This paper presents research findings from Joint Research Paper No. 64 published by the Statistics Research and Training Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, analyzing trends in job transitions from non-regular to regular employment (regularization) by employment type.
This research uses probit analysis with microdata from the Employment Status Survey to examine differences in ease of transition by employment type and their long-term and fixed nature regarding job transitions from non-regular to regular employment.
Research Background
Non-regular employment in Japan has continued to increase since the 1990s, exceeding 10 million in 1995, 15 million in 2003, 20 million in 2016, and reaching approximately 21.2 million in 2023. The ratio of non-regular employment among all employees remains at a high level of about 40%, with issues regarding employment quality including wage gaps, employment instability, difficulty in skill accumulation, and inadequate welfare benefits. In 2023 and 2024, 330,000 and 320,000 people respectively transitioned from non-regular to regular employment.
Key Analysis Results
The analysis revealed clear differences in regularization trends by gender and employment type. For women, part-time and temporary agency workers tend to have more difficulty transitioning to regular employment compared to other employment types, and this trend has been confirmed to persist over the long term. On the other hand, for men, almost no differences in regularization trends by employment type were observed.
Employment Adjustment Patterns
Among female non-regular workers, only about 30% adjust their work to avoid tax deductions or social insurance coverage, with the highest rate among part-time workers at about 40%. This means that approximately 70% of all non-regular workers do not adjust their employment, indicating that non-regular employment is not necessarily a voluntary choice.
Verification Through Latent Class Analysis
Latent class analysis was used to verify whether employment type-specific regularization trends simply reflect proximity to regular employment in work patterns. Results showed that regularization trends and proximity to regular employment in work patterns do not necessarily coincide, suggesting that regularization trends have characteristics specific to each employment type.
Policy Implications
The research results indicate the need for detailed policies considering characteristics by employment type and gender rather than uniform approaches in policies promoting regularization of non-regular employment. In particular, for female part-time and temporary agency workers, detailed analysis of factors hindering regularization and construction of support measures based on such analysis are important.
The article empirically clarifies that regularization of non-regular employment shows different trends by employment type, with particularly notable differences among women, providing important insights for formulating effective employment policies.