Staying on the Line: Blue-Collar Women in Contemporary Japan

This is a persuasive, multilayered analysis of a vital but little-examined sector of the Japanese workforce--the female permanent blue-collar worker. Through personal accounts of factory life, the author examines why these women work, what satisfaction they find in remaining in the workforce, and how they meet the demands of work and household, caught in a contradiction between traditional socio-cultural ideology and modern economic reality.