This paper explores social stratification and social inequality in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan by comprehensively analyzing the effects of occupation on one's class status. In this paper, the author examines the effects that a person's occupational conditions, such as occupation (interpreted narrowly), employment status, type of employment contract (standard or non-standard), and company size, have on his/her individual income and class consciousness, and how these effects vary within East Asian societies on the basis of each society's unique labor market structure and local institutions.
The analysis of the 2005 Social Stratification and Social Mobility (SSM) survey data led to the following findings. On the whole, the effects of occupational conditions on income and class consciousness are similar within all these societies. However, the relative impacts of these conditions differ considerably. While occupation (narrowly interpreted) has predominant effects in Taiwan, the effects of company size and type of employment contract are also considerable in Japan, and partly so in Korea.
It is also notable that in the case of Japanese males, company size and type of employment contract have significant effects on class consciousness, even after the effects of individual income are controlled. These effects can be attributed to some factors that are unique to the Japanese management system, such as career-long employment and the wage seniority system that are usually offered to the standard male employees of large companies. From these findings, we can conclude that we should focus on local institutional factors as well as global factors for a better understanding of present-day social stratification and social inequality in East Asian societies.