The World’s Factory’s Dilemma

It would be unquestionable that China is the Workshop of the world if it was a few years ago. But now, this is a controversial thesis, comparing the current influence of the economy in international supply chains with other fast-growing countries. The more China grows in its economic size and variety of jobs, working as the world’s factory, the more companies and countries withdraw the capital and business from China. Though Apple’s assembly line of computers and mobile devices used to be based on Chinese factories, the firm is bringing a part of production back to the U.S. from the country. Even the domestic companies have decisions to offshore production from China to other emerging economies like India, South East Asian and African countries. How is China losing its superiority as the world’s factory, and what economic rolls is it expected to play in the next stage of development?

No more cheap labor

Although labor was so cheap and plentiful that few other countries could match it, the workforce is shrinking especially in simple labor such as assembly lines of electronic devices. This is mainly due to ageing population of the country thanks to the government’s one-child policy, but more significantly, the wider range of job opportunity as a result of economic growth gave factory workers less incentive to stay in the exhausting part of the assembly line for the conventional level of salary. As the wage rises, company executives started to re-shore production from China to their home country or relocate manufacturing plants to other developing countries. It is almost common sense that China is out of choice  when outsourcing production. 

Insufficient investment in R&D

If China has something to blamed for the current slowdown in the economic growth, though the economy still expanding by 7.8% in the third quarter this year, it might be that the country failed to develop infrastructure for R&D. The track record or financial networks to support the sort of speculative research is indispensable for innovation. However, few Chinese companies have established these foundation of R&D, just scaling up their business size with profits by copying foreign products. This caused the country to build its industry upon existing technology and never let it leave from the low-price-and-good-quality standard, even that is being outdated in the recent inflating labor cost.

Scarce manager-class human resources

As the business scale in China expands, the country faces difficulty in finding talent to fulfils the needs for entrepreneurs and executives. There are few qualified human resources who can command a large enterprise and even who operate an office or store as a middle manager. The scarcity of manager-class workers is partly because China’s higher education system is still in the process of development, yet the country’s history of growth in which it’s own corporate governance has not been formed, relying too much on FDIs and foreign company’s capital control, is more in charge.

Conclusions

China is now standing at a turning point where one leads back to the Workshop of the world with no more advantage of cheap and plentiful labor, and another to a different type  of economy that leads the world industry by creation and innovation. If China chooses the second one, it has to come through at least three challenges; labours with productivity that is globally competitive in terms of cost effectiveness not of cheapness; investment into infrastructure of R&D that enables companies to create tools for creation; and completion of higher education to meet the demand for managers in the economy. In addition, it is also important to arrange regulatory environment to better protect intellectual property so that each player in the economy recognises costs for copying, otherwise no one tries hard to create anything. 

*Michael Schuman, “China Makes Everything. Why Can’t It Create Anything?,” TIME, Nov 11 issue, 2013.  

What Should Every College Graduate Know?

While the Obama Administration tries to introduce the rating system for qualification over the university graduates, Japan’s education rebuilding council considers to replace hand-writing entrance exams with interviews to “appreciate high school students’ diversity.” The difference in how each country approaches to measuring the core value of the university suggests that Japan’s society is still unclear about the significance of the higher education, because passing through the world’s most difficult level entrance exams is supposed to guarantee the quality of students, which is nothing related to what they learn while in universities, and now even that qualification the council is going to turn off. A meaningful guide to re-define the value of higher education in Japan is provided by the problem that America’s colleges and universities confront: What should every college graduate know?

General knowledge acquired in core curriculum

One says what every college student have to acquire through higher education is general knowledge in a wide range of subjects; in other wards, there are certain books one should read and certain facts one should know to be considered a truly educated person. By reading classic texts and discussing them in the context of enduring issues in human society, such as individuality, capitalism, and governance, every student is compelled to engage with ideas that forms the mainstream of the society and more importantly gets ready for being a part of it. These knowledges might not be directly utilised in alumni’s profession and benefit practically his/her life in any circumstances; however, it would be difficult for graduates to adopt themselves into the society without knowing the basis of what they are going to belong.

