Haloscopes

8.3.1 VISIBILITY OF GENDER IN JAPANESE NEWSPAPERS

Table 8 shows how each article indicated the gender of the baby boomers by topic and the phase being studied. In the table, ‘men’ includes the initially coded classifications of explicitly men, mainly men and implicitly men, while

‘women’ covers explicitly women, mainly women and implicitly women. The table shows that majority of the articles (60–70 per cent) falling under the topics ‘work, retirement and pension’, ‘activities, associations and relationships’ and ‘baby boomers as a generation’ discussed the baby boomers in terms of both genders or in a non-gendered way throughout the studied phases. However, approximately one-third of the articles for the entire period made exclusive reference to men, whereas discussions focusing on females

played only a minor role in these topics. Articles representing both genders or taking a non-gendered approach were dominant in the topic ‘ageing, health and care’, excluding phase II, during which time the articles exclusively referring to men accounted for 24 per cent. The reason for the prominence of men in that particular period might have had to do with growing social interest in the health condition of male boomer employees facing retirement. Likewise, with the topic ‘consumption and marketing’ approximately 80 per cent of the articles focused on both genders or took a non-gendered approach over time.

Even still, exclusive male discussions appeared in nearly 20 per cent of articles, whereas articles focusing exclusively on women were scarce.

The frequencies at which precise gender categories appeared in all articles (n=1109) throughout the entire period were as follows: 13 per cent making explicit reference to men (n=144), 1.6 per cent mainly to men (n=18), 16.2 per cent implicitly to men (n=180), 1.6 per cent explicitly to women (n=18), 0.5 per cent mainly to women (n=5), none implicitly to women, 17.1 per cent to both men and women (n=190), and 50 per cent with a non-gendered approach (n=554). Particularly remarkable was the difference between those implicitly referring to men and those implicitly referring to women. Supposing that both genders are incorporated in non-gendered discussions, 98 per cent of articles had arguments related to male baby boomers. On the other hand, arguments that included female baby boomers accounted for 69 per cent of the total. The results of the one-sample chi-square goodness of fit test between the two observations showed that the articles made references to men significantly more frequently than to women in Japanese newspaper discussions on the baby boomers (F²=278.797, df=1, p<.0001). The difference in frequency with respect to gender demonstrates that female baby boomers were underrepresented in media discussions during the studied period. This implies that the originally masculine discourses on the Japanese baby boomers (Sakaiya 2005/1976; Amano 2001) continued to have an impact on society during the retirement of the said population.

Table 8. Gender indication of Japanese baby boomers in newspaper articles by phase and topic

Indication of gender (%) Total

Men Women

Both/non-gendered N (%)

Phase I (2004–06)

Work, retirement and pension 39.1 1.0 59.9 289 (100.0)

Ageing, health and care 4.4 0.0 95.6 45 (100.0)

Consumption and marketing 14.6 0.0 85.4 103 (100.0)

Activities, associations and relationships 38.3 4.7 57.0 128 (100.0)

Baby boomers as a generation 32.0 4.0 64.0 50 (100.0)

All articles (N (%)) 182 (33.6) 8 (1.5) 351 (64.9) 541 (100.0)

Phase II (2007–09)

Work, retirement and pension 36.9 2.7 60.4 187 (100.0)

Ageing, health and care 23.5 2.9 73.5 34 (100.0)

Consumption and marketing 20.3 2.7 77.0 74 (100.0)

Activities, associations and relationships 32.1 5.4 62.5 112 (100.0)

Baby boomers as a generation 27.1 6.3 66.7 48 (100.0)

All articles (N (%)) 122 (31.0) 13 (3.3) 259 (65.7) 394 (100.0)

Phase III (2010–11)

Work, retirement and pension 35.7 0.0 64.3 28 (100.0)

Ageing, health and care 5.9 0.0 94.1 17 (100.0)

Consumption and marketing 20.0 0.0 80.0 5 (100.0)

Activities, associations and relationships 28.0 0.0 72.0 25 (100.0)

Baby boomers as a generation 37.5 0.0 62.5 8 (100.0)

All articles (N (%)) 16 (25.8) 0 (0.0) 46 (74.2) 62 (100.0)

Phase IV (2012–14)

Work, retirement and pension 27.3 0.0 72.7 11 (100.0)

