’s Place: The Rhetoric of Women’s History” in the Journal of American History, 

75-1 (Jan. 1988), 9-39; Linda K. Kerber, Nancy F. Cott, Robert Gross, Lynn Hunt, Carroll 

Smith-Rosenberg and Christine M. Stansell, “Beyond Roles, Beyond Spheres: Thinking about Gender 

in the Early Republic” in The William and Mary Quarterly 46-3 (1989), 565-585; Mary Beth Norton, 

Founding Mothers & Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society (New York: 

Alfred A. Knopf, 1996); Zagarri, “Women and Party Conflict in the Early Republic” in Beyond the 

Founders: New Approaches to the Political History of the Early American Republic (Chapel Hill: 

University of North Carolina, 2004), 107-128; Mary Kelley, Learning to Stand & Speak: Women, 

Education, and Public Life in America’s Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 

2006). 

Note 13. The following are typical examples of studies on a correlation between women and labor. Like 

Boydston’s studies, all of them state that sexual division of labor locks women in their homes and 

forces them to play secondary roles, for which, a concept of “femininity” was an essential element: 

Berbara Welter, “The Cult of Womanhood, 1820-1860” in American Quarterly 18-2 (Summer 1966), 

151-174: Gerda Lerner, “Placing Women in History: Definitions and Challenges” in Feminist Studies 

3-1 (Autumn 1975), 5-14; Christine Stansell, City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789-1860 

(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986); Ava Baron, Work Engendered: Toward a New History of American 

Labor (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991); Wendy Gamber, “A Gendered Enterprise: Placing 

Nineteenth-Century Businesswomen in History” in Business History Review 72-2 (July 1998), 188-217; 

Rosemarie Zagarri, Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic 

(Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2007); Wilma A. Dunaway, Women, Work and Family 

in the Antebellum Mountain South (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 

Note 14. Unlike in Japan, a full-time homemaker is rare in Europe and the United States, but it cannot 

be denied that an ideology of sexual division of labor has taken root, and that sexual identity has a great 

influence on labor. 

 

 

 

 

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	Original Paper
	Yoriko Ishida1
	1 General Education Division, National Institute of Technology, Oshima College, Japan
	Abstract
	Keywords
	References

