Japanese Wives

Psychological Consequences of Occupational Conditions Among Japanese Wives
Author(s): Michiko Naoi and Carmi Schooler

Source: Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 2, Special Issue: Social Structure and the
Individual (Jun., 1990), pp. 100-116
Published by: American Sociological Association
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Social Psychology Quarterly

1990, Vol. 53, No. 2, 100-116
Psychological Consequences of Occupational Conditions
among Japanese Wives*

MICHIKO NAOI
Tokyo Gakugei University
CARMI SCHOOLER
National Institute of Mental Health
This paper examines how Japanese women's occupational conditions affect their
psychological processes. We find that self-directed work increases their intellectual
flexibility and the self-directedness of their orientations; this finding replicates earlier
findings about these important psychological outcomes of self-directed work, even in a
culture where self-directedness for women is particularly disvalued culturally. Self-directed
work also leads to less traditional attitudes towards the elderly, whereas working in a
traditional industry makes such attitudes more traditional. This finding shows that Japanese
women's work experiences can affect even their acceptance of traditional norms. Our
evidence also shows that Japanese women are substantially less likely than their husbands to
do self-directed work on the job. The resultant occupationally induced lessening of
self-directed orientation may contribute to women's accepting cultural norms that> keep them
in subservient positions. Thus the culturally and social structurally determined occupational
experiences of Japanese women clearly affect how they confront major social and personal
problems.
This paper examines how Japanese wives'
of husbands' and wives' occupational condi-
occupational conditions affect their psycho-
tions contribute to the acceptance of societal
logical functioning. In doing so, it asks a

series of questions about the interrelationship
of culture, socioeconomic structure, gender,
and psychological functioning: What are the
norms about how women should behave?

With the exception of wives of small urban
(shitamachi) shopkeepers, Japanese women
traditionally have not been employed after
social and psychological factors related to
marriage. In recent years, however, the
Japanese wives' working for pay? Do occupa-
proportion of Japanese wives in the work
tional conditions, particularly occupational
force has increased dramatically (National
self-direction, have the same effects on
Institute of Employment and Vocational
Japanese women as on other people? Do
Research 1989). We shall examine whether

there are social and psychological characteris-
occupational conditions affect traditional values about the Japanese wife's role, as
tics that distinguish wives who work for pay

from those who do not.
exemplified by their accepting responsibility

for caring for elderly parents in the home? If
The consequences of the trend toward paid
occupational conditions have effects on Japanese wives similar to those found for their
employment among Japanese women are
interesting in themselves for what they tell us
about the interaction of culture, gender, and

social structure in Japan. They also provide a
stringent test of the generalizability of earlier
findings by affording the opportunity to see
whether social structurally determined occupational conditions have the same psychological effects on Japanese women-persons for
whom paid employment is not traditional-as
on those for whom such employment is an
accepted tradition. The particular psychological effects of occupational conditions whose
generalizability we investigate are those
which were found among men in the United
husbands, do these differences in the nature

* Please direct all correspondence to Carmi Schooler,
Laboratory of Socio-Environmental Studies, NIMH,
Room BIA-14 Federal Building, 7550 Wisconsin Ave.,
Bethesda MD 20892. This work could not have been
carried out without Carrie Schoenbach, who was
indispensable to the project at every stage, from the
editing of the data through data analysis to the writing of

the final manuscript. We are also very grateful to Zita
Givens, who provided valuable assistance at many times;

Hiroko Hayasi and Kiyoko Okamura of the Tokyo
Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, who played
important roles in collecting and coding the data; Junsuke
Hara of Yokohama University and Hideo Kojima of
States and were replicated for Polish and

Japanese men: Substantively complex self-
Ibaragi, who were very helpful in the data collection; and

Melvin Kohn, who gave us a very helpful critique.
100
PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF OCCUPATIONAL CONDITIONS 101

directed work characteristic of the more
advantaged social strata leads to intellectual
flexibility and to a self-directed orientation to
self and society (Kohn, A. Naoi, Schoen-
The question remains whether the similarity

found in the United States between the effects
of occupational conditions on men and on
women also exists in Japan.
bach, Schooler and Slomczynski 1990), Kohn
Women's and men's roles overlap less in
and Schooler 1983; J. Miller, Slomczynski,
Japanese culture than in American culture.
and Kohn 1985; A. Naoi and Schooler 1985;
"Furthermore, the difference between Japa-
Schooler and A. Naoi 1988a; Slomczynski, J.
nese and American women's culturally pre-
Miller, and Kohn 1981).
scribed roles is even greater than that between
It is noteworthy that even among Japanese
the roles of Japanese and American men.
men, whose cultural setting does not particu-
Self-directedness, for example, is valued even
larly emphasize individual autonomy or
less for Japanese women than for Japanese
psychological self-directedness (A. Naoi and
men (Ackroyd 1959; Lebra 1984; Schooler
Schooler 1985, Schooler and A. Naoi 1988a),
and Smith 1978).
self-directed occupational conditions lead to a
There is evidence that some social back-
self-directed orientation to self and society, as
ground conditions which increase individual-
well as to increased intellectual flexibility. It
istic, self-directed orientations of women in
would, however, strengthen substantially the
the United States (Schooler 1972, 1984) have
case that social structurally determined differences in conditions of daily life affect
psychological functioning, if it were found
that occupational conditions affect Japanese
women's psychological functioning similarly,
similar effects on Japanese women. Such

evidence comes from a study of the effects of
social structure and culture on Japanese
women's attitudes towards their roles as
mothers and wives and on their performance
of those roles (Schooler and Smith 1978;
Smith and Schooler 1978). Just as in the
United States, where such conditions lead to
individualistic values (Schooler 1972, 1984),
social structural conditions that are linked to
being raised in a complex environment, such
as coming from urban settings, having fathers
with high-status occupations, and being well
educated, lead Japanese women to emphasize
the importance of the individual in their views
of the roles of wife and mother. In terms of
values for their children, women from such
backgrounds tend to value behavior reflecting
self-direction rather than conformity to external standards.
Despite the cross-national similarities in the
effects of some socioenvironmental conditions on women, striking cultural differences
exist in the way women carry out their roles.
Husband-wife (Schooler and Smith 1978) and
mother-child (Smith and Schooler 1978)
relationships are a case in point. In comparison with women in the United States,
Japanese women regard the couple relationship as much less important than the mother-
despite self-directed values running counter to

that society's traditional norms for women's
roles and demeanor.
Until now, all of the empirical findings
about the psychological effects of occupational conditions and culture in Japan have
been based on men. In the United States,
occupational conditions have been shown to
have the same effects on employed women as
on employed men. J. Miller, Schooler, Kohn,
and K. A. Miller (1979) found that occupational self-direction increases intellectual flexibility and self-directed orientations of em-
ployed women as well as of employed men.'
1 Moreover, an analysis of the effects of dimensions of

household work on American women shows that
substantively complex housework increases the intellec-
tual flexibility and the self-directedness of orientation

among American women in the same ways as does
substantively complex work done for pay (Schooler et al.

