Jul 04 (Japan Times) - Salarymen have taken a pummeling in recent years - with pay stagnating and rising numbers of working women and mothers eroding their once-dominant position as the family's breadwinner.
Those changes have affected how they are seen at home, with children respecting their mothers more than fathers for the first time, according to recent research. And wives - who typically control the purse strings in Japanese households - have continued cutting their husbands' pocket money, a survey by Shinsei Bank showed last week.
Over the past two decades, average male base wages have shrunk 0.5 percent. And even though flat or falling prices mean there may have been little damage to purchasing power, that stagnation meant that there has been little impetus for pocket money to rise.
Conversely, the increasing entry of women into the workforce has meant that their pay has risen - up 15 percent over the same period, according to a labor ministry report. That increase might partly be to supplement family incomes and subsidize the flat salaries of husbands, but it's causing a change in how women are perceived in the home, according to the research from Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living, which is connected to one of the nation's largest ad agencies.
The number of children who said they respect their mothers surged to a record high of 68.1 percent, surpassing that of fathers for the first time, according to the Hakuhodo survey, which has been conducted once a decade since 1997. About 62 percent of kids said they respected their fathers, down from the previous survey.
