Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between causal attribution toward unemployed people and motivation to reduce employment disparity in Japan. In Japan, it is argued that social inequality leads to employment disparity. The inequality composes of sex, age, educational background and family background. The perception that people fail to get jobs due to the inequality possibly leads to motivation to reduce employment disparity. Causal attribution of a negative situation is an important factor to predict human attitude toward the situation. Therefore, in this present study, causal attributions toward unemployed people as predicting factors for motivation to reduce employment disparity were focused on. As causal attributions, inequality attribution (social inequalities such as sex), individual attribution (individual characteristic such as negligence) and fate attribution (individual fate such as misfortune) are proposed. In the present study, questionnaire packets from university students were distributed and collected. Participants answered items referring to causal attribution toward unemployed people and motivation to reduce employment disparity. As a result of the survey, there was a positive correlation between the inequality attribution and the motivation, a negative correlation between the individual attribution and the motivation, and no correlation between the fate attribution and the motivation. Hypotheses were confirmed and the results were consistent with previous studies of causal attributions. It was shown that the strength of individual attribution was the highest among the attributions, and the next was inequality attribution and the last was fate attribution. The participants possibly thought that Japanese government dealt with social inequality and unemployed people did not get jobs due to their own remissness compared to the inequality. This study discussed the motivation to reduce employment disparity in Japan from the perspective of causal attribution, and how to engage in employment disparity.
