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Workplaces
  1. The Work Group
  2. Office Arrangements
  3. Office Ladies (OL)
  4. Enterprise Unions in Japan
  5. Enterprise Union Cooperation
  6. Strikes Japanese-Style
  7. Sexual Harassment
  8. Separate Surnames for Married Couples
  9. “Mighty” Women: Police and the Military Self Defense Force
  10. Ama (Female Diver)
  11. Who Farms in Japanese Farm Households?
  12. San-Chan Nōgyō
  13. The Changing Income of Farm Households
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San-Chan Nōgyō means everyone works.
Photo from NHK.or.jp.
San-Chan Nōgyō
Part-time farming, or kengyō nōka, remains a big part of farm life in Japan. The mechanization of agriculture even on a small scale meant that much less human labor was needed to grow rice. Family members could take other paying jobs, and only help with farming during the busiest transplanting and harvesting times. When the father in the family works at an outside job, often it is his parents and wife who do nearly all of the farm work. This kind of family farming came to be called “san-chan nōgyō” because the farming (nōgyō) is done by grandfather (ojī-chan), grandmother (obā-chan) and mother (okā-chan), the three (san) “chan.” Nowadays even the mother in such a family is likely to have an outside, wage-earning job.
Special Terms: wage-earning job  |  transplant (rice)  |  sanchan nōgyō, sanchan nogyo, santyan nôgyô, sanchan nougyou

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