1983; Schooler et al. 1984). In analyzing the data for
Japanese wives, just as in the case of American women,
we cannot consider the conditions of housework as
alternatives to those of paid employment, to be
substituted into our analyses as conditions of work for
women who are not employed. Not only are the codes for
the two types of work conditions different; in addition,
some of the conditions of paid employment (e.g.,
bureaucratization) have no analogs in the household

situation. In addition, employed women also do housework; thus they would have two sets of scores, whereas
the housewives would have only one. Following the
general scheme of analysis used with the U.S. data, we

plan a further paper on the psychological effects of
housework itself that will include both the employed and
child relationship.
In the present study we test whether social
structurally determined occupational conditions have the same psychological effects on
Japanese women as on other relevant populathe unemployed wives in our sample and will take into
account the fact of employment.
102 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY

tions (i.e., Japanese men and American
women). More precisely, we test whether
occupational self-direction increases Japanese
women's intellectual flexibility and self-
their own children. We also hypothesize that

occupational conditions which foster a selfdirected orientation should decrease the like-
holds true for Japanese women, as it does for
lihood that traditional values will be maintained, and should increase the importance
that workers attach to autonomy and independence in family relationships. As a result, the
experience of occupational self-direction
should reduce the belief that it is appropriate
to take one's elderly parents into one's own
home; this experience also should reduce the
feeling that one will want to live with one's
own children during one's own old age.
Finally we will examine the nature of the
differences between the work done by employed Japanese women and by their husbands. The purpose of this analysis will be
not so much to document the well-known sex
discrimination in matters of promotion and
tenure as to explore the implications of
perhaps a more subtle form of discrimination:
namely, the differential effects of Japanese
men's and women's respective occupational
conditions on their psychological develop-
men (Schooler and A. Naoi 1988a).
ment.
directedness of orientation, just as it increases

the levels of these psychological characteristics for Japanese, Polish, and American men
and for American women. We also test
whether oppressive working conditions lead
to distress. There is suggestive evidence that

such a relationship exists among American
women (J. Miller et al., 1979). The evidence
for men is more substantial; linear structural
equation analyses of reciprocal effects show
that oppressive working conditions lead to
distress and anxiety among American men

(Kohn and Schooler 1982) and Japanese men
(A. Naoi and Schooler 1985). In a further test
of how traditional Japanese culture may affect
Japanese working women, we examine
whether the finding of higher levels of
traditional values among workers in traditional (as compared to modem) industries
Our analyses go well beyond replication to

investigate how the whole range of occupational conditions affects an area of traditional
values whose occupational determinants have
not been examined previously: attitudes
towards living with and taking care of one's

elderly parents and towards living with and
being cared for by one's children when one is
older. The care and living arrangements of
elderly parents are particularly important
issues to Japanese wives, because the burden
of both caring for the elderly and of resolving
intergenerational disputes about household
matters probably would fall more on them
than on their husbands. Such burdens may
weigh particularly heavily on the already
complicated lives of working wives, for

whom the value of the household help that
elderly parents might provide may be less

than the added work and the potential for
interpersonal conflict that the presence of
elders in the household would bring.
Our hypothesis is that women who work in
traditional Japanese industries will tend to
have traditional values, just as they tend to
develop traditional orientations in other realms
(Schooler and A. Naoi 1988a). Thus women
working in traditional industries should expect to accept the responsibility of caring for
their parents in their own homes and also
should expect to be cared for similarly by
SAMPLE
Data for the analyses reported here were

gathered from the 246 working (20 hours or
more per week) wives of the employed men

interviewed in the A. Naoi and Schooler
study (1985). The men's sample of 629
subjects, drawn in 1979-1980 through random probability sampling of employed males
26 to 65 years old in the Kanto plain of Japan,
represented a 74.6 percent completion rate of
the original sample. When the women's
survey was begun in 1983, 521 of these men
were married and still lived in the Kanto area
with their wives. Of the 418 wives who were
interviewed (80.2%), 246 (59%) were working. Although this procedure does not provide
an absolutely representative sample of all
Japanese working wives, it corresponds to the
method used by J. Miller et al. (1979) to
select a sample of working women in the
Kohn and Schooler (1983) studies in the
United States.
As in this earlier American study, one may

question the appropriateness of such a sample; our findings may not be generalizable to
unmarried employed Japanese women. Nevertheless, because the great majority of
Japanese women marry and stay married, and
because the age of marriage is remarkably

uniform, our findings probably are applicable
to nearly all Japanese working women above
28 years of age.2 In any case, married women
are an appropriate population on which to test
the hypothesis that sex-role differences do not
alter the effects of occupational conditions on
psychological functioning, because employed

wives are especially likely to be subject to
actual and potential conflicts among occupa-
tional, conjugal, and maternal roles (Miller et

al. 1979).
about precisely what people do when working

with data, with things, and with people.
Closeness of supervision is a condition that

limits a worker's occupational self-direction.
This variable is measured by the worker's

assessment of how closely she is supervised,
her freedom to disagree with her supervisor,
and the extent to which her supervisor gives
her direct orders. (For earlier jobs, we
obtained only the last of these measures.)
Routinization, which limits occupational self-
The interview consists primarily of ques-
direction by restricting possibilities for initia-
tions from the original American survey,
tive, thought, and judgment, is measured by

the respondent's rating of her job along a
single dimension that ranges from being
invariably repetitive to being unpredictable
and requiring different things to be done in
different ways.
We developed the measures of occupational self-direction through latent variable
linear structural equation modeling (Joreskog
and Sorbom 1976a, 1976b), using the MILS
program developed by Ronald Schoenberg.
Because the three principal determinants of
occupational self-direction-substantive complexity, closeness of supervision, and routinization-are theoretically interrelated, they are
modeled as indicators of a single secondorder factor, namely occupational selfdirection.
The measurement model is presented in
Table 1. It contains one problematic aspect:
although closeness of supervision is a powerful indicator of the occupational self-direction
of the earlier job, it is not a meaningful
indicator of current occupational selfdirection. Nevertheless, the model as it stands
seems a reasonable measure of occupational
self-direction; the overall fit to the data, based
on a chi-square per degree of freedom ratio, is
good (3.38). The values obtained through this
measurement model were fixed in the subsequent causal analyses.
The only measure of women's organizational position included in our final models is
translated and used for Japanese men by A.

Naoi and Schooler. (For more detail about the
procedures see A. Naoi and Schooler 1985.)
Additional questions were of two types. One
set centered on housework and child rearing.
These questions also were based on questions
from Kohn and Schooler (1983), which were
translated and pretested for appropriateness in
Japan. The other set of questions pertained to
care of the elderly, and were developed by the
staff of the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of
Gerontology.
Interviewing was carried out by trained
undergraduate and graduate students of Tokyo,
Yokohama, Ibaragi, and Chiba National
Universities and Tsuda Women's College.
MEASURES
Occupational Conditions
The occupational conditions in the model
include substantive complexity, closeness of
supervision, and routinization of work, which
are constituents of a single concept: occupa-
tional self-direction, and bureaucratization.

