Holbrow, Hilary J. 2025. “Tainted Leave: A Survey-Experimental Investigation of Flexibility Stigma in Japanese Workplaces.” Social Forces. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soaf063.

Abstract: Scholars posit that the flexibility stigma—a belief that workers who use flexible workplace policies, such as parental and sick leave—exacerbates gender inequality. However, a large body of research argues that the smaller number of men who take leaves face even more severe stigma than women because they violate norms of masculinity as well as the employers’ expectation that employees prioritize paid work. Empirical evidence in support of this claim comes largely from studies that estimate stigma using proxy measures such as leave uptake rates and pay inequality for leave takers. This study tests the gender deviance perspective more directly using survey experimental methods, in a setting where we would expect stigmatization of male leave takers to be particularly high—among workers in four elite firms in Japan. Drawing on data from over 8,000 employees, the results reveal that, even where the male breadwinner ideology is deeply entrenched, men’s leaves are no more stigmatized than women’s. To the contrary, there are no gender differences in stigmatization of sick leave, and women who take parental leave face more severe stigmatization than men. The results undercut claims that men face greater stigma when they take similar leaves as women, demonstrate the fallibility of proxy measures of stigma, and highlight how, in large Japanese firms, women remain doubly disadvantaged by the flexibility stigma.

Hilary J. Holbrow is Assistant Professor of Japanese Politics and Society. A sociologist by training, her scholarship examines social and economic inequality, work and organizations, immigration, and the intersections of gender, race, and ethnicity. She is an International Research Fellow at the Canon Institute for Global Studies in Tokyo, an Associate in Research at Harvard’s Reischauer Institute, and a member of the US-Japan Network for the Future. 

Her book manuscript on gender and ethnic inequality in Japanese white-collar workplaces explores how status hierarchies evolve in response to changing and economic and social conditions, and specifically whether Japanese women and immigrants will be able to achieve greater parity with Japanese men as Japan’s population declines. She is currently conducting survey, survey-experimental, and interview research to understand the sources of persistent gender inequality in Japan’s white-collar workplaces, the experiences of professional Asian migrants to Japan, and the effects of Japan’s trainee system on migrant outcomes. Her previous research has been published in International Migration Review, Work and Occupations, and Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.