CHANGING LABOR FORCE CHARACTERISTICS AND THEIR IMPACT ON JAPANESE INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS

To create a picture of what:specific aspects of Japanese society and economy will look like in.1980, I judge it advisable to begin with... an exposition of relatively firm data and then gradually move toward more speculative observations. This relatively cautious approach is not designed to produce predictions of discontinuous events, but it does have the virtue of,being grounded in data in which we may place, some confidence. Specifically, this paper ~ $ 1 1 begin-with estimates of Japanese population for the year 1980, then consider the somewhat more speculative estimates of labor force size and.composition, and finally. turn to the most difficult task of predicting the impact of these changing population and labor force characteristics on the Japanese pattern of industrial relations. Those special aspects of Japanese industrial relations such,as nenk5 jorestsu (age and length of service reward.-system), permanent employment, and the oft-reported harmony of Japanese industrial relations will come in,for specific examination. Most of the 1980 Japanese population had already been born by 1972, and most of.the expected labor force of 1980 were already employed. These simple facts permit our placing a good deal of confidence in the following estimates and distinguish our efforts from a more spectacular if less valid futorology. Generally speaking, demographers have paid less attention to population composition than to vital statistics such as fertility and mortalfty.. However, Japanese researchers have increasingly turned their attention to investigating age composition because of the drastic changes in population composition which are now occurrin