Ageing, health and care 2.0 0.0 98.0 49 (100.0)

Consumption and marketing 20.0 6.7 73.3 15 (100.0)

Activities, associations and relationships 40.0 3.3 56.7 30 (100.0)

Baby boomers as a generation 26.3 0.0 73.7 19 (100.0)

All articles (N (%)) 22 (19.6) 2 (1.8) 88 (78.6) 112 (100.0)

Entire period

Work, retirement and pension 37.9 1.6 60.6 515 (100.0)

Ageing, health and care 8.3 0.7 91.0 145 (100.0)

Consumption and marketing 17.3 1.5 81.2 197 (100.0)

Activities, associations and relationships 35.3 4.4 60.3 295 (100.0)

Baby boomers as a generation 29.6 4.0 66.4 125 (100.0)

All articles (N (%)) 342 (30.8) 23 (2.1) 744 (67.1) 1109 (100.0)

Note: One article can be categorised under multiple topics.

8.3.2 INVISIBILITY OF GENDER IN FINNISH NEWSPAPER

Though gender representation of the ageing Finnish baby boomers in newspaper articles was examined by classifying several patterns similarly as with the Japanese data,¹² the results were somewhat surprising. Of the total number of articles (n=127), 97.6 per cent took a non-gendered approach (n=124). The categorisation of the rest was as follows: one article focusing on men and women (0.8 per cent), one article mainly on men (0.8 per cent) and one article mainly on women (0.8 per cent).

Table 9 shows the distribution of articles indicating the gender of the baby boomers by topic and studied phase. The dominance of the category ‘both genders or gendered’, in which all except one article adopted a non-gendered approach, reveals that the baby boomers were not discussed in terms gender in the Finnish newspaper. Most articles instead regarded the baby boomers as a depersonalised mass and did not pay particular attention to the gender of the boomers. The gender of the baby boomers was invisible and disregarded in media discussions in Finland. The invisibility of gender might result from the fact that the majority of the articles discussed the baby boomers as a generation or cohorts rather than as individual baby boomers. However, the results might partly be due to the nature of Finnish data, i.e. a focus on editorial articles while excluding other types of newspaper reports.

12 The method for investigating how newspaper discussions included a gender perspective is described in subsection 7.3.2, Analysing the Japanese data, and in subsection 7.3.3, Analysing the Finnish data.

Table 9. Gender indication of Finnish baby boomers in newspaper articles by phase and topic

Indication of gender (%) Total Men Women

Both/non-gendered N (%) Phase I (2000)

Work, retirement and pension 0.0 0.0 100.0 7 (100.0)

Ageing, health and care 0.0 0.0 100.0 5 (100.0)

Current events in economic and political affairs Baby boomers as a generation

Other

All articles (N (%)) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 10 (100.0) 10 (100.0)

Phase II (2001–07)

Work, retirement and pension 0.0 0.0 100.0 39 (100.0)

Ageing, health and care 0.0 0.0 100.0 16 (100.0)

Current events in economic and political affairs 0.0 0.0 100.0 10 (100.0)

Baby boomers as a generation 0.0 0.0 100.0 3 (100.0)

Other 0.0 0.0 100.0 1 (100.0)

All articles (N (%)) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 58 (100.0) 58 (100.0)

Phase III (2008–15)

Work, retirement and pension 0.0 0.0 100.0 31 (100.0)

Ageing, health and care 0.0 5.6 94.4 18 (100.0)

Current events in economic and political affairs 0.0 0.0 100.0 12 (100.0)

Baby boomers as a generation 7.7 0.0 92.3 13 (100.0)

Other 0.0 0.0 100.0 3 (100.0)

All articles (N (%)) 1 (1.7) 1 (1.7) 57 (96.6) 59 (100.0)

Entire period

Work, retirement and pension 0.0 0.0 100.0 77 (100.0)

Ageing, health and care 0.0 2.6 97.4 39 (100.0)

Current events in economic and political affairs 0.0 0.0 100.0 22 (100.0)

Baby boomers as a generation 5.6 0.0 94.4 18 (100.0)

Other 0.0 0.0 100.0 4 (100.0)

All articles (N (%)) 1 (0.8) 1 (0.8) 125 (98.4) 127 (100.0)

Note: One article can be categorised under multiple topics.

8.4 ROLE AND PLACEMENT OF THE BABY BOOMERS