More specialised knowledge that students are free to choose

On the other hand, many academics prefer to teach more specialised courses and allow students more freedom to set their own curriculums. The prevailing academic culture puts more emphasis on developing a students’s ability in a certain academic field to confront questions and find answers to them: how to think, how to express, how to handle data, and how to conduct a experiment. These technical skills and specialised knowledge enable graduates to make money immediately and instantly. Moreover, the freedom to choose one’s academic path will keep a student’s motivation in learning and pursuing his/her own specialty along with the interest. 

Speciality is not enough 

Today’s academic administration, whether in the U.S. or somewhere else, is in a great anxiety among key constituencies—parents, alumni and employers, and pushed along with their requests towards more pragmatic and instant education focusing on specialty and qualification. Students deserve to make up their own curriculum, taking risk in selecting how they build intellectual foundation, which may not be the one society (or employers) expect them, as some graduate surveys in the U.S. find out a considerable portion of students leave the school without basic knowledge about society and raise concerns widely among education and economic authorities*. This is the pitfall that the current academic trend involves and therefore why colleges and universities are responsible for providing with common core subjects in which students are compelled to learn indispensable knowledge in the society.

*The Class of 2025, Jon Meacham, TIME issued October 7, 2013.

Not Having Children Is Chosen or Supposed?

Not Having Children Is Chosen or Supposed? 

Kiyotaka ISHIKAWA

Recently, I have celebrated my female classmate in the university for her marriage in her 25 and suddenly realized that I am also in a marriageable age. The next lifetime event supposed to take place in her life is childbirth while the country’s birthrate has been at the historically lowest level under 1.4 and not supposed to be improved for the time being. As women’s lifestyle diversified, more and more women choose childless lives especially those highly educated like the friend of mine. On the other hand, the rising economic cost of raising a child and unemployment among the young in a down economy build up structural barriers that keep women who want to have a child from putting it into practice. Is today’s fertility crash because she chose it or was supposed to do so, and why is that? 

Motherhood is not an option for every woman

It is almost a consensus over developed countries that women tend to have fewer number of children, and some choose not to have one, as the economy grows, and this is often seen as a result of the inflation of the cost for raising a child. According to the statistic of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan, an average cost of raising a first child is approximately 13 million yen, which decreases to 10 million and 7.7 million for the second and third child respectively. If you plan to send your child to a private school in the entire education, the figure will be doubled or even tripled. Although affordability is not the only necessary condition to have a child, this is enough for many women of childbearing age to be discouraged to give a birth to a child. Especially for those who have to work even after childbirth due to economic reasons, it would be a tough choice to take care of children while having a job for the family and the fund of the future education.  

Motherhood is not an obligation but an option

These spendings on a child are bearable for highly-educated women with an expectation of good salary like my university classmate; however, the leading population of childless women consists of women like her. The proportion of women expecting to remain childless is greater among those with high income; when American women grouped into three income range, 1 in 8 women among the top income class is childless while 1 in 14 with middle income and 1 in 20 with low income. This is because higher education often leads to higher opportunity costs of giving up the career, which average value is worth as high as $1 million in lost salary, lost promotion and so on. Furthermore, women who are successful in the business and the private without a child have less incentives to have one because they feel advantageous about being free from all sorts of troubles that come with children. 

The dual structure of the low birthrate affair

Even if so, those rich and childless women will hardly answer to such a question, “Who is going to take care of you when you’re old and lonely?” The conventional measures to increase birthrate have focused mainly on women with a will to give a birth and a financial problem, but career women who have rare opportunity to have a child are also very good potential mothers, because they are more or less interested in having their own children. Therefore, the social affair of low fertility rate needs to be re-considered from two points of view: not only the poor but also the rich require supports for motherhood.

