Read Japan's New Middle Class: The Salary Man and His Family in a Tokyo Suburb Online
Authors: Ezra F. Vogel
Tags: #General, #Social Science, #Sociology, #History, #Asia, #Social History, #Japan, #Social conditions, #Social Classes, #Middle class
basis of convenience of location, his general attitude and reputation, and the introduction of friends. The Mamachi doctor's business interests are more overt than those of his American counterpart. He dispenses drugs to his patients for a profit, and he may also operate his ward at a profit. He is permitted to advertise, and at the least he has a billboard calling attention to his location. Since the financial security of his family depends on his practice, he tries to accumulate some savings. Some professionals have formed mutual-benefit groups to help a member's family in case of need, but usually they cannot equal the security offered by the large organization in times of economic recession, accident, sickness, or retirement.
Setting up a private practice poses considerable financial risks because it requires a sizeable outlay of initial capital for machinery, much more so than a few years ago. with the standardization of medical education through medical schools, the cost of education has risen, and the age at which one can begin earning has also risen. It may take many years of practice before a young doctor can build up a practice, repay his debts to benefactors, and earn a comfortable living. Only a few decades ago it was common to serve a long period of apprenticeship with another doctor or dentist and then open a practice with the help of the older doctor and the savings accumulated during the apprenticeship. Most middle-aged practitioners of Mamachi got their start this way and now have no difficulty making an adequate living. Indeed, their income tends to be much higher than that of the salary man.
The basic problem confronting the older practitioners is that of assimilating the technical advances introduced from the West since the war. Some have not kept fully abreast of these changes, but other conscientious doctors have enrolled in special courses in addition to reading professional journals and attending special lectures or demonstrations sponsored by their former university or by the medical societies. The amount of skill required for such technical work and the individual responsibility for pursuing training while engaging in practice have made this problem particularly acute among the professionals.
Unlike the successful businessman who has broad responsibilities in community affairs, a doctor's activities, with few exceptions, are limited to his relationships with his patients, relatives, and profes-
sional colleagues. So much of his time is spent in his office or calling on his patients, that he has little time for outside activities. His professional relationships are more likely to be determined by the school he attended than by the community in which he now lives. Not only do fellow alumni have professional relationships but together they may engage in the full range of leisure-time activities, including drinking, group games, parties, and trips. Some doctors feel competitive with other doctors in Mamachi, but they generally do not feel competitive with fellow alumni. However, because of professional ethics and a steady clientele and income, doctors and dentists do not compete as bitterly as, for example, small shopkeepers.
Like successful businessmen, doctors rarely make a sharp separation between work and leisure hours, and to some extent working hours are determined by the arrival of patients. Most offices are open until eight or nine in the evening, and even in non-emergency situations, patients sometimes call the doctor at later hours. It has not been customary to schedule appointments, but now some doctors are attempting to set up regular appointments. The doctor-patient relationship is now coming to resemble the more contractual business-like arrangements between doctor and patient in the West, but even now, some patients bring presents and pay on a more informal basis than in the West. As one dentist jokingly remarked, he was starting to charge his customers standard prices just as if he were running a department store. For doctors, the standardization of prices has been greatly accelerated by the national health insurance which has set up a regular scale of fees. Nevertheless, doctors often do engage in informal visiting with a patient, provided there is no pressing work.
Because of the physical proximity of office to family, the doctor-husband spends considerable time at home, eating and visiting with the family between patients. Hence, he knows more about family activities, and exercises more authority in the home than the salary man or the businessman. For example, he may decide when his nurse or office assistant will help his wife with housework. If his wife is also his nurse, bill collector, and drug mixer, she is likely to be under her husband's constant supervision. Even the wife who does not help in his office and has a maid for the home does not have
the freedom from her husband's wishes that wives of salaried employees or of successful businessmen have. Concurrently, the wife is likely to know more about the activities of her husband, and he can have few monetary secrets from her. She has less reason to worry about her husband's recreational activities and expenses than the wife of the businessman, but she may get tired of her husband's tight supervision of her daily activities and may even wish that he spent less time at home.
Because professionals typically have more money than salaried employees, they are more likely to own the household articles they desire. Nevertheless, the decision to purchase may create more anxiety and worry than in the family of the salary man. Since professionals feel they must rely on their own savings in case of emergency, they are likely to put a large portion of their income into savings for emergencies and every purchase detracts from security. Despite the concern over savings, however, the successful private practitioner is likely to have a better house and furnishings than the average salary man.
To assure themselves of continuing income in old age, most professional families strongly encourage one of their children to take over the practice. The nature of family succession makes the independent professional family pattern most similar to the traditional farm family system. Just as the farm family often had too small a plot of land to divide among several sons, so the independent professional has a practice too small to divide among his children. One son is likely to inherit not only the practice but the home as well, and often this son and his wife and children continue to live with the parents even after the father's retirement. The son who inherits the father's practice is likely to be closer to his parents even before he goes into practice and to be allowed more participation in family decisions and arrangements. The other sons are then forced to go elsewhere and receive less financial help from their parents. Since passing on a practice to a son is a psychological and financial advantage to the father and an even greater financial advantage to the son, it is not surprising that a large percentage of dental and medical students are children of professionals who intend to take over their fathers' practice, or children of nonprofessionals who hope to marry a girl whose father has a practice to pass on. For these reasons, the
stem family remains a viable form among independent professionals.
