Documents Japan 1 048 results

"Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) have been proposed as risk factors for endometriosis. Persistent organochlorine compounds, a group of suspected EDCs, are present to some extent in almost all human adipose tissue and blood via the food chain. A few animal studies have confirmed that exposure to these compounds can increase the incidence of endometriosis. In this study, we examined the associations between endometriosis and exposure to selected organochlorine compounds, including 8 polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs), 10 polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs), 4 coplanar polychlorinated biphenyls (cPCBs), 36 ortho-substituted polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and 13 chlorinated pesticides or their metabolites. The participants were 139 infertile Japanese women who were examined by laparoscopy and diagnosed as either endometriosis cases (Stages II-IV) or controls (Stages 0-I). The serum levels (lipid adjusted) of the targeted organochlorine compounds were in both 58 cases and 81 controls. There were very few differences in the various levels between endometriosis cases and controls. The total serum toxic equivalency (TEQ) value of PCDDs was significantly higher in the controls than in the cases (P=0.02). No other total TEQ values differed between cases and controls. For PCDDs, PCDFs, cPCBs, and PCBs, the multivariate odds ratio was 0.38 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.12-1.17] and 0.41 (95% CI, 0.14-1.27) for the third and highest quartiles, respectively, compared to the lowest quartile of total TEQ values. A weak, negative dose-response relationship was evident for total TEQs (P for trend of 0.06). The results of this study provide some evidence that serum levels of these organochlorine compounds are not associated with an increased risk of endometriosis in infertile Japanese women."

"Telework has spread during the pandemic of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Using a unique individual-level survey in Japan, we investigate how telework has changed the way people live and work and what impediments hamper telework use. As a result, we find that telework allows workers to spend more time on leisure and their families. Compared with routine task workers, non-routine (abstract) task workers are more suited to telework. However, once engaged in telework, non-routine task workers have fewer opportunities to communicate with coworkers, which is a serious impediment that tends to hamper work performance and compromise mental health."

"This study adds to the growing literature on wage and employment responses to the risk of job computerization. Specifically, it revisits the original occupational perspective and inquires into the nature of the adjustments of occupational wages and employment, i.e., the potential benefits and costs associated with professional careers in such occupations. The investigation further aims at identifying whether these adjustment processes are universal — as suggested by the global availability of the respective technology — or reflect country-specific peculiarities. To this end, it conducts a comparative analysis with data from the United States, Germany, and Japan, three G7 lead countries which share the commitment to fostering technological progress, but which are also characterized by distinctly different labor market institutions and approaches to industrial policies. Generally consistent with the country-specific employment institutions and common corporate strategies, transmission channels — as reflected by the relationship between adjustments of occupational employment and wages — differ between countries. In all three countries, though, higher risks of computerization are associated with relative wage losses in occupations which require low levels of formal education or training."

"Chapters cover the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Denmark, Japan, South Korea, China and India.
Experts examine the context of employment relations in each country: economic, historical, legal, social and political. They consider the roles of the major players: employers, unions and governments. They outline the processes of employment relations: collective bargaining and arbitration, consultation and employee involvement.

Topical issues are discussed: non-unionised workplaces, novel forms of human resource management, labour law reform, multinational enterprises, networked organisations, differences between Asian and western companies, small and medium-sized enterprises, migrant workers, technological change, labour market flexibility, pay determination.

This sixth edition has an emphasis on globalisation and comparative theories, including concepts of convergence. It offers a new framework for varieties of capitalism in the introduction, and concludes with an insightful account of the forces shaping employment relations in the world economy."

"'Work sharing' is a labour market instrument devised in order to distribute a reduced volume of work to the same (or similar) number of workers over a diminished period of working time in order to avoid redundancies. This fascinating and timely study presents the concept and history of work sharing and explores the complexities and trade-offs involved in its use as both a strategy for preserving jobs and for increasing employment. The expert contributors analyse country case studies of work sharing programmes implemented across the globe during the great recession of 2008 - 09, and synthesize lessons learned with implications for policy."

"The authors document and contrast changes (or lack thereof) in job stability over the past 25 years between Japan and the United States. Prime-age male workers with at least five years of tenure in Japan continued to enjoy much higher job stability than did their U.S. counterparts. Most remarkably, Japan's “Lost Decade” had little discernible adverse effect on the job stability of this group of Japanese employees. By contrast, job stability for mid-career hires and youth workers deteriorated in Japan. The authors' cross-national regression analysis of job loss confirms the consistently more important role that seniority plays in protecting workers from job loss in Japan than in the United States and reveals that this gap in seniority's influence on job stability between the two countries widened. Overall, it is the U.S. economy with the longest economic expansion, not the Japanese economy with the longest economic stagnation, that experienced deteriorating job stability, pointing to the absence of convergence of the Japanese and U.S. systems."

"This volume deals with the construction of categorizations of health at work on the basis of individuals' perceptions and analyses of the psychosocial health effects at their work. The volume approaches the subject from the point of view of those who have experienced psychosocial risks at work, either by being under constraints themselves or by being witness to such constraints. Each chapter sheds light on their representations by examining how the individuals label these constraints. The book compares official categorizations of psychosocial health effects of work to unofficial categorizations, built or expressed. It shows how taking into account subjective narratives may reinforce existing strategies. By giving a central place to language in the analysis of the representations of psychosocial health at work, the volume provides additional information about the various prevention and coping strategies that can be used for dealing with the issue. Beyond some international comparisons, the book covers various national case studies, including in Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Chechnya, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, and Russia."