*The Child-Free Life, Lauren Sandler, TIME issued September 16, 2013, pp.34-41

Japan’s Not-Quite-So-Nationalist Leaders

Japan’s Not-Quite-So-Nationalist Leaders

-The Nazi comments by Japan’s Finance Minister is misled or intended?-

Kiyotaka ISHIKAWA

Japan’s deputy prime minister Taro Aso is quite famous for his usual off-the-cuff remarks in the past, and here is the latest gaffe at the study meeting about the Constitution revision in the final week July. He said that: “The German Weimar constitution changed, without being noted, to the nazi German constitution. Why don’t we learn from their tactics?” No matter what intension behind his speech, the statement proves how deeply he is interested in revising the constitution which is the most sensitive topic for both the domestics and the neighbors. Nevertheless, Aso’s political ideals may sound rather reasonable, surrounded by emerging Chinese military in East Asia and recent territorial disputes with China and Korea. 

Is he a true nationalist who even tries Nazi’s tactics into practice, or a right-wing politician with good reasons to have such a political goal?

What is his thoughts behind the Nazi comments?

Facing criticisms over the Nazi comments, Aso retracted his statement and excuse himself by saying that he meant it as a bad example of changes made without a substantial debate or understanding among citizens. Actually, earlier in the same talk, he had criticized the Nazis for repealing the Weimar Constitution, which he praised as the most progressive in Europe at the time. 

However, he also advocates revising Japan’s pacifist constitution as the Liberal Democrats had held quiet and extensive discussions about its proposals. In another speech, he blamed older Japanese, who historically respect the current constitution, especially Article 9 of which forbids Japan from having a standing army, for the lack of support in the discussion over the revision. Therefore, he possibly admires how smoothly and stealthily the Nazi party changed Germany’s pre-World War Ⅱ constitution, because even attempts to change would raise protests among Japan’s elder citizens who are also the major supporter for the LDP. 

Yet, either case is still unclear about what Aso really meant, so it would be helpful to refer to recent political contexts over his comment as follows. 

The rightist political goal that Abe administration hold

The argument over the constitution is undoubtedly rooted in changing geopolitics of East Asia mainly due to the emergence of China. The scene of a dangerous standoff with the country over the Senkaku Islands, which are so far controlled by Japanese, has been a usual diplomatic problem since Aso had led his own administration in 2008 and 2009. Even if not cause a violent confrontation, this issue reminds the bottleneck in Japan’s constitution which restricts its self defense forces to do any military action until they themselves were shot at. 

This provides Japan’s foreign policy with a very good reason to shape nationalist agenda with popular prime minister’s political rhetoric. In fact, when Abe took office after the campaign that featured talk on territorial disputes and defense, he promised to revise the pacifist constitution, loosen restrictions on Japan’s armed forces and post government personnel on the islands claimed by China. His political goals and ideals basically remains nationalistic since he took office for the first time in 2006 and so does Aso’s, as he has been placed at the executive post in Abe administration. 

Moving rightwards to even reach the middle

Although revising the constitution is Aso’s (and also Abe’s) political appealing point and his motivation behind the Nazi comment, he seems unlikely to realize it at any cost. As foreign minister mentions, improved ties with China are a high priority of the government, which is practiced in diplomacy-conscious manners by Aso and Abe. Aso suggested that Japanese politicians should make visit Tokyo’s Yasukuni war shrine quietly to avoid controversy. Moreover, Abe made China his first overseas visit to strengthen relations and avoided Yasukuni while in office. 

From these above, Abe and members of his government including Aso, who have spoken of restoring Japan’s pride over foreign affairs, can hold the politically successful moderate line without drawing unnecessary tensions from neighbors by pushing for any extremely rightist changes, except this time’s careless Nazi comments. It depends on individuals to regard this as whether the lack of diplomatic ability or just another episode of his sense of humor, but at least he is nothing like Nazi’s extreme nationalist.

References

Japan Deputy PM Taro Aso retracts Nazi comments, BBC News, August 1, 2013,

retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23527300

Japan’s Finance Minister Retracts Statement on Nazis, Martin Fackler, NY Times.com, August 1 2013, 

retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/world/asia/japans-finance-minister-retracts-statement-on-nazis.html?_r=3&

Japan’s Aso Refuses to Resign Over nazi Comment, Elaine Kurtenbach and Mari Yamaguchi, AP, August 2, 2013, 

retrieved from http://world.time.com/2013/08/02/japans-aso-refuses-to-resign-over-nazi-comment/

The Identity Crisis That Lurks Behind Japan’s Right-Wing Rhetoric, Roland Kelts, TIME, May 31, 2013, 

retrieved from http://world.time.com/2013/05/31/the-identity-crisis-that-lurks-behind-japans-right-wing-rhetoric/

Japan’s Not-Quite-So-Nationalist Leader, Kirk Spitzer, TIME, January 3, 2013, 

retrieved from http://nation.time.com/2013/01/03/japans-not-quite-so-nationalist-leader/

Should She Lean In or Pull Back?

