背景介绍：
日本正在加大对因生育和育儿而离职的女性回归职场的支援。在人手不足问题制约增长的背景下，如果女性缺少发挥能力的机会，那么生产效率将无望提高。日本政府为了帮助暂时离开职场的女性找到待遇良好的工作而支援其重新学习，企业则推广重新雇用的制度。
Married women
in Japan are re-entering the labour market
日本已婚女性重返职场
Legislators
see them as the country’s hidden asset
立法者将她们视为国家的隐形资产
After graduating from college, Obora Shizue, now in her
40s, was building a solid career at an insurance firm. But after giving birth
to her first child she became a full-time mother.
大学毕业后，现已 40 多岁的 Obora Shizue 在一家保险公司拥有稳定的事业。但在生下第一个孩子后，她成为了一名全职母亲。
“I wanted to keep working, but I suppressed those feelings,” she says. But unlike previous generations of Japanese women she was unwilling to stay at home. Eight years later, in 2015, she returned to work as a journalist.
她说：“我很想继续工作，但我压抑了这种想法。”但与之前几代的日本女性不同，她不愿待在家里。八年后的2015年，她重返职场，成为了一名记者。
Ms Obora represents a hugely important change. Female
participation in Japan’s labour force used to be much lower than in other big
rich countries. For decades most women quit their jobs after giving birth to
their first child.
Obora 女士代表了一种极其重要的变化。日本女性参与劳动力市场的比例曾远低于其他富裕大国。几十年来，大多数女性在生下第一个孩子后就会辞职。
Outdated tax and welfare systems, as well as cultural mores, underpinned this anomaly. But it is now becoming less pronounced. As Japan’s labour force ages and shrinks, women are playing a growing role in it.
过时的税收和福利制度以及文化习俗都助长了这种反常现象。但现在，这种现象已经不那么明显了。随着日本劳动力老龄化和规模缩小，女性在其中扮演着越来越重要的角色。
In 2022 the employment rate for women aged 25-39 surpassed 80% for the first time since records began. Meanwhile, the percentage of households with stay-at-home wives fell below 30%, another record.
2022年，25至39岁女性的就业率自有记录以来首次超过80%。与此同时，全职妻子的家庭比例降至30%以下，也创下纪录。
A shift in cultural attitudes towards women and work
underlies this change. As talent has become scarcer, working women are more
prized. Japanese women’s high education levels make them well placed to take
advantage of the shift: 53% of women go to university in Japan, compared with
59% of men. “Women are Japan’s hidden asset,” says Mori Masako, a former
gender-equality minister.
女性与工作之间的文化态度的转变是这一变化的基础。随着人才变得越来越稀缺，职业女性越来越受重视。日本女性的高教育水平使她们能够充分利用这一转变：在日本，53%的女性上过大学，而男性的比例为 59%。前性别平等大臣 Mori Masako 说：“女性是日本的隐形资产。”
But outdated family laws still serve as a barrier to
women’s advancement. Japanese tax and welfare policies discourage married women
from working. When “dependent
spouses
” earn less than 1.3m yen ($8,900) a year,
they do not need to pay in to public-pension and health-insurance schemes.
然而，过时的家庭法仍然阻碍着女性的进步。日本的税收和福利政策并不鼓励已婚女性工作。当“受抚养配偶”的年收入低于130万日元（约合8900美元）时，他们无需向公共养老金和医疗保险计划缴费。
A government report published in October suggested that more than 1.1m working women were limiting their working hours and earnings in order to stay under that threshold.
10月份发布的一份政府报告指出，超过110万名职业女性为了保持收入低于这一门槛，正在限制自己的工作时间和收入。
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is starting
to take steps to tackle the issue. Last October the government introduced
subsidies and other measures to alleviate the effects of the so-called “income
wall”, which penalises women who go over the million-yen threshold. Experts
reckon lawmakers will further
chip away at
the income wall next year, following
a five-yearly review of the pension system.
执政党自民党已经开始采取措施解决这一问题。去年10月，政府推出了补贴和其他措施，以缓解所谓的“收入门槛”带来的影响，该门槛对年收入超过百万日元的女性不利。专家们认为，在五年一度的养老金制度审查之后，立法者将在明年进一步破除收入门槛。
But such policy updates alone may not be enough to
entice millions of Japanese housewives back to the workplace. Oshima Yasuko of
Recruit Works Institute, a research outfit, reckons a bigger shift in corporate
culture is needed.
但是，仅靠这样的政策更新可能还不足以吸引数百万日本家庭主妇重返职场。研究机构 Recruit Works Institute 的 Oshima Yasuko 认为，还需要在企业文化方面进行更大的转变。
In a study in 2019, she showed that among housewives who re-entered the workforce some 30% soon quit because they found it difficult to balance work schedules with child-rearing and household chores.
在2019年的一项研究中，她发现，在重返职场的家庭主妇中，约有30%的人很快就辞职了，因为她们发现很难在工作安排与抚养孩子和做家务之间取得平衡。
Re-entering the workforce after a pause is also hard because Japanese firms tend to look with suspicion on candidates with “blanks” in their résumé. Ms Obora, who suffered many rejections before landing her journalism job, describes how
demoralising
that can be. “I used to think if I become a housewife once, I’ll always be one.”
在暂停工作后重返就业也很难，因为日本企业往往对那些履历中有“空白”的求职者持怀疑态度。Obora 女士在找到记者这份工作之前曾多次遭到拒绝，她描述了这是多么令人沮丧。“我以前总以为，一旦成了家庭主妇，我将永远是一名家庭主妇。”
重难点词汇
：
spouse
[spaʊs] n. 配偶
chip away at
削弱；蚕食
demoralize
[dəˈmɔrəˌlaɪz] v. 使气馁；使堕落；使腐化
