Institutions in the Youth Labor Market: Changes in High School-Work in Urban Japan

Mary Brinton, Cornell University

Youth labor markets in postindustrial societies faced difficult times at the end of the 20th century. Some labor economists and sociologists suggest that social institutions can play a significant beneficial role, noting that countries with institutionalized school-work programs have some of the lowest unemployment rates for new school-leavers. These include the "apprenticeship countries" in Europe and one country with a strikingly different school-work system, Japan. This paper discusses the Japanese case and argues that the success of its school-work system has been overplayed. I do this by analyzing the performance of the system during the Japanese economic downturn over the past decade, showing in particular that rates of youth idleness increased substantially. Further, I show that the job-matching accomplished through ties between schools and firms does not spread sufficient numbers of job offers to lower-ranked schools. This may be exacerbating the jobless rate of graduates from these schools.