Should She Lean In or Pull Back? 

-Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg on a mission to reboot feminism-

Kiyotaka ISHIKAWA

Sheryl Sandberg, leading Facebook with its famous CEO, draws the world’s attention not as the company’s COO but as a woman, wife, and mother. Her first book, Lean In, is still on the bestseller list since published in the U.S. early this year. This raises a question: why are we still arguing about women and success although gender equality in business has been advocated for a few decades? Probably, it is due to the absence of a role model who plays a successful woman both in business and home as we know few female leaders in companies, even fewer of them successful as a partner and working parents. Sandberg is taking that place and refueling feminism. Why does she try to empower business women for success, and is it worth trying?

Why women need to lean in

Statistics show tiny presence of women in executive positions. The percentage of female CEOs at Fortune 500 companies is 4.2 % in 2013, slightly improved from 1.4% in 2003, while women make up almost half the workforce and even exceed men in the rate of holding college degree over the 25-34 age group. When Sandberg refers to what or who is keeping women down from success in business, she puts emphasis on the invisible barrier in women’s minds. Females are raised from birth to have different expectations such as “Don’t be outspoken, aggressive, more powerful than men.” Women internalize these negative messages they get throughout their lives to result in wrecking women’s ability to advance into senior positions. 

How to lean in

Sandberg’s argument in the book is that how to get rid of these internal barriers is critical to gaining power. Most importantly among all tips she shows, we, both men and women, need to be aware of the penalty women pay for success. An experiment suggests that success and likability are positively correlated for men and negatively for women. The examinee students were assigned to read a female successful entrepreneur’s story. Half of them read the original one while the other half read the same story with just a difference—her name was changed to a man’s. As a result, the latter group with the alternation of her name came across as a more appealing colleague. On the other hand, she was seen as selfish and not the type of person the subjects would want to hire or work with.  

By showing both men and women how female colleagues are held to different standards, we can start changing attitudes today. Sandberg is one of such women who have been be said “too aggressive,” “not a term player,” or “a bit political” even in the current manners of gender equality. Sometimes, a manager like her at companies receives feedback that a woman who reported by her colleagues is “too aggressive,” but she asks the people who gave the feedback, “If a man had done those same things, would you have considered him too aggressive?” They always says no. She continues “we have to both fight against the barriers and get them out of our consciousness.”

Leaning in is not the option for all?

Sandberg’s argument is based on her ideal of true equality where women ran half of our countries and companies and men ran half of our home. Do women who she is trying to empower really want that kind power, even if female accomplishment comes at a cost? A lot of working women today might feel happy to lean back from their ambition to play a limited role that has been systematically told they were supposed to do, considering what they have to lose when their colleagues realized their success. It is a highly personal decision so no one should pass judgement on this. However, there’s an ambition gap between men and women because a woman is less likely to have an environment where she can pursuit her ambition than a man is, not because women genetically tend to be not as ambitions as men. Sandberg is just trying to see where boys and girls end up if they get equal encouragement, and she is sure about that we might have some differences in how leadership is done but no difference in its quality. 

Comments

A woman does not necessarily need to be as aggressive as a man at her leading position in companies, but, instead, she would be required to have irreplaceable qualities in order to compete with male rivals, just as Sandberg does. The CEO Zuckerberg admits her unique abilities as the only female top executive in Facebook, especially her high emotional quotient (EQ) as well as efficiency. In a meeting to discuss the purchase of a Web-design company, Sandberg reminded her team that the firm’s founder was about to have a birthday and wanted to get the deal done before the big day. That consideration turned out to be very effective in the company acquisition.

