In recent years, Japan’s traditional employment structure has begun to shift. Historically in Japan, employees expected to work for the same organization throughout their professional lives, gaining experience and garnering respect as they grew in seniority. Known as “lifetime employment,” this occupational approach typified the Japanese professional experience. Today, though lifetime employment still persists in many companies in Japan, more and more workers, many of them recent graduates, are changing jobs in search of better prospects. The companies that hire this new breed of employee are looking for recruits who have the requisite experience, but lack the expectation of respect and promotion simply by virtue of their years of service. In the Tokyo metropolitan area in particular, a number of companies have embraced this short-term employment system.

What are the differences between Japanese who change jobs and those who work in the same place all their lives? In 2005, the Social Stratification and Mobility Study (SSM Study) provided new perspective on the changing face of Japanese job mobility. A large-scale survey, social survey professionals have conducted the SSM Study every ten years since 1955. This article is based on the fourth release data (November 2007 version), which was prepared by the 2005 Social Stratification and Mobility Study Group.

Several patterns emerge in the SSM Study data. First, much depends on when an employee first began working. Those (male) workers who started their first job after 1950—especially during Japan’s post–World War II rebuilding phase or the economic bubble of the early 1990s—are much more likely to change jobs than those who started their first job before that year. In particular, those employed during the rebuilding era have tended to change jobs multiple times.

Second, Japanese employees behave differently depending on the size of the enterprise at which they work. At governmental organizations or large enterprises with more than one thousand employees, for example, workers who started their first job there tend to stay there. As the organizations diminish in size, this tendency likewise decreases. At mid- or small-size organizations with fewer than three hundred employees, workers who started their first job there tend to change their job earlier than their counterparts at bigger employers.

Third, with respect to job type, white collar professionals tend to keep their first job, whereas blue collar workers change job more often. More specifically, there is little job movement, for example, among those employed in educational or research services. However, in mining, transportation, manufacturing, sales or wholesale businesses, legal and accounting services, communications, and advertising, workers regularly change job due to long hours coupled with low income.

Fourth, in terms of educational background, workers who have attended college, university, or graduate school often stick with their first job. Workers with high school or junior high school levels of educations are more likely to move on from their first job within first few years.

Why do Japanese workers change jobs? The SSM Study indicates that, among those moving from their first to their second job, 33 percent did so for a “better” position. Ten percent made the switch because they were dissatisfied and wanted a change, or because they were either laid off or the company went bankrupt. The Study also shows that the 33 percent who sought better work also tended, in making such a change, to increase both their income and job prestige, and to affiliate with larger organizations. Many workers who secured better jobs were more educated; the 10 percent who cited job dissatisfaction as the reason for their move tended to be less so. More detailed analysis of the SSM Study reveals that more than 50 percent of those who moved on to a second, better job not only felt that they were better off, but also that they actually joined a smaller organization. This data point shows that a “better” job in Japan does not always mean working for a big, famous company.

The SSM Study considered other important elements of the job-changing experience, including the patterns of change as they relate to job prestige and autonomy. People who moved from large companies tended to be forced into smaller companies, whereas workers from mid- or small-size companies (fewer than three hundred employees) often remain in that size bracket. Most workers experience increased job prestige when they change jobs; this is especially true of educated workers who change job after building up ten or more years of experience at their first job. The exception to this pattern is white collar employees, whose prestige is high from the very first job they take and therefore less likely to rise significantly higher.

The SSM Study showed that white collar workers—and, interestingly, particularly those working in sales—enjoy enhanced autonomy after their job change. Generally, job changes result in “better,” more autonomous employment and higher prestige, if at a smaller organization. People who change their job, therefore, tend to be more motivated by job prestige and increased professional autonomy than by the size of the employer, or even the income level.

Job mobility in Japan is still in an early phase. In the country’s large companies, educated white collar workers—those who theoretically possess the greatest potential for upward job mobility—still tend to stay with the same organization for most of their professional lives. Those relative few who do move report increased satisfaction with their autonomy and/or their job prestige, even in cases where they join a smaller company or take a pay cut. In an effort to move beyond traditional lifetime employment, the Japanese government now encourages the job mobility, but workers have yet to embrace the system on a large scale.

