Paper Title
Current State and Perspectives on Career Development in Japan

Abstract
In Japan, the link between age and organizational positions, qualifications, and grades has been established within the organization. In other words, life-stage and career-stage have been synchronized and integrated from an organizational point of view. Currently, Japanese industries are undergoing abrupt change in conjunction with recent economic globalization and rapid technological progress and innovations. Thus, the synchronization of life-stage and career-stage has collapsed. In addition, the era of the 100-year lifespan has arrived in Japan. First, this paper reviews the current state of career development systems in Japan. Second, recent revisions of Japanese government policies for human resource development are described. The final section offers perspectives into the need for Japanese people to rise to the challenge of building life-career from an individualistic perspective. Index Terms - Career development, Career support, Career ownership, 100-year lifespan