Short-run and Long-run Impacts of the Female Labor Force Mobilization in Japan during World War II

Tetsuji Okazaki

No 25-020E, CIGS Working Paper Series from The Canon Institute for Global Studies

Abstract: During World War II, the Japanese government carried out a large-scale mobilization of the labor force for war production. To move young and middle-aged men into the military and strategic industries where they were essential, the government restricted male employment in certain designated industries where female workers could substitute for male workers. Women were regarded as a major source of labor, in addition to men in nonessential and nonurgent industries and (male) students. Exploiting the variation in the regulation of male employment across industries, we conducted a simple regression analysis to investigate the impact of the war on the female labor force participation, using industry-level panel data from 1920 to 1970. We found that the female employment ratio in the industries where male employment was restricted increased relative to the other industries from 1940, and that this effect continued until 1970. This suggests that wartime labor mobilization had a positive impact on female labor participation, and that the impact was persistent. The case study on banks indicates that major banks indeed made efforts to substitute female for male employees, and that they changed the internal organization and rules of the banks to achieve this, which is one of the reasons for the persistence of the impact.

Pages: 31
Date: 2025-08
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