Nuclear weapons today present tremendous dangers, but also an historic opportunity. U.S. leadership will be required to take the world to the next stage -- to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons globally as a vital contribution to preventing their proliferation into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world.

Nuclear weapons were essential to maintaining international security during the Cold War because they were a means of deterrence. The end of the Cold War made the doctrine of mutual Soviet-American deterrence obsolete. Deterrence continues to be a relevant consideration for many states with regard to threats from other states. But reliance on nuclear weapons for this purpose is becoming increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.

North Korea's recent nuclear test and Iran's refusal to stop its program to enrich uranium -- potentially to weapons grade -- highlight the fact that the world is now on the precipice of a new and dangerous nuclear era. Most alarmingly, the likelihood that non-state terrorists will get their hands on nuclear weaponry is increasing. In today's war waged on world order by terrorists, nuclear weapons are the ultimate means of mass devastation. And non-state terrorist groups with nuclear weapons are conceptually outside the bounds of a deterrent strategy and present difficult new security challenges.

Apart from the terrorist threat, unless urgent new actions are taken, the U.S. soon will be compelled to enter a new nuclear era that will be more precarious, psychologically disorienting, and economically even more costly than was Cold War deterrence. It is far from certain that we can successfully replicate the old Soviet-American "mutually assured destruction" with an increasing number of potential nuclear enemies world-wide without dramatically increasing the risk that nuclear weapons will be used. New nuclear states do not have the benefit of years of step-by-step safeguards put in effect during the Cold War to prevent nuclear accidents, misjudgments or unauthorized launches. The United States and the Soviet Union learned from mistakes that were less than fatal. Both countries were diligent to ensure that no nuclear weapon was used during the Cold War by design or by accident. Will new nuclear nations and the world be as fortunate in the next 50 years as we were during the Cold War?

Leaders addressed this issue in earlier times. In his "Atoms for Peace" address to the United Nations in 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower pledged America's "determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma -- to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life." John F. Kennedy, seeking to break the logjam on nuclear disarmament, said, "The world was not meant to be a prison in which man awaits his execution."

Rajiv Gandhi, addressing the U.N. General Assembly on June 9, 1988, appealed, "Nuclear war will not mean the death of a hundred million people. Or even a thousand million. It will mean the extinction of four thousand million: the end of life as we know it on our planet earth. We come to the United Nations to seek your support. We seek your support to put a stop to this madness."

Ronald Reagan called for the abolishment of "all nuclear weapons," which he considered to be "totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization." Mikhail Gorbachev shared this vision, which had also been expressed by previous American presidents.

Although Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev failed at Reykjavik to achieve the goal of an agreement to get rid of all nuclear weapons, they did succeed in turning the arms race on its head. They initiated steps leading to significant reductions in deployed long- and intermediate-range nuclear forces, including the elimination of an entire class of threatening missiles.

What will it take to rekindle the vision shared by Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev? Can a world-wide consensus be forged that defines a series of practical steps leading to major reductions in the nuclear danger? There is an urgent need to address the challenge posed by these two questions.

The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) envisioned the end of all nuclear weapons. It provides (a) that states that did not possess nuclear weapons as of 1967 agree not to obtain them, and (b) that states that do possess them agree to divest themselves of these weapons over time. Every president of both parties since Richard Nixon has reaffirmed these treaty obligations, but non-nuclear weapon states have grown increasingly skeptical of the sincerity of the nuclear powers.

Strong non-proliferation efforts are under way. The Cooperative Threat Reduction program, the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, the Proliferation Security Initiative and the Additional Protocols are innovative approaches that provide powerful new tools for detecting activities that violate the NPT and endanger world security. They deserve full implementation. The negotiations on proliferation of nuclear weapons by North Korea and Iran, involving all the permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany and Japan, are crucially important. They must be energetically pursued.

But by themselves, none of these steps are adequate to the danger. Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev aspired to accomplish more at their meeting in Reykjavik 20 years ago -- the elimination of nuclear weapons altogether. Their vision shocked experts in the doctrine of nuclear deterrence, but galvanized the hopes of people around the world. The leaders of the two countries with the largest arsenals of nuclear weapons discussed the abolition of their most powerful weapons.

* * *

What should be done? Can the promise of the NPT and the possibilities envisioned at Reykjavik be brought to fruition? We believe that a major effort should be launched by the United States to produce a positive answer through concrete stages.