Information about the occupational conditions
of earlier jobs was acquired through retrospective questioning.
Substantive complexity of work is defined
as the degree to which performance of the
work requires thought and independent judgment. This index is based on seven measures
(see Table 1) derived from a detailed inquiry
2 For Japanese women who married in 1985 the
the bureaucratization of the firm or organization in which they were employed. This
position is indexed on the basis of the number
of formal levels of supervision and the size of

the organization (see Kohn 1971; Kohn and
Schooler 1983, Chapter 2).
average age of marriage was 25.4 years. The average age
of marriage for our sample is 24; 91 percent of the sample

was married by age 28. The divorce rate in Japan
(number of divorces per 1000 people) was 1.39 in 1985.
Of the 544 men in our original sample who were married
in 1979-1980, 12 (2%) were divorced by 1983.
Traditionalism of Industry
An industry's traditionalism is measured on
a three-point scale developed in conjunction

Table 1. Measurement Model of Occupoational Self-Direction
Concept/Indicators
concept
to
Standardized path from

indicators:*
First-Order Concepts:
1. Substantive complexity of current job
Hours with things . .............................................................. -.38

Hours
with
data
.........
.46
Hours with people ............................................................... .36

Complexity of work with things .................................................... .39
Complexity of work with data ............ ......................................... .79
Complexity of work with people ........... ........................................ .72
Overall complexity . ............................................................. .98

2. Closeness of supervision (current job)
Closeness of supervision .......................................................... .59

Freedom to disagree . ............................................................ -.63
Boss tells R what to do ........................................................... .69
3. Routinization (current job)
Does same thing in same way ............ ......................................... 1.00

4. Substantive complexity of earlier job
Hours with things . .............................................................. -.55
Hours with data ................................................................. .51
Hours with people ............................................................... .32

Complexity of work with things .................................................... .67
Complexity of work with data ............ ......................................... .94
Complexity of work with people .......... ......................................... .48

5. Closeness of supervision (earlier job)
Boss tells R what to do ........................................................... 1.00

6. Routinization (earlier job)
Does same thing in same way ........... .......................................... 1.00
Second-Order Concepts:
1. Occupational self-direction (current job)
Substantive complexity ........................................................... .39

Closeness of supervision .......................................................... .05
Routinization . .................................................................. -.45
2. Occupational self-direction (earlier job)
Substantive complexity ........................................................... .51

Closeness of supervision .......................................................... -.59
Routinization . .................................................................. -.35
* Chi-square = 459.60, df = 136, ratio = 3.30.

Note: Correlations of residuals are not shown. Those modeled include matching pairs of indicators for current and
for earlier jobs as well as some pairs of intratime indicators, chosen on the basis of first-order partial derivatives.
with Ken'Ichi Tominaga of the University of
are based on confirmatory factor analytic
Tokyo (Schooler and A. Naoi 1988a).
measurement models that parallel the models
Industries included in the Japanese Industrial
developed by A. Naoi and Schooler (1985)
Code are rated as most traditional if they
for Japanese men (fully described in that
manufacture products or provide services that
paper and the appendix available from its
existed in Japan during the Tokugawa era,
authors). These psychological variables are
before the Meiji restoration in 1868. Indus-
intellectual flexibility (Appendix IA) and
tries are rated as least traditional if they

manufacture products or provide services that
did not exist in the pre-Meiji era. Industries
are rated as intermediate if they provide

products and services of both the pre- and
post-Meiji eras. (The complete index is
presented in Schooler and A. Naoi 1988b.)
seven facets of orientation to self and to

others: 1) authoritarian conservatism, 2)
personally responsible standards of morality,
3) self-confidence, 4) self-deprecation, 5)
idea-conformity, 6) anxiety, and 7) trust (see
Appendix IB). (Unlike the measures of job
conditions, for which we have ratings for both

current and earlier jobs, we have measures
Psychological Functioning
Our measures of psychological functioning
only for current psychological functioning.)

The measure of intellectual flexibility is
based on four indicators: 1) the respondents'

solutions to a seemingly simple but revealing
cognitive problem involving a well-known
issue, 2) their performance on a portion of the
Embedded Figures Test (Witkin, Dyk, Faterman, Goodenough, and Karp 1962), 3) their
propensity to agree when asked agree-
These four factors are 1) general belief that

living with elderly parents is good (parentsgeneral), 2) belief that one should not live
with one's parents if this leads to problems
(parents-problem), 3) willingness to take in

parents if they are ill (parents-ill), and 4)
desire to live with one's own children when
disagree questions, and 4) the impressions

they made on the interviewers during a long
session that required a great deal of thought
and reflection. The Japanese women's model
fits the data quite well and is presented in
Appendix IA.
The seven measures of social orientations
and self-conceptions are based on a battery of
57 questions, mainly of the "agree-disagree"
and "how often" type. Principal-components
factor analysis was initially used to examine
the factor structure and to establish its general
similarity to that found for the Japanese men.
Confirmatory factor analysis was then used to
develop measures of self-conceptions and
orientation purged of measurement error. The
resultant measures fit the data quite well and
sample who work for pay from those who do

not. The predictors of paid employment that
are presented in Appendix IB.
we include in our equation are age less than
Attempting to deal with all seven facets of
self-conception and social orientation is

unwieldy. Therefore we proceeded to perform
a "second-order" confirmatory factor analysis
based on the hypothesis already confirmed for
Japanese, Polish, and American men (Kohn
et al. 1990, Kohn and Schooler 1983) and for
American women (Schooler, J. Miller, K. A.
Miller and Richtand 1984). According to this
hypothesis there are two principal underlying
dimensions: self-directedness versus conformity to external authority, and a sense of
distress versus a sense of well-being. The
results of this analysis (presented in Appendix
IC) show that the same two dimensions
underlie the self-conceptions and social orientations of Japanese wives. Therefore we used
these second-order dimensions in the present
investigation.
Attitudes towards the Elderly
These measures are based on a set of 13
items that literally ask what the respondents
think about having elderly parents live with

them, as well as about living with their own
children when they themselves are older. An
extensive series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that this complex
of attitudes could best be described in terms
of four factors (the individual items and the
final models are presented in Appendix II).
one is older (respondent with children). The

first three of these factors can be made into a
second-order factor measuring willingness to
live with and care for elderly parents; this
factor fits the data well (see Appendix II).
WHICH JAPANESE WIVES WORK?
Before examining how the conditions of

paid employment affect Japanese women, we
look to see which Japanese wives go to work.

We do so by using multiple regression
analysis to determine which background and
family conditions distinguish wives in our
35, age 55 or more (age 35-54 is the omitted

category), respondent's education, urbanness
of background, father's education, father's
occupational status, traditionalism of husband's industry, peripherality of the sector of
the economy in which the husband works
(Schooler and A. Naoi 1988a), husband's
income from job, and husband's educational
and occupational status. Of these variables,
only age 55 or more (Beta= -.24), age less
than 35 (Beta= - 15), urban background
(Beta = - .16), husband's education (Beta =
- . 13), and peripherality of husband's sector
of the economy (Beta= .23) have significant
independent effects on whether women work
for pay. Women who work tend to be in their
middle years, to come from rural settings, and
to have husbands who are less well educated
and who work in the economic periphery.
Thus the wives of classic "salary men" would
not seem to be among those most likely to
work.
Further analyses revealed no significant
independent relationships between the wives'
working and the psychological variables we

examine in this paper. When these variables
are included together with the social variables
that we found to be significant predictors of
working, none of the psychological variables
had a significant Beta weight. Thus the
probability of a wife's working is affected
neither by her psychological functioning, nor
her educational attainment or her husband's

income level. Instead, the primary determinants of whether a Japanese wife works for
fore, we should test our hypotheses with

models that include the reciprocal effects of
pay are her stage of life, whether she comes

from a rural background, and the peripherality of her husband's occupation in the
Japanese economic structure.
functioning.
occupational conditions and psychological

