Young voices from a precarious Japan : A qualitative study on young educated women’s experiences of their life situations and perception of the future in Japan

Abstract: Recent generations of Japanese youth face a diminished and precarious labour market and are pushed to the anxious margins of the society. Many are feeling less secure about the future and this precarisation is disproportionately affecting women. The social and economic precariousness is being intensified by the Covid-19 pandemic and this change of circumstances affect women to a larger extent. The aim of the thesis is to shed light on young women’s vulnerability in Japan by asking the question how they experience their circumstances of life and perceive their future. Drawing on the concept of precariousness, the thesis conducted a critical discursive psychology analysis by looking at which interpretative repertoires and subject positions that can be identified from the interviewees’ accounts. The analysis illustrated how more gendered interpretative repertoires could be identified in the narratives and how different aspects of the interviewees’ lives are more precarious, but they are still confident about their own capacity to manage their lives. Anxiety over the future is also prominent and the identified subject positions are mostly ‘troubled’ or resistant. Depending on the social context, some (‘troubled’) subject positions result in a more precarious condition.