According to some estimates, there will be 10 million freeters in Japan by 2014. The number for 2001 is 4.17 million freeters according to one estimate, and 2 million in 2002 according to another estimate. In 1982 there were an estimated 0.5 million freeters in Japan, 0.8 million in 1987, 1.01 million in 1992 and 1.5 million in 1997. The employment situation is worst for the youngest freeters.įrom 2000–2009, the number of freeters increased rapidly.
#Freeter definition full#
3.1 Difficulties starting their own householdĪbout 10% of high school and university graduates could not find steady employment in the spring of 2000, and a full 50% of those who could find a job left within 3 years after employment.Another possibility is a shortening of freeloader, furee-ro-da, to furi-da. As German (along with English) was used (especially for science and medicine) in Japanese universities before World War II, Arubaito became common among students to describe part time work for university students. Arubaito is a Japanese loanword from German.
#Freeter definition free#
The word freeter or freeta was first used around 1987 or 1988 and is thought to be an portmanteau of the English word free (or perhaps freelance) and the German word Arbeiter ("labourer"). These people do not start a career after high school or university, but instead earn money from low skilled and low paid jobs. The term originally included young people who deliberately chose not to become salary-men, even though jobs were available at the time.įreeters may also be described as underemployed or freelance workers. (July 2008)įreeter ( フリーター, furītā ?) (other possible spellings are furītā, furiita, freeta, furiitaa, or furitaa) is a Japanese expression for people between the ages of 15 and 34 who lack full time employment or are unemployed, excluding housewives and students. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.This article may contain original research. Moreover, studying union movements ethnographically supports the argument that anthropology can provide greater appreciation of the cultural dimensions and lived experiences of activists involved in organized labour and social movements. This study seeks to contribute to the critique that although the anthropology of Japan has taken the experiences of difference and diversity seriously, the field has paid less attention to the role of social class. I situate this study within a variety of critiques surrounding the fields of the anthropology of Japan, the anthropology of labour and the anthropology of social movements. However, I also show that instilling class-consciousness in freeters is itself a complex process full of resistances, negotiations, contradictions and even rejections. Through the descriptions presented in my ethnographic chapters on these union groups, I argue that the loss of place for young irregular workers is contributing to the re-articulation of class politics and protest in post-industrial Japan. This dissertation explores some of the strategies the union movements use in attempting to cultivate class-consciousness amongst freeters and other young irregular workers that feel disaffected by the limiting circumstances of the employment system and seek to confront and change their working condition. Drawing upon twenty months of participant observation research with four union movements attempting to organize freeters and other young irregularly employed youth, I look at how these groups attempt to politically mobilize freeters. This dissertation approaches some of these sites of freeter protest ethnographically. Within the last decade, some freeters have begun to protest against jobs that many see as exploitative and as demanding as full-time positions without the added benefits and security. However, many freeters are finding this “temporary” state difficult to move beyond. Ideally, working as a freeter is a temporary period to be replaced by full-time employment. Within Japan’s protracted economic downturn, freeters have become a complex symbol that at times are blamed, other times pitied and sometimes even celebrated for structuring their lives around jobs that are unstable, but also less demanding and potentially freeing. The subject of my dissertation is Japanese freeters, youth who work part-time or move from job to job.
Japanese irregular workers in protest : freeters, precarity and the re-articulation of class
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