We estimate these models involving reciprocal causation through latent variable linear
structural equation modeling (Joreskog and

Sorbom 1976a, 1976b), using the MILS
program developed by Ronald Schoenberg.
MODELING THE PSYCHOLOGICAL

EFFECTS OF OCCUPATIONAL CONDITIONS
AND PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTIONING
The general model for the analyses is

presented in Figure 1. To gain instrumentation for the path from psychological function-
Any causal model that includes an exami-
ing to the occupational self-directedness of
nation of the psychological effects of occupational conditions must take into account the
possibility of reciprocal effects of various job
conditions and psychological functioning. We
cannot rule out on a priori grounds the
possibility that an individual's personality
affects her job through processes such as
occupational selection or job molding. Furthermore, there is empirical evidence that in
both the United States and Japan, not only do
job conditions affect personality; personality
also affects job conditions (Kohn and Schooler
1982, 1983, Chapter 6; A. Naoi and Schooler
1985; Schooler and A. Naoi 1988b). There-
the present job, we postulate that characteristics of the individual's family of origin affect
directly the individual's present psychological
functioning and the occupational characteris-
tics of her earlier job, but not of her present

job. Such a restriction is consonant with
previous research findings, which show that
in Japan the direct effects of social back-
ground indeed are limited to the first job (A.

Naoi 1980). We obtain instrumentation for
the reciprocal path from occupational selfdirectedness of the present job to psychological functioning by postulating that early
occupational self-direction directly affects
CURRENT
BACKGROUND EARLIER JOB PSYCHOLOGICAL
CHARACTERISTICS JOB CONDITIONS CONDITIONS FUNCTIONING

oc
n3-=UES
L= ~~~1 ID>
L_0
L4.
|olal
,#
Bakgoun
of
Children
in
Social Backgroundc
-U
Occupational Occupationial c
Self-
Education
Self-
direction
direction
C~~ .2
>)
ism~
CD)
off//
ismof
Urban Childhood Bureaucracy Bureaucracy -l
of Children in
Family of Origin Traditional- Traditionalism
of
ism
of
Industry Industry
Age
Figure 1. Reciprocal Effects Model
-n
C-)

later occupational self-direction but not later
psychological functioning.
The background characteristics in the
analyses include mother's education, father's

education, and father's occupational status;
because of their very high intercorrelations,
these three items are modeled as a single
effects of social structurally determined envi-
ronmental conditions on Japanese working

women? We begin by describing how such
conditions affect three important aspects of

their psychological functioning: intellectual
flexibility, self-directedness of orientation,
and level of distress. Then we examine how
construct, namely parental background. The

other characteristics are respondent's age,
those conditions affect the traditionalism of
education, urban background, and number of
parents and towards living with their children
children in family of origin. Age is postulated
in their own old age.
their attitudes towards caring for elderly
to affect psychological functioning and conditions of both current and earlier job. All other
conditions are postulated to affect directly
current psychological functioning and the

conditions of the earlier job, but to affect the
conditions of the present job only indirectly.
The occupational conditions in the model
are occupational self-direction, bureaucratization, and traditionality of the occupational

setting of the present and the earlier job. The
occupational conditions of the current job, as
well as the traditionality of the industry of the
current job, are modeled as affecting psychological functioning contemporaneously, but
psychological functioning is modeled as
affecting only occupational self-direction.
This latter limitation occurs because by
definition a change in job setting would mean
a change in job (Kohn and Schooler 1982). In
the modeling of present and of past job
conditions, however, both bureaucratization

and traditionality of industry affect occupational self-direction.3
RESULTS
What do our models reveal about the

3With certain exceptions, these models are generally
similar to those used by Schooler and A. Naoi in their
examination of the psychological effects of occupational
conditions and job settings on Japanese men (1988a,
1988b). For women, data were available on two
jobs-the present and the previous jobs-whereas the

Schooler and A. Naoi model for men includes data on
three jobs-present job, job held 10 years ago, and first
job. Four other variables that were included in the

Schooler and A. Naoi model of Japanese men could not
be included in the model of Japanese women. Data on
sector of the economy were not available for the women's

jobs; ownership and hierarchical position could not be
included because too few Japanese women were owners
or held supervisory positions to provide a statistical
distribution that could be modeled appropriately. Finally,

we omitted time pressure from the women's models.
Intellectual Flexibility
The first thing we note when we examine
our model of the reciprocal effects of

occupational self-direction and intellectual
flexibility (see Table 2A), is that, while the
path from occupational self-direction to intellectual flexibility is positive (.45), as predicted, and significant (t = 3.66), the reciprocal path from intellectual flexibility to
occupational self-direction is negative (-.20)
and not significant (t = 0.94). Such a pattern
is strongly indicative of multicollinearity
(Farrar and Glauber 1967; Gordon 1968;
Kohn and Schooler 1978, 1983).
Since multicollinearity may inflate path
coefficients artifactually, a more conservative
assessment of the effect of occupational
self-direction on intellectual flexibility may

be obtained by fixing at zero the statistically
nonsignificant contemporaneous path from
intellectual flexibility to occupational self-
direction.4 In such a nonreciprocal model, the

path from occupational self-direction to intellectual flexibility drops to .40 but remains
highly significant (t = 3.45). The other
significant path to intellectual flexibility in
this model shows that higher educational level
increases intellectual flexibility directly (.27).
Whereas education increases intellectual flexibility directly, other background characteristics, such as parental socioeconomic background, may influence intellectual flexibility
indirectly by affecting education and occupational self-direction. Nevertheless, among the
potentially relevant variables we have mod-
eled, occupational self-direction has by far

the greatest direct effect on Japanese women's intellectual flexibility.
Although we tried various alternative models, we could

not include time pressure successfully in the women's
4 On this and all subsequent occasions, when we omit
models of reciprocal effects, possibly because we lacked
a reciprocal path, the path that is omitted in our revised

models will be nonsignificant and the estimate of the
the extra identification provided in the men's model by

information about a third job.
other will be exaggerated.

