Informal Support Networks and Female Career Continuity

Female Japanese workers who have chosen to play multiple roles, such as those of wife, mother, and paid professional, often experience difficulty in career continuity. Some research and theory suggest that public policies that promote gender equality, childcare, and nursing leaves have positive effects on the career continuity of working women. Nevertheless, the impact of informal support has not been empirically evaluated.

In this exploratory study, I focus on informal networks among female workers. Affirming the importance of supportive networks, I explore how they relate to female career continuity in Japan. In order to accomplish this objective, I collected interview data on female informal support networks from persons in charge of personal or gender issues in 22 Japanese companies or associations. My major findings are that these informal support networks have three principal functions: collecting and disseminating useful information on career development, offering emotional support in times of trouble, and providing role models for working women.

Given the countermeasures to the dismissal or resignation of female workers in recent years, these findings can be utilized to examine the effect of informal networks on working women, which, in turn, may improve the social status of female workers and gender equality in the workplaces in Japan.