The objective of this research is to take phenomenon and social concepts relevant to work in the broad sense as the object of study to scrutinize issues related to how they have changed or been maintained within the interaction of change to existing gender standards and political/economic conditions through a comparative research framework for the detailed results. While considering research concerning work accumulated from economics, sociology, history, and philosophy, we will also attempt to explore the possibilities for approaches that grapple with these issues from an anthropological perspective.

Specifically, we would like to address the following questions for the societies that are our objects of study: (1) specific determination of the content of activities classified as either work or non-work and who is responsible for the activities; and (2) changes of the consciousness of individuals engaged in specific activities and social evaluation under the impact of industrialization, colonization, socialization and globalization. (3) Through investigation of these processes of the changes and the relation between the societies and gender standard as shared questions, we hope through general discussions to elucidate the cultural multiplicity of the concept and practice of work in a broad sense.