Table 2. One-way and Reciprocal Effects of Occupational Self-Direction and Psychological Functioning
Standardized Path Coefficients
Reciprocal Modeling Nonreciprocal Modeling

Occupational Psychological Occupational
Self-Direction Functioning Self-Direction Distress

to
to
to
to
Psychological Occupational Psychological Occupational

Functioning Self-Direction Functioning Self-Direction
A. Psychological Functioning
1. Ideational flexibility .45* -.20 .40*
2. Self-directedness of orientation .44* -.18 .32*

3.
Distress
-.20
.35*
.24*
B. Attitudes toward Parents and

Children Living Together
1. Respondent and parents together -.29*

2. Respondent with children -.22 (t= 1.84)
* =p<.05.
Self-Directed Orientation
The pattern of findings for self-directed
orientation is very similar to that for intellectual flexibility (Table 2A). The reciprocal
effects model shows the expected strong
(.44), significant (t = 2.49) path from occupational self-direction to self-directed orientation and reveals a negative (- . 18), nonsignificant path (t= 0.94) from self-directed
orientation to occupational self-direction. As
noted, such a pattern, which suggests multicollinearity, often results in an artifactual
increase in path estimates. In fact, when we
fix at zero the path from self-directed
orientation to occupational self-direction, the
path from occupational self-direction to selfdirected orientation drops to .32, although it
remains clearly significant (t= 2.52). The
only other variable in the model that has
significant direct effects on Japanese working
women's levels of self-directed orientation is
number of children in family of origin
(-.14). This finding-that coming from a
family with a large number of children has a
direct effect in lowering self-directed orientation-replicates earlier findings from the
United States (Schooler 1972). As in the case
of intellectual flexibility, however, occupational self-direction is by far the most
important direct determinant of self-directed
orientation in our model.
Distress
In a reciprocal model, the pattern of results

for distress is different from that for the other
two measures of psychological functioning.
The path from occupational self-direction to
distress is negative (- .20); although it agrees

with earlier findings on American (Kohn and
Schooler 1982) and Japanese men (A. Naoi

and Schooler 1985), it is not significant
(t = 1.20). The path from distress to occupational self-direction is larger (.35), positive,
and definitely significant (t= 2.50). Such a
plus/minus pattern suggests the possibility of
multicollinearity. Because the larger and
significant path is the positive path from
distress to occupational self-direction, we

reestimate the model eliminating the path
from occupational self-direction to distress
and keeping the path from distress to
occupational self-direction.
Under such specifications, the path from
distress to occupational self-direction is reduced in size (.24) but remains positive and
significant (t= 2.37). A careful examination
of this model and of its alternatives, coupled
with the determination that the actual correlation between distress and occupational selfdirection is a significant, positive .27,
suggests strongly that the unexpected conclusion most probably reflects reality. Among
the Japanese working wives in our sample,
feeling distressed leads to doing self-directed
work; Japanese women who are unhappy
either seek out self-directed occupations or
carry out the work of their jobs in a

self-directed manner. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the source of their distress is that
they are women with a self-directed orientation who are experiencing difficulties with the
role of women in Japanese society. (As we
have seen, there is no significant path from
self-directed orientation to self-directed work.)

The one occupational condition that significantly affects Japanese working wives' sense
of distress is working in a bureaucratic
setting. The path from bureaucracy to distress

is .16 (t = 2.41). This finding-that Japanese
When we test such models (see Table 2B),

the path from occupational self-direction to
our second-order factor measuring willingness to care for elderly parents in one's home
is significant; the path from occupational
women who work in a bureaucratic setting
self-direction to wanting to live with one's
tend to become more distressed than other

women-is contrary to earlier findings for
children when one is older is negative and

very close to significant (t = 1.84). Thus we
Japanese men. Japanese men who work in
confirm our hypothesis that the self-directed

orientation resulting from doing self-directed
work would decrease people's willingness to
tolerate the constraints involved in living with
the older generation.
We also find support for our hypothesis
that working in a traditional industry increases the traditionalism of family attitudes.
Although traditionalism of industry is not
related significantly to the second-order
measure of traditionalism of attitude towards
care of elderly parents, it is related significantly to two of the component factors.
Working in a traditional industry increases
Japanese women's willingness to take elderly
parents into their homes, both if the parents
were sick (.15) and if doing so would cause
problems (.17). In addition, women working
in traditional industries are significantly more
likely than those working in nontraditional
industries to want to live with their own
children when they themselves are elderly
(.15). These findings-that Japanese women
working in traditional industries retain traditional attitudes towards the elderly-are
congruent with earlier findings for Japanese
men (Schooler and A. Naoi 1988b). Those
earlier findings show that Japanese men who
work in traditional industries tend to be
traditional in their orientations and values.
When we look at the effects of the other
variables in our model, we see that coming
from a high-social-status background decreases directly the acceptability of older and
younger generations of adults living together.
This finding is reflected both in a decreased
willingness to take elderly parents into one's
home, as measured by the second-order factor
(- .19), and in a decreased desire to live with
one's own children when one is older
bureaucracies are more self-confident and less
anxious than those who do not (A. Naoi and

Schooler 1985; Schooler and A. Naoi 1988b);
both of these psychological characteristics
indicate an absence of distress. This difference between the sexes may well reflect the
different positions they hold in bureaucratic
Japanese businesses. In such businesses,
women generally are not fully accepted;
rather they are seen as short-term employees
who are ineligible to embark on the career
promotion ladders available to men or to
receive many of the benefits that the companies offer.
Being young is the final significant determinant of distress in our model. The path
from age to distress is - .19 (t= 2.89). This
finding for Japanese working wives is similar
to that for their husbands, among whom the
younger also are more anxious than the older
(A. Naoi and Schooler 1985). Finally,
Japanese wives who hold traditional jobs tend
to feel less distressed than other women
(-.12; t= 1.81 p< .075), although this
finding does not reach the .05 level of
significance when a two-tailed probability test
is used. This result is consonant with the
significant effect of traditional jobs on
distress among their husbands (Schooler and
A. Naoi 1988b). Such findings accord with
both Durkheim's and Marx's beliefs that
modem industry leads to anomie and alienation.
Traditional Values towards the Elderly
It seems unlikely that a woman's attitudes
towards responsibilities for the older generation would affect her level of occupational
self-direction, once she has entered the work
force. Thus we assumed that the causal
direction would be from occupational selfdirection to values towards the elderly.
Accordingly we modified the model presented
in Figure 1 by eliminating the reciprocal path
(respondents with children= -.19).

Working in a bureaucracy is another
occupational variable that affects attitudes
towards the elderly. Such a work setting leads
to less willingness to take elderly parents into
one's home (- .34) and to less desire to live
from the "psychological" variable to occupational self-direction.
with one's own children during one's own old

age (- .16). One possible explanation is that
bureaucracies may be less likely to permit the

flexible work arrangements that sometimes
are needed to care for the elderly at home.
Naoi, Okamura and Hayashi (1984), in

examining the actual patterns in which elderly
parents lived with their children, found more
The findings also can be explained by the
women whose husbands were first-born
hypothesis that working in a bureaucratic
among respondents whose parents had lived
setting leads to a more general bureaucratic

view of life, in which problems are solved
with them but then had died. Among those

living with their elderly parents at the time of
through bureaucratic rather than personal

arrangements. If this is so, working in a
the interview in 1983, however, husband's

birth rank did not affect the likelihood of such
living arrangements. In this group the major
demographic predictor of living with one's
parents is whether the parents own a home
that provides comfortable accommodation for
the children.
We also modified the present analyses to
check whether the husband's birth rank
affects the wife's attitude about caring for
elderly parents. We did so by adding to the
model presented in Figure 1 a new variablewhether the husband was first-born-and
estimating the path from that variable to
traditional attitudes towards living with the
elderly. Both for attitudes about living with
elderly parents or about living with ones
children, such a path, which serves as a
control for the effects of husband's birth rank,
was not significant and did not affect the
bureaucracy should lead individuals to believe

that impersonal agencies rather than families
should bear the responsibility for care of the
aged.
Another finding seems more puzzling:

Women from large families are less likely to
want to live with their children during their
own old age than are those from smaller
families (-.12). One possible explanation is
that such women are tired of the interpersonal
complexities that can arise in large households and thus would rather stay by them-
selves than become involved again in their old

age in potentially complicated family situations.
In our evaluation of the meaning of these
results, the type of analysis employed (see
Figure 1) searches for and controls statistically the effects of several other potentially
relevant background variables. Thus although
respondent's age, education, and urban background have no significant direct effects on
attitudes towards the elderly, these variables
are controlled statistically, so that the findings
we report take their effects into account.
Therefore the differences in traditionality of
attitudes between respondents working in
self-directed and in nonself-directed jobs, or
between respondents working in nontraditional and in traditional industries, are not due
to differences in characteristics such as the
age of these different groups.
Husband's birth rank is another possible
cause of differences in attitudes towards
caring for elderly parents in one's home.