Her episodes support that women can lead companies quite successfully but in different way male leaders do. According to data from McKinsey’s company survey, businesses with more women on their boards are more profitable. It is a benefit of companies for women to come over the internal barriers in their mind, and, of course, it is also the true accomplishment of their ambitions, offsetting what they have to pay for the success and even paying off. So, it’s worth trying. 

*Belinda Luscombe, Confidence Woman, TIME, March 18 issue, 2013, pp.22-31.

**Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead, Knopf, 2013.

THE CONFLICT OF THE BILINGUAL MIND

THE CONFLICT OF THE BILINGUAL MIND

The multilingual education raises children nimbler but too language-oriented?

Kiyotaka ISHIKAWA

As the world more globalized, we have a lot of situation in schools, business, and daily lives that requires more than one language. One of the most effective way to learn a multilingual skill is to start early, precisely during a pre-school period when an ability to acquire languages peaks at 9 months and sharply drop off at 6 years. Mastery of multiple languages in this period, according to a study, unexpectedly affects neurological structure of growing brains, which means bilingual children grow nimbler. However, some mothers with a half-blood child concern the brain specialized in multilingual skills might miss his chances to have interest in non-lingual subjects. Does putting children in a multilingual environment necessarily do better than a monolingual education does?

Learning a second language can produce a nimbler mind

A physiological experiment last year in Sweden proved there is detectable growth in the nerve system among a group of children mastering an unfamiliar language as compared to a controlled group studying non-lingual subjects. Most changes were observed in the cognitive areas of the brain, for example, in the hippocampus which governs memory, and in the cerebral cortex, where higher-order reasoning is proceeded. 

This is coherent with a result of the empirical experiment, known as the Stroop test, in which subjects are flashed the names of colors on a screen, with the word matching or mismatching the actual colors of the letters, and are told to say the color’s name. The point  of the test is to examine simultaneous recognition of the color and the letter in the case of mismatch; announcing only the color while ignoring what the word says. At the trial, almost all bilingual subjects are faster and make fewer mistakes than monolinguals. 

These consequences indicate the bilinguals retain a higher cognitive ability and do better at handling multiple tasks simultaneously. A research psychologist attributes the bilinguals’ superiority over the cognitive test to the fewer loss of efficiency when they rotate among tasks, called the global switch cost in psychology. She says, “Everyone slows down some or makes more errors, but multilinguals have less of the drop-off.”

Bilingual education may fail to establish profession

Although it is surely advantageous over monolinguals for children to speak more than one language and even have a smarter brain among classmates and colleagues, they have to give up something everyone has in order to gain what the others do not have. There are time and interest limits over human’s intellectual development, so devoting one’s time and interest mainly to language mastery means missing a chance to learn something else.

An essay writer Sandra Haefelin, a half Germany and half Japanese, analyzes people with mixed blood of Germany and Japanese, comparing those who speak only Germany to those proficient at the both languages, and empirically concludes the German speakers are more likely to be engaged in a highly-specialized job like a doctor, lawyer, or engineer. Contrarily, the bilinguals tend to show a deep interest in language and culture and result in starting their career as a interpreter or translator.

Therefore, multilingual education may possibly spoil a child’s aptitude for non-lingual fields such as science, music, or sports. In other words, once a bilingual brain is developed at expense of time and interest in childhood, he might live the rest of life without begin aware of his talent even if he was a born mathematician, being afraid of wasting those resources already spent.

Conclusions

On the one hand, the neuroscientific evidence proves multilingual training at the primary stage of education enhances a child’s ability to process a few tasks simultaneously at faster pace and greater accuracy than monolinguals do. On the other hand, his inborn capability over non-lingual subjects could be prevented from expression by forcing him to concentrate his attention on language mastery. 

This issue is about a typical dilemma every person involved in education concerns about, that is, do they train a child’s brain so that he gains intellectual advantage at the early stage of life, or do they try not to interfere a child’s interest so as to improve his ability along his aptitude? 

