Coronavirus forcing more and more women into poverty Dec. 15, 2020 06:59 am JST Dec. 15, 2020 | 06:59 am JST TOKYO
Early this year “Mikako Masuda” (a pseudonym, like all the names in this story) quit a low-paying job and went back to school. She was 31 and tired, after eight years of irregular, precarious and meaningless employment, of going nowhere in life. Her heart was set on change. She would become a nurse, she decided. She’d be of use to society, while at the same time steadying her own finances.
Working part-time at a café and a supermarket, she earned 150,000 yen a month, enough for nursing school tuition and the necessities of daily life. Then in spring came the emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Her hours were shortened, her earnings halved.