According to the traditional Japanese ie
family system, the oldest son not only inherits
the major share of his parents' wealth but also
the responsibility of caring for them in their
old age. Consequently it might be expected
that women who are married to first-born sons
would feel a special obligation to care for
other values in the model.5
DIFFERENCES IN OCCUPATIONAL
CONDITIONS
Having shown that occupational conditions

affect the psychological functioning of Japanese wives in ways not too dissimilar to those
in which their husbands are affected, we now

examine the differences between the occupational conditions to which working wives and
their husbands are exposed to learn whether
such differences in themselves may have
sociocultural consequences. Table 3 presents
a comparison of Japanese working wives and
their husbands on the mean levels of various
occupational dimensions included in our
models. Because there can be some difficulties in comparing mean levels of multipleindicator concepts when the item loadings on
the factors are somewhat different in the two
populations involved, we compare directly
S We also tried to develop confirmatory factor analysis
their husbands' parents.

There is some evidence that in the past,
husband's birth rank may have affected the
likelihood of living with the husband's
one's husband's parents were different from attitudes

towards one's own parents. After a long series of
attempts, however, we were forced to conclude that such
parents, but that the pattern has changed. M.
confirmatory models.
models based on the possibility that attitudes towards
a hypothesis was not supported by any well-fitting

Table 3. Means and Differences of Means for Husbands' and Wives' Work Conditions
Means Difference
of Significance
Wives Husbands Means t-Value Level

A. Complexity of Work
1.
Complexity
of
data
2.56
3.09
-0.53
4.24
.0001
2. Complexity of things 3.58 4.90 - 1.32 9.07 .0001
3. Complexity of people 3.33 4.26 -0.93 5.25 .001

4. Overall complexity 2.68 4.56 -1.87 20.63 .0001
B. Closeness of Supervision
1. Not free to disagree with boss 2.51 2.13 0.39 2.22 .029
2.
Closely
supervised
2.76
2.36
0.40
2.52
.013
3. Boss tells what to do 1.92 1.67 0.24 2.09 .040

C. Routinization
Nonvariable, easily predictible work 4.66 4.31 0.35 4.99 .0001

D. Hierarchical Position
Number of subordinates 1.13 2.36 - 1.24 11.09 .0001

E. Working in Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy index (including owners) 1.91 2.31 -0.40 3.50 .001

F. Pressures
1. Held responsible for things outside

one's
control
1.84
2.23
-0.39
5.14
.0001
2. Frequency of time pressure 3.24 3.55 -0.31 2.87 .004
3.
4.
Dirtiness
Risk
of
loss
1.94
of
2.23
job
1.41
-0.29
1.32
4.75
0.09
.001
1.01
ns
G. Income 1 = 10,000 Yen 3.48 8.17 -4.67 14.56 .0001

Note: Work conditions compared here are those at current job.
the mean levels of the individual items for

husbands and for wives. When we examine
such measures of the conditions of the current
job, we find that in every instance women's
conditions are less favorable than men's.
of such work conditions on women, we find

that working in a bureaucracy has a moderate
negative effect on intellectual flexibility, but
that self-directed work has a strong positive
effect (.41). Thus the nature of their work
Thus in terms of the components of occupa-
puts Japanese women in a less advantaged
tional self-direction, Japanese women score
position than that of their husbands in terms
significantly lower than their husbands on

complexity of work with data, things, and
of developing such flexibility. Working in a

bureaucracy has a nonsignificant effect on
people as well as on overall complexity.
self-directed orientations, but occupational
Japanese wives' work also is significantly
self-direction has a strong positive effect

(.44). The fact that Japanese women are less
more routinized than their husbands', and

they are significantly more likely to be
supervised on each of our three indices of that
concept. In addition, they are less likely than
their husbands to work in large bureaucratic
organizations, the generally preferred work
setting in Japan.6
self-directed at work than are their husbands

means that they are less likely to develop
self-directed orientations from their work

experience. Thus we see the possibility of a
feedback loop between cultural expectations
and the development of gender differences in
When we look at the psychological effects
self-directed orientations. Japanese cultural

norms suggest that even if women work, they
6 Hours of work with things, data, and people also are
should be in generally subservient, nonselfdirected positions. Occupying such positions

may serve to reduce the self-directedness of
part of the model of occupational self-direction; hours of

work with data and with people are positive indicators of
occupational self-direction, and number of hours of work
with things is negative. The Japanese men work longer in
each of these three types of work than do their wives, a

difference reflecting the men's generally longer hours of
employment. This difference in hours of work also may
account for part of the sex difference in pay (unfortunately, we do not have directly comparable measures of
the total number of hours a week worked by the two
sexes). The men earn 2.35 times as much as the women

for perhaps one and one-half times as many hours.
their orientations in comparison to those of

their husbands; thus they become even more
amenable to the culture's norms.
DISCUSSION
In this paper we have examined the effects

of occupational conditions and job settings on
the psychological functioning of Japanese

women. We have done so partially in the
belief that replication among Japanese women
of the findings for Japanese men-that the
experience of occupational self-direction increases both intellectual flexibility and self-
directedness of orientation-would add substantially to the robustness and theoretical

implications of those earlier findings. Such a
replication obviously also increases the gener-
alizability of similar findings for Polish men

and for American men and women. Of at
least equal importance is the evidence that our
results provide about the intricacies of the

causal interconnections among the psychological, social structural, and cultural levels of
phenomena in which Japanese working wives

are enmeshed.
This web of interconnections extends to the

very question of which Japanese wives work.
Our findings suggest that whether a Japanese
wife goes to work is determined primarily not
by her social background, her educational

attainment, her husband's income, or even
her psychological orientation, but rather by

her stage in the life course, whether she
comes from a rural background, and the
degree to which her husband works in the
periphery of the economy. Socioeconomic
incentive to work is determined not by the

husband's earning power, but by financial
uncertainty and possibly by the actual need
for the wife's labor in small business and
rural settings. Who works and who does not

work seems to be determined strongly by
cultural expectations about what women at
certain stages of their lives and in certain
positions in the socio-economic system are
supposed to do.
Among women who work, our analyses
show that self-directed work in fact increases
intellectual flexibility and self-directedness of
orientation. Thus in a society in which

self-directedness generally is not valued, even
those for whom self-directedness is particularly disvalued provide evidence the Kohn
and Schooler (1983) hypotheses about the
ways in which the psychological effects of
self-directed work generalize beyond the
workplace. In terms of orientation towards
Japanese cultural norms, our findings support

the hypothesis that the experience of occupational self-direction increases the importance
that Japanese wives place on being selfdirected and independent, while reducing
their adherence to traditional values that
emphasize the importance of family obligations over individual autonomy.

