The Status of Japanese Career Women in their Professional and Private Life

Not that long ago, the term “Japanese career women” almost had been a contradiction in itself. Times have changed and Japanese women pursuing a career is a much talked about topic in politics (“womenomics”) and the media. But has the situation really changed for career women “on the ground”? What are their opportunities and what are their challenges? To what extent are profes-sional expectations and expectations in their private life contradicting each other? And finally, are contradicting expectations resulting in identity conflicts and what are the strategies to cope with these conflicts? These are questions to be addressed in the presentations. The presentation by Markus Pudelko is based on more than 70 interviews that he has conducted in Japan over the course of several years.

Markus Pudelko is Professor and the Director of the Department of International Business at The University of Tübingen School of Business and Economics. He earned Master degrees in Business Studies (U of Cologne), Economics (Paris-Sorbonne U) and International Management (Community of European Management Schools) and a PhD (U of Cologne). For longer-term research purposes, he frequently visits other universities, such as Columbia U, Doshisha U, EAFIT, Fudan U, IESE, Korea U, Melbourne U, Peking U, San José State U, Sophia U, Stanford U, Stellenbosch U, Umea U, Vaasa U and Waseda U. His research on cross-cultural management has been published in some of the worldwide leading journals in business and management studies.

Noelle Takahashi is a Women’s Leadership Advocate. In 2015, she graduated from Women’s Campaign School at Yale Law School and the Wilson Center selected her to the Women in Public Service Project (WPSP) at Mills College. In 2014 the East-West Center selected her to the “New Generation Seminar” and “Changing Faces Women’s Leadership Seminar”. She was selected as an International Fellow at Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) since 2013. She holds an M.A. in Intercultural Communications Studies from Rikkyo University. She has served to various non-profit organizations in communities including the Red Cross. Her focus and passion is to make a social change as a women’s political leader.

The talk by Professor Pudelko on his current research on Japanese career women will be followed by the comments from Ms Takahashi, before the floor will be opened to the audience for a Q&A session.

Download: Event report (PDF, 41KB)