The Development of Vocational Education for Women and the Emergence of “Working Women” in Interwar Japan

Research on prewar Japanese technical education is an area where education history and business/economic history have interacted considerably in the twentieth century. The key historical findings that have emerged, however, are distinctly “his”-tory—centered overwhelmingly on men. This paper, drawing inspiration from gender-aware research in business and economic history, attempts to examine both the rapid expansion of vocational education for women in the prewar period (1920s–1930s) and the emergence of new service-sector occupations for women, referred to at the time as “working women.” In aiming to bridge these two developments, the paper offers a foundation for future studies of the relationship between high-speed growth in vocational education for women and the diversification of female clerical employment in company settings during the period.