We also sought to examine whether
findings about the effects on Japanese men of

working in a traditional Japanese industry
(Schooler and A. Naoi 1988b) also hold true
for Japanese women. Here the replication was
only partial. We expected on the basis of both
Marx's and Durkheim's reasoning that Japanese women working in traditional industries
would be more psychologically comfortable
and less distressed than those working in
modem industries, as is the case for Japanese
men (A. Naoi and Schooler 1985). For their
wives, the same trend just misses reaching the
accepted standard for level of statistical
significance. Not even marginally replicated
among the women is the finding for Japanese
men that working in a traditional industry
leads to traditional, nonself-directed psychological orientations.
On the other hand, we found evidence in

data that were not available for Japanese
men-traditionality of attitudes towards the
care of the elderly-that among Japanese
women, working in a traditional industry
results in traditional ways of thought. Even
when the effects of all other variables in our
model are controlled statistically, women
working in traditional industries have a more

traditional approach to assuming responsibility for the care of the older generation than do
those working in modem industries. Another
occupational variable that significantly affects
attitudes towards the elderly is working in a
bureaucracy. Here too we see some evidence
of "modernization." Working in a bureaucratic setting seems to lead to the belief that
caring for the elderly should be done through
bureaucratic means rather than personally by
family members.
Most important, in terms of the effects of

occupational conditions on attitudes towards
the elderly, we were able to confirm our
hypothesis that occupational self-direction
would lead to less traditional attitudes. Our
findings demonstrate that women who are
more self-directed in their jobs are significantly less likely to consider caring for elderly
parents. We also find that coming from a
high-status family background makes women
less willing to take their elderly parents into
their homes and also leads them to reject the
idea of living with their children in their own
old age. Coming from a high-status social
background previously was linked empirically

to a nontraditional, individualistic orientation
among Japanese women (Schooler and Smith
1978; Smith and Schooler 1978). These
apparent acceptance of cultural norms that

keep them in subservient positions.
Taken together, our results portray a
findings have several explanations, not neces-
complex pattern of interrelationships among
sarily incompatible. One plausible explana-
cultural, socioeconomic, and psychological
tion hinges on the fact that being raised in a
levels of phenomena. The likelihood of a
high-status family is linked to experiencing
Japanese wife's working seems to be affected
high levels of environmental complexity

during childhood. Such exposure seems to
result in a self-directed orientation among
people in general (Schooler 1972, 1984) and

among Japanese women in particular (Schooler
and Smith 1978). As a consequence, such
childhood experience may lead (as does
self-directed work) to the rejection of traditional values which emphasize obligations to
others, including the family, at the expense of

the satisfaction of the individual. Another
possibility is that the greater resources
available to higher-status families make
alternative arrangements for the care of the
elderly more viable.
Finally, let us note an unexpected but
probably not artifactual finding: among our
sample of Japanese working wives, distressed
strongly by cultural norms about what is

appropriate for a woman in her stage of the
life course, whose family is in the position
that hers occupies, in terms of its centrality to
the Japanese economic structure. If and when
a Japanese wife works, the occupational
conditions that she experiences-particularly
the level of occupational self-directionaffect her psychological functioning and
social attitudes in ways generally similar to
those in which similar conditions affect her
husband. Differences between spouses in the
nature of their occupational conditionsparticularly the lower level of occupational

self-direction experienced by women-may
contribute to the perpetuation of cultural
norms that limit the opportunities open to
Japanese women.
women are more likely to seek out self-
directed jobs or to do their jobs in selfdirected ways than are those who are not
distressed. The reasons underlying this pattern of behavior are obscure. As we have
noted, women with self-directed orientations
are not particularly more likely than other

women to seek self-directed work. Neverthe-
less, women who are distressed because they

are not in tune with Japan's cultural climate
may be more likely to go against cultural
norms by seeking self-directed work.
Just as the effect of a psychological
variable such as distress on an occupational
condition such as self-direction takes place in
the cultural context of Japan, the effects of all
Appendix IA.
Measurement Model of Intellectual Flexibility
Standardized
path from
concept to
Concept/Indicators indicators:*
Intellectual Flexibility (chi-square = .74,
df= 1, ratio=.74)
occupational conditions on psychological functioning do not occur in a social vacuum. As
Reasons for/against cigarette ads ......... .23
we have seen, the differences between
Interviewer's estimate of R's intelligence. . .45
Japanese women's occupational conditions

and those of their husbands may well
contribute to the continuation of cultural
norms about differences in sex roles. Paid
Embedded Figures Test ........ ........ .64
Propensity to agree .................... -.51

Notes:
1. The model has one correlation of residuals, that

between estimate of intelligence and cigarette ads
(.12).
employment of Japanese women is significantly less self-directed than that of Japanese
2. Intellectual flexibility corresponds to the ideational

component of a two-factor model for U.S. men (the
other component is perceptual), which was repli-
men. Less self-directed work leads to less
cated for Polish and Japanese men and for U.S.
intellectual flexibility and to less self-directed

orientations. It may well be that this occupa-
women. Because in all those populations the

ideational component was the only component
tionally induced lessening of self-directed

orientation contributes to Japanese women's
whose causal relationships with occupational conditions could be modeled successfully, we replicate
only that factor for Japanese women.

Appendix IB.
1st-Order Measurement Models of Self-Conception and Social Orientation

Concept/Indicators
concept
to
indicator:
1. Authoritarian conservatism
(chi-square = 24.78, df= 22, ratio = 1.13)
The most important thing to teach children is absolute obedience to their parents ......... .64
People who question the old and accepted ways of doing things usually just end up causing
trouble ................................................................... .45
In this complicated world, the only way to know what to do is to rely on leaders and experts ....... 47 ...
No decent man can respect a woman who has had sex relations before marriage ......... .33
Prison is too good for sex criminals; they should be publicly whipped or worse .......... .30
Any good leader should be strict with people under him in order to gain their respect ..... .58
It's wrong to do things differently from the way our forefathers did ..... .............. .55
One should always show respect to those in authority ............................... .58

2. Personally responsible criteria of morality
(chi-square= 1.39, df= 1, ratio= 1.39)

It's all right to do anything you want as long as you stay out of trouble ..... ........... -.55
If something works, it doesn't matter whether it's right or wrong ..... ................ -.62
It's all right to get around the law as long as you don't actually break it ................ -.64
Do you believe that it's all right to do whatever the law allows or are there some things
that are wrong even if they are legal? ........ ................................. -.33
Self-esteem two-factor model
(chi-square = 19.74, df = 17, ratio = 1.16)

3. Self-confidence:
I take a positive attitude toward myself ........................................... .54

I feel that I'm a person of worth, at least on an equal plane with others ..... ........... .71
I am able to do most things as well as other people can .58
I generally have confidence that when I make plans I will be able to carry them out ...... .34
4. Self-deprecation:
At times I think I am no good at all .............. ............................... .56
I feel useless at times ......................................................... .54
There are very few things about which I'm absolutely certain ..... ................... .31
(Correlation: self-confidence/self-deprecation) (0.56)

