Women and the Labour Market in Japan's Industrialising Economy

Janet Hunter teaches economic history at the London School of Economics. She has written widely on the economic development of Japan, and is the editor of Japanese Women Working (Routledge, 1993) and joint editor of a volume on the history of economic relations between Britain and Japan (Palgrave, 2002).

'Janet Hunter's numerous articles on the textile industry and its female workers have, since the 1980s offered tantalizing hints of the issues shes develops in this fine monograph, which will be the standard treatment of the Japanese textile industry and its workers for years to come. Hunter leaves no stone unturned , and even those topics that she claims to set aside for other studies benefit from her keen analysis.' - Monumenta Nipponica

• 1. Introduction: Textile Workers and Japanese Industrialisation 2. The Rural Connection: Growth, Distribution and Gender 3. The Growth of the Mechanised Textile Industries in Prewar Japan 4. Rural Origins 5. The Making of Textile Workers 6. The Institutions of Wage Payment 7. Changing the Rules of the Game: the Role of the Government 8. Collusion and Collaboration: Collective Action by Employers and Employees 9. Textile Work, Families and Villages 10. A Summing Up