Nonstandard Work and Educational Differentials in Married Women's Employment in Japan: Patterns of Continuity and...

The rapid expansion of nonstandard work has altered the nature of women's employment, but previous research on married women's employment trajectories in japan has paid little attention to the role of nonstandard work. to fill this gap, we examine how patterns of employment in regular and nonstandard positions vary by married women's socioeconomic status using nationally representative longitudinal data. results from discrete-time competing risks models of labor force transitions indicate that university graduates have the most stable labor force attachment in that they are the least likely to move from standard to nonstandard employment and to exit nonstandard jobs. in contrast, married women with a high school degree or less are more likely to reenter the labor force to take low-quality nonstandard jobs. these results are consistent with a scenario characterized by both continuity and change. older patterns of labor force exit and reentry, combined with the rise in nonstandard employment, are most relevant for less educated women while the emergence of more career employment opportunities is most relevant for highly educated women. considering the role of women's income in shaping patterns of inequality, these findings have important implications for stratification in japan.