From my case of primary education, I respect how my parents provided me with a variety of opportunity to find out my aptitude by myself. They sent me swimming, gymnastics, piano, and Japanese calligraphy school, and took me a number of foreign countries when summer vacations came, but never forced me after entering the high school. So, I believe I could have established my own core values and trained myself to develop ability for my career, and I would do the same thing as my parents did, for my future child. 

*kluger, Jeferey, “The Power of the Bilingual Brain,” TIME, pp.32-37, July 29, 2013

**Haefelin, Sandra, “The Pitfalls of the Bilingual,” retrieved from http://young-germany.jp/article_315

Japan’s Recruiting is Really Outdated?

Japan’s Recruiting is Really Outdated?

The comparison of Japan’s recruiting custom to the global practice

Kiyotaka ISHIKAWA

“Once you miss the chance, you are a loser for the rest of your life.” This is a usual saying when Japan’s recruitment system goes into a controversy. Same as the global practice of recruitment, Japan’s students have to find their job during their final year of the university,  however, different from the global practice, otherwise they will have much less opportunity to be a regular employee. This point of criticism is quite reasonable, but it does not, by any means, justify blindly admiring of the American recruitment practice. This article* provides with a fair discussion over Japan’s recruitment custom, suggesting a few liable misleading of American job offering, and focusing on rational aspects in Japan’s recruitment.

Generally accepted criticisms on periodic recruiting of new graduates

It is a problem that the current recruitment system is too stressful for students; however, is that really good reason for promoting the social mobility of employment and the diversity of career? A typical suggestion persuades major companies to change the current practice, saying that “Look at the American, we can manage human resources more rationally if we make use of graduated students and mid-career workers.” Another says “Look at the American, we can create innovative products and services like Apple and Google if we hire various people with various careers.” IS THAT REALLY SO?

America’s recruiting is not that good as the Japanese think

For the first point of the issue, the social mobility of employment, it is exact that American major companies advertise for young employees regardless of the graduation year nor season, that is called the entry level employment. However, this type of job offer requires business experiences in the corresponding categories, so most American students have to start their career as an associate staff or trainee for a small salary. Those workers who get the first job in that way, unlike the regular employee post in Japan, do not expect promotions and pay raises.

Secondly, the diversity of career is also misleading context of employment in the United States. Yes, the American workers change their job more frequently than the Japanese do, yet they hardly change their specialty. Once they have apprenticeship in a certain job category, it is difficult to change the course whether the job is suited for them or not, because they have to fight for a position among well-experienced mid-career people. As a result, the American employees in big companies are even more standardized than the Japanese. Thinking about Macintosh and Google’s search engine, none of these were born in a big company but in a garage.

Re-evaluating the rational aspects of Japan’s old-fashioned recruitment 

As often pointed out, Japan’s recruitment system is based on the periodic employment of inexperienced students, which might sound irrational competition for the homogeneous working environment. Even if so, putting newcomers with similar inexperience into training reduces the education costs. On the other hand, there is a disadvantage in the American system that employing workers along with their own specialty means they only have to do their job and have no prospect to promote into a higher position.

The sense of loyalty in most of Japanese companies raises discussion over the negative aspect of remaining in a single company for life; for example, such an attitude toward the company prevents employees from establishing their specialty. Nevertheless, that form of service works well in the way that employees can find the most suited kind of job in the company by going through a variety of types of job. Moreover, the personnel changes within the company can be responsible to unexpected cases over human relations at a minimum cost, for instance, a worker having trouble with his boss. 

Conclusions

In summary, the American practice of recruitment are not necessarily a good medicine for the syndrome of Japan’s corporate structure in the labor market because adopting the very way of the U.S. cause also a few of side effects. Neither way of Japan nor America can save students entering to business from hardship in job hunting; switching to the specialty-based employment in turn deepens standardization of human resources in the context of major companies. 

Contrarily, the Japanese custom of recruitment is re-discovered to have a number of good characters worth evaluating in terms of business rationality. As long as young workers are adopted and remain in the closed corporate structure, personnel affairs are quite rationally optimized in newcomer education and human resource allocation. 

*Ebihara, T. (2009), Koyou no Joushiki (The Sense of Recruitment), p.183-200, Chikuma Publishing.