Part Two: Report by Article
Article 11
Article 11. 1. (c)
1. Policies to Enable Flexible Choice of Profession
(1) Development of Vocational Ability
In order to take appropriate measures to respond to the diversifying forms of labour while promoting individuality, the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare is proactively advancing measures including: (i) Development of a career development support system in accordance with vocational life planning; (ii) reinforcement and upgrading of information collection and provision systems related to vocational ability development; (iii) development of an appropriate vocational ability evaluation system through government and private cooperation; and (iv) securing of various educational training opportunities necessary for vocational ability development.
The Study and Training Benefits System was established in December 1998 as a part of the Employment Insurance Benefits System aimed at supporting the voluntary initiatives of the workers to develop their vocational abilities and promote employment stability and re-employment. In 2000, 136,837 men and 133,300 women received this benefit. Of those who received this benefit through the 308 public vocational training facilities in 2000, 49% were men and 51% were women.
(2) Career and Employment
a) Career and Vocational Guidance
Recognizing that women tend to take up clerical work and major in humanities at university or college more often than men, the Government has been implementing various measures to further improve and enhance the vocational guidance at school so that every student, regardless of gender, can acquire the ability and attitude to think about his or her own way of life and to decide their future career subjectively.
The Government calls on universities and colleges to hold career guidance for students, and since FY 1995 it has been conducting "National Vocational Guidance" meetings where employment counselors at universities and company staffs in charge of recruitment can exchange views and information. At the same time, it has been taking measures to promptly provide employment-related information to students, promote vocational guidance for female students through the dispatch of employment counselors to universities; and request each business organization and others to cooperate to ensure equal employment opportunity to female students.
b) Promotion and Cultivation of Work-related Consciousness and Awareness among Female Students
The female student employment problem is partly caused by their making choices of career and profession based on a stereotyped way of thinking and mentality as is shown by the mismatch of job description that arises partly from the female students' still strong inclination to obtain clerical jobs even though back-office sections within companies are shrinking.
The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, therefore, has made efforts to enhance education for the cultivation of awareness of gender-equality and vocation from the early stages of school education and to encourage female students to make appropriate choices and choices of career and profession by providing opportunities to think about life-long vocational plans in accordance with their "life plans" and providing various vocation-related information on future industry, choice of profession and other information relating to employment. Relevant information is also provided to guidance counselors and others to support their guidance.
Beginning in FY2000, through cooperation with high schools, support projects to formulate gender-free vocational consciousness are also being implemented.
2. The Center for the Advancement of Working Women
As a base facility that comprehensively and proactively implements measures to support working women, the "Center for the Advancement of Working Women (CAWW)" was established in January 2000. This Center displays the history, current situation and future of Japan's working women. The Center conducts various support measures including holding seminars and consultations for the full utilization of women's potential, supporting female entrepreneurs, providing information for female students to choose an appropriate profession and providing other information related to working women.
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