Dr. Lenka Vyletalova (Palacky University Olomouc) will talk about “Mapping the Transnational Migration of Highly Skilled Japanese Women in Dual Career Couple Context: a Conflict or a Confluence of Career and Family Trajectories?”
You can join this lecture via Zoom (registration). Look forward to seeing you all online!
Abstract
Given the traditionally low ratio of women among the Japanese organizational expatriates, their function in the transnational mobility has long been reduced to their supporting roles as trailing spouses or nurturing mothers. However, a growing number of Japanese female professionals relocate abroad as self-initiated expatriates, and continue a transnational career path even after creating a family. Furthermore, not all those who relocate under the spouse Visa are in fact professionally inactive, proving their agency in defying the traditional power relations between men and women within the context of transnational family-based mobility.
The present empirical study builds on qualitative interviews with Japanese female migrants in Switzerland and Czech Republic, who relocate in the context of a dual career household. It firstly explores both risks and potential of transnational labor mobility through a consideration of conflicting issues related to work/care regimes and institutions or the role of gender in the work- family interaction. The narrative is then taken into perspective in considering Japanese social norms, gender roles and care regimes that continue to reconstruct barriers for more equality-based use of the talent pool that women as a half of the workforce represent.
Bio
Lenka Vyleťalová is an assistant professor at the Department of Asian Studies at Palacký University Olomouc, where she earned her MA degree. She also holds an MBA from Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 and a PhD in Global Studies from Sophia University in Tokyo. Since 2017 she has been affiliated as a Collaborative Researcher at the Institute of Comparative Culture of Sophia University. Her primary research interests include skilled labor mobility, gender inequality, and the impact of globalization on Japanese society. She has coauthored several chapters in the recently published book, "The Global Japanese Restaurant: Mobilities, Imaginaries, and Politics.”