For the son who succeeds to the father's profession, entrance examinations for a particular school are not overly important; as long as the son can get into any medical or dental school he will be able to continue his father's practice. For other sons who are likely to become salary men, examinations are more important, but professional fathers can finance private education more easily than salary men and therefore examination pressure on their sons is not so great.
Since the independent professional has little hope of being as powerful a community leader as the successful businessman, he is more likely to compare himself with the salary man. He has neither the security nor the short regular hours of the salary man. His style of life tends to be more comfortable than that of the salary man, and he can avoid the long daily commuting. If commuting time is added to working hours, the salary man probably puts in almost as many hours as the professional. The independent professional generally feels that his real advantage lies in his freedom to work when and how he pleases without having continually to strive to satisfy his superiors.
Mamachi has few factories and craft shops compared to some suburbs, and the lower groups on the social ladder consist mostly of shopkeepers. Because the shops carry a limited range of goods, they require little capital or training and offer little security. Because of the difficulties in accumulating capital, obtaining loans, or getting customers beyond easy walking distance, their opportunities for expansion are relatively limited.
The shopkeeper family depends upon a small daily income and must continuously struggle to make ends meet. At the present time, as department stores take over an increasing proportion of retail trade, many small shops are failing, and others are afraid of failing. Because of this fear, even the more successful shopkeepers live on a very tight budget which allows them only the barest necessities.
Although sales are small, shopkeepers work long hours for very little profit. There are some agreements among certain kinds of shopkeepers to close one or two days a month, but competition is still relatively uncontrolled by any association of shopkeepers so
that no one dares to close earlier or remain closed one day a week for fear that some of his business might go elsewhere. Most shopkeepers work a seven-day week, closing for only two or three holidays a year, opening as early as eight every morning and remaining open until ten or eleven in the evening. The work itself is not difficult, and between customers the shopkeeper can relax in his home; but the economic pressure is unrelenting.
Because of these long hours, there is little opportunity for any activity unrelated to the work. Some husbands may go out for recreation at times, if the wife and children can remain to care for the shop. The wife and children may try to prevent his outside activities since it may burden them with extra work and since the husband may spend part of their small income on a whim of his own.
While the relationships with customers are usually cordial, the relationships with other merchants, even between shops in different lines of business, tend to be unfriendly.
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In general, shopkeepers seem to feel that the other neighbors, like themselves, live a miserable existence and do not wish to associate themselves with such a life.
Because they can operate the business in his absence, the wife and children are not so completely dependent on the husband for income. In contrast to the small craft shops which require physical labor and ordinarily can be operated only by men, a number of shops are operated by widows and children.
Since the husband and wife normally work together most of the time, they have a much closer relationship than any of the other occupational groups, but not necessarily a happier one. Family pleasures are sacrificed for business considerations, and the wife particularly feels harrassed by the pressures of work and the lack of time for herself or her children. She is envious of salaried men's wives whose days are devoted to the home while she must care for her children only in odd moments. She often carries a small child on her back while working in the store or even nurses between customers. Older children may be left alone in the living quarters while the mother is called out in the front to take care of a customer. Because they are almost always together, the husband has even
[8] In sentence-completion tests given to shopkeepers in another community, the responses to items about neighbors were almost universally critical and bitter.
more opportunity to give orders to his wife than the independent professional does, but shopkeepers' wives, feeling that they make a major contribution to family income, are often free in expressing their opinions to the husbands.
Although the general economic level of shopkeepers is much lower than that of professionals or salary men, some successful shopkeepers with several assistants or boarders from the country can have a style of life not too different from that of independent professionals, except that they have less security and the wife has less time for her children and for community activities.
The poor long-term economic prospects offer little motivation for passing the shops from one generation to the next. Many shops have been opened by migrants from the country who had no contacts for a better job, and a few of them have been opened by elderly people who had no other opportunity for making a living. Even if the business continues long enough to have a successor, it is not large enough for more than a single successor, and there is little enthusiasm for having a child follow this unsatisfactory way of life. If a son is capable enough to get a good job in a factory or to pass school examinations despite the lack of assistance from the family, the parents are pleased and honored. However, because the parents lack the educational background, time, and interest to help a child with his homework and because the children themselves are often busy working in the store, the likelihood of such children doing well on examinations is much less than that of children of salary men of equal intelligence. Many shopkeepers regard their present work as temporary and dream of getting a better job in a small firm or office. Yet they have little basis for expecting that their dreams will be realized, and in the meantime they cling to what little they have.
The salary men,
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who dominate Mamachi both in spirit and num-
[9] No attempt has been made in this chapter to trace in detail all variations of occupational groups living in Mamachi but only to highlight certain major patterns. However, one pattern not discussed separately because of its over-all similarity to the salary man requires special mention because of its numerical frequency: the white-collar worker in the small company.