First and foremost is intensive work with leaders of the countries in possession of nuclear weapons to turn the goal of a world without nuclear weapons into a joint enterprise. Such a joint enterprise, by involving changes in the disposition of the states possessing nuclear weapons, would lend additional weight to efforts already under way to avoid the emergence of a nuclear-armed North Korea and Iran.

The program on which agreements should be sought would constitute a series of agreed and urgent steps that would lay the groundwork for a world free of the nuclear threat. Steps would include:

• Changing the Cold War posture of deployed nuclear weapons to increase warning time and thereby reduce the danger of an accidental or unauthorized use of a nuclear weapon.

• Continuing to reduce substantially the size of nuclear forces in all states that possess them.

• Eliminating short-range nuclear weapons designed to be forward-deployed.

• Initiating a bipartisan process with the Senate, including understandings to increase confidence and provide for periodic review, to achieve ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, taking advantage of recent technical advances, and working to secure ratification by other key states.

• Getting control of the uranium enrichment process, combined with the guarantee that uranium for nuclear power reactors could be obtained at a reasonable price, first from the Nuclear Suppliers Group and then from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or other controlled international reserves. It will also be necessary to deal with proliferation issues presented by spent fuel from reactors producing electricity.

• Halting the production of fissile material for weapons globally; phasing out the use of highly enriched uranium in civil commerce and removing weapons-usable uranium from research facilities around the world and rendering the materials safe.

• Redoubling our efforts to resolve regional confrontations and conflicts that give rise to new nuclear powers.

 
Achieving the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons will also require effective measures to impede or counter any nuclear-related conduct that is potentially threatening to the security of any state or peoples.

Reassertion of the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and practical measures toward achieving that goal would be, and would be perceived as, a bold initiative consistent with America's moral heritage. The effort could have a profoundly positive impact on the security of future generations. Without the bold vision, the actions will not be perceived as fair or urgent. Without the actions, the vision will not be perceived as realistic or possible.

We endorse setting the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and working energetically on the actions required to achieve that goal, beginning with the measures outlined above.

Mr. Shultz, a distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, was secretary of state from 1982 to 1989. Mr. Perry was secretary of defense from 1994 to 1997. Mr. Kissinger, chairman of Kissinger Associates, was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977. Mr. Nunn is former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

A conference organized by Mr. Shultz and Sidney D. Drell was held at Hoover to reconsider the vision that Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev brought to Reykjavik. In addition to Messrs. Shultz and Drell, the following participants also endorse the view in this statement: Martin Anderson, Steve Andreasen, Michael Armacost, William Crowe, James Goodby, Thomas Graham Jr., Thomas Henriksen, David Holloway, Max Kampelman, Jack Matlock, John McLaughlin, Don Oberdorfer, Rozanne Ridgway, Henry Rowen, Roald Sagdeev and Abraham Sofaer.

David Straub, currently a Pantech Fellow at Shorenstein APARC, has been appointed associate director of the Korea Program. He will take up his position on 1 July 2008 and will aid in the overall design, planning, development and management of the Korean Studies Program research programs and events.
"David has been a tremendous asset to us with his expertise and experiences on US-ROK relations. As he takes on his new role with us, he will provide important leadership to the Korean Studies Program that has been expanding fast." says director of the center, Gi-Wook Shin
Straub is a former senior foreign service officer whose 30-year career with the U.S. Department of State focused on Northeast Asian affairs including over 12 years on Korean affairs. He served in Seoul as head of the political section at the US embassy from 1999 to 2002 during popular protests against the US, and played a key working-level role in the Six-Party Talks on North Korea's nuclear program as the State Department's Korea country desk director from 2002 to 2004. Straub also served eight years at the US embassy in Japan. His final assignment was as State Department Japan country desk director from 2004 to 2006, when he was co-leader of the U.S. delegation to talks with Japan on the realignment of the U.S.-Japan alliance and of US military bases in Japan. Straub is currently writing a book on US-ROK relations based on his experiences as a foreign service officer.

After leaving the Department of State, Straub taught U.S.-Korean relations at The Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and later at the Graduate School of International Studies of Seoul National University. He speaks German, Korean, and Japanese.