Changes in Representations of “Salaried Men” in Postwar Japanese Newspapers

A Re-examination of Asahi Shimbun, 1945-1999

Abstract

This paper examines changes in the representations of “salaried men” in postwar Japanese newspapers. Some Japanese scholars recently started using the term “1955 Family System” to describe the dominant family form in postwar Japan, which consists of a salaried worker husband, a housewife, and their children. Making use of the expression, this paper adopts the concept “salaried men under the 1955 System.” The significance of this paper is twofold : to examine the representations of “salaried men” in Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese national newspaper, and to analyze the rise and fall of the “1955 Family System” during the latter half of the 20th century.
This paper takes as its object of study 1034 articles, the titles of which contain the term “salaried men, ” published between 1945 and 1999 in the Asahi Shimbun. First, a quantitative analysis is conducted, and the articles are grouped into eight categories based on the nature of the contents. Where the expression “salaried men under the 1955 System” is treated as self-evident, the fluctuation in the number of such articles in each category is noted. The postwar era is then divided into five periods according to such fluctuations.
Next, we examine the characteristics of the “salaried men” in each period by conducting a content analysis of the articles. It is found that the trend of taking the term “salaried men under the 1955 System” for granted appeared for the first time at the beginning of the postwar Japanese economic boom. “Salaried men” were always expected to be good taxpayers in the late 1960s. However, during the recession following the Oil Crisis in 1973, they were depicted to often head straight home after work to their families. The sexual division of labor at home was also a characteristic constantly highlighted in these depictions. In the latter half of the “Bubble Economy” period, whether the term was as self-evident as it seemed became a subject for debate. From such development arose a new awareness that, for “salaried men, ” other social space than the company existed in the 1990s.