The
rice cooker was invented in Japan to meet
domestic needs. Women usually cooked the
rice by hand, but as women began to enter the work force, the need to
decrease
cooking time became desirable. Before
WWII, a majority of the Japanese women worked in family businesses such
as
small stores or family farms, giving them flexible hours.
By 1950, about 48% of the women were in the
work force[1]. Instead
of having to watch
the rice cooking, time could be better spent preparing the rest of the
meal or
doing other chores. In 1956, the first
effective rice cooker was sold[2].
It is no surprise that the
large
number
of
women working coincided with the testing of better rice cookers.
http://www.jei.org/Archive/JEIR98/9842f.html
The
success of the rice cooker as a household appliance was due to the
importance of
rice in Asian countries. Rice was usually
the staple diet in these countries & in Hawaii.
This made the rice cooker more of a necessity in Hawaii
and many Asian countries, than a convenience as it was on the
continental U.S.A.
In
1997, 80% of the women in the work force in Japan
worked in the public and
private sectors. This was a big increase
compared to 1960, during which only 40% of the working women worked in
public
and private sectors and 60% worked in family
businesses or were self employed[1]. The
shift to jobs in the
public and private sectors decreased the flexibility of their working
hours.
In
the United States,
only about one in three women was in the work force in 1950. Contrast this to nearly three out of every
five
women in the work force by 1998[3].
Because
time dedicated for cooking has become more limited, increased
automation in the
rice making process is desirable. If the
rice could already be prepared by the time people returned from work,
dinner
could be started faster. At present
there are timers to start the rice cooking process but that
necessitates
leaving the rice soaking in water all day, leading to mushy rice.
If there was a rice cooker that could wash the rice at a set
time, and
then begin the cooking process, people would have perfectly fresh
rice
waiting for
them when they returned home. That is what
our solution tries to solve.
http://www.jei.org/Archive/JEIR98/9842f.html