5. Idea-conformity
(chi-square= 1.85, df= 1, ratio = 1.85)

According to your general impression, how often do your ideas and opinions about impor-
tant matters differ from those of your relatives? .................................. -.62

How often do your ideas and opinions differ from those of your friends? ..... .......... -.67
How about from those of other people with your religious background? ..... ........... -.49
Those of most people in the country? ............. ............................... -.43

6. Anxiety (chi-square = 56.25, df= 37, ratio = 1.52)
How often do you feel that you are about to go to pieces? ....... .................... .64
How often do you feel downcast and dejected? ......... ........................... .55
How often do you find yourself anxious and worrying about something? ..... .......... .58
How often do you feel uneasy about something without knowing why? ..... ........... .67
How often do you feel so restless that you cannot sit still? ........................... .35
How often to you find that you can't get rid of some thought or idea that keeps running
through your mind? ......................................................... .51

How often do you feel bored with everything? ..................................... .68
How often do you feel powerless to get what you want out of life? .................... .50
How often do you feel that the world just isn't very understandable? ..... ............. .34
How often do you feel that there isn't much purpose to being alive? ................... .52
7.
Trust
1.00
Notes:
1. A high score on the indicator generally implies agreement or frequent occurrence; where alternatives are posed,
the first alternative is scored high.
2. In several of the models, some error correlations are allowed, which are not shown in the table.

Appendix IC.
Second-Order Measurement Model of Self-Conception and Social Orientation

Concept/Indicators
concept
to
indicator:
Second-order two-factor model (chi-square = 8.23, df= 6, ratio = 1.37)

Self-directedness (vs. conformity)
Authoritarian conservatism ...................................................... -.48
Personally responsible criteria of morality ........ ................................. .96
Trustfulness .................................................................. .16
Self-deprecation . .............................................................. -.17
Distress (vs. sense of well-being)
Trustfulness ................................................................... -.25

Self-confidence . .............................................................. -.21
Self-deprecation . .............................................................. .42

Anxiety ..................................................................... .96
Idea-conformity ............................................................... .35

(Correlation: self-directed orientation/distress) (-.11)
Notes:
1. A high score on the indicator generally implies agreement or frequent occurrence; where alternatives are posed,
the first alternative is scored high.
2. In several of the models, some error correlations are allowed, which are not shown in the table.
3. Because the measurement model of trustfulness, shows that this factor can be measured by a single indicator we
use that indicator alone as our index of trust in this second-order model: Do you think most people can be trusted?
Appendix II.
First-Order Measurement Models of Family Traditionalism
Concept/Indicators
concept
to
indicators:*
1. Parents-General: Thinks that it would be a good thing to do to live with parents:
If both of wife's parents were alive ................................................. .55

If one of wife's parents were alive ......... ........................................ .74
If both of husband's parents were alive .............................................. .43

If one of husband's parents were alive ........ ...................................... .66
(Indicators coded: 1 = parents live separately; 2 = parents live with other child; 3 = parents live with
us.)
2. Parents-Problems: Thinks one should live with parents even if:

Older parents were jealous ............ ............................................ .70
There is trouble between couple about parents ........................................ .71
Older parents spoil the grandchildren ......... ...................................... .59

Older parents are incontinent ........... ........................................... .38
(Indicators coded: 1 = completely disagree; 2 = somewhat disagree; 3 = cannot choose; 4 = somewhat

agree; 5 = completely agree.)
3. Parents-Ill: Thinks that it is a good thing to do to live with parents:
If only one of wife's parents is alive and is ill ........................................ .63

If only one of husband's parents is alive and ill ....................................... .55
(Indicators coded: 1 = parents live separately; 2 = parents live with other child; 3 = parents live with
us.)
4. Respondent with Children: When you are older would you want to live with your own children if:
Both husband and wife were alive .................................................. .41

Only one were alive . ............................................................ .96
Only one were alive and were ill ................................................... .50

(Indicators coded: First Question: 1 = live separately; 2= cannot choose; 3= live together; Second
and Third Question's: 1 = live separately; 2 = live with other child; 3 = live with us.)
* chi-square = 317.01, df= 56, ratio = 5.66, adjusted goodness-of-fit index = .999.
Note: Correlations of residuals are not shown in the table.

The Effect of Job on Men's Intellective Process in the
United States and Poland." American Journal of
Sociology 91:593-615.
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New York: Wiley.
MICHIKO NAOI is Associate Professor at Tokyo Gakugei University. Her research interests include
sociology of aging, family and women's attitudes.
CARMI SCHOOLER is Acting Chief, Laboratory of Socio-Environmental Studies, National Institute of
Mental Health. His research interests include social structural and cultural determinants of both normal
and abnormal adult functioning throughout the life span.

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Psychological Consequences of Occupational Conditions Among Japanese Wives

Author(s): Michiko Naoi and Carmi Schooler

Social Psychology Quarterly

Psychological Consequences of Occupational Conditions

among Japanese Wives*

This paper examines how Japanese wives'

of husbands' and wives' occupational condi-

occupational conditions affect their psycho-

tions contribute to the acceptance of societal

logical functioning. In doing so, it asks a

norms about how women should behave?

traditionally have not been employed after

social and psychological factors related to

marriage. In recent years, however, the

Japanese wives' working for pay? Do occupa-

proportion of Japanese wives in the work

tional conditions, particularly occupational

force has increased dramatically (National

self-direction, have the same effects on

Institute of Employment and Vocational

Japanese women as on other people? Do

Research 1989). We shall examine whether

tics that distinguish wives who work for pay

exemplified by their accepting responsibility

The consequences of the trend toward paid

employment among Japanese women are

interesting in themselves for what they tell us

about the interaction of culture, gender, and

husbands, do these differences in the nature

indispensable to the project at every stage, from the

editing of the data through data analysis to the writing of

Givens, who provided valuable assistance at many times;

States and were replicated for Polish and

Ibaragi, who were very helpful in the data collection; and

PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF OCCUPATIONAL CONDITIONS 101

self and society (Kohn, A. Naoi, Schoen-

The question remains whether the similarity

bach, Schooler and Slomczynski 1990), Kohn

Women's and men's roles overlap less in

and Schooler 1983; J. Miller, Slomczynski,

Japanese culture than in American culture.

and Kohn 1985; A. Naoi and Schooler 1985;

"Furthermore, the difference between Japa-

Schooler and A. Naoi 1988a; Slomczynski, J.

nese and American women's culturally pre-

Miller, and Kohn 1981).

scribed roles is even greater than that between

It is noteworthy that even among Japanese

the roles of Japanese and American men.

men, whose cultural setting does not particu-

Self-directedness, for example, is valued even

larly emphasize individual autonomy or

less for Japanese women than for Japanese

psychological self-directedness (A. Naoi and

men (Ackroyd 1959; Lebra 1984; Schooler

Schooler 1985, Schooler and A. Naoi 1988a),

and Smith 1978).

self-directed occupational conditions lead to a

There is evidence that some social back-

self-directed orientation to self and society, as

ground conditions which increase individual-

well as to increased intellectual flexibility. It

istic, self-directed orientations of women in

would, however, strengthen substantially the