How the Pandemic Changed Work in Japan: Bearing Witness through Data

The COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe from 2019 had a major impact on the way people lived and worked. People refrained from going out and, inevitably, the way people worked underwent drastic changes.

• What kind of working environment enabled people to best adapt to the emergency?
• Did the pandemic impact urban and rural areas differently?
• How did the pandemic affect workers with children?

This book adopts a thoroughly data-driven approach, relying primarily on data from the Japanese Panel Study of Employment Dynamics by the Recruit Works Institute. The JPSED has been tracking a sample of 50,000 people since 2016, and is thus one of largest of the very few surveys in Japan that has tracked the same individuals since before the pandemic.

Eleven scholars and researchers examined the pandemic’s impact on working styles and analyzed the data from various perspectives to identify changes in the labor market in Japan, including telework, work-childcare relations, and disparities in employment status, which makes the book a valuable historical testimony of a distinct turning point in Japan’s work culture.