Marital Dissolution in Japan

Very little is known about recent trends in divorce in Japan. In this paper, we use Japanese vital statistics and census data to describe trends in the experience of marital dissolution across the life course, and to examine change over time in educational differentials in divorce. Cumulative probabilities of marital dissolution have increased rapidly across successive marriage cohorts over the past twenty years, and synthetic period estimates suggest that roughly one-third of Japanese marriages are now likely to end in divorce. Estimates of educational differentials also indicate a rapid increase in the extent to which divorce is concentrated at lower levels of education. While educational differentials were negligible in 1980, by 2000, women who had not gone beyond high school were far more likely to be divorced than those with more education.divorce, education, educational differentials, Japan, marital dissolution, marriage, marriage cohorts, synthetic cohort estimates

Divorce in Japan: Why It Happens, Why It Doesn’t

In this paper I address two critical questions about divorce in postwar Japan: Why is the divorce rate so low compared to other industrialized economies? And, Why is it rising? I examine divorce in the context of institutional change, and discuss how the rising divorce rate in Japan is an outcome of the dynamic interactions between economic development and demographic change at the macro-level, and changes in social norms and attitudes that govern the behavior of individuals at the micro-level. The divorce rate in Japan is rising because there is a tradeoff between marital stability and gender equality. The drive towards equal status between the sexes narrows the dependency between the spouses, and offsets the costs and benefits of marriage. Lower dependency allows greater voice, and lowers the cost of exiting a marriage. The diversity of family forms such as civil unions and cohabitation allows couples to choose alternatives to marriage, which in turn weakens the institution of marriage. Alternatively, the divorce rate in Japan is low compared to the U.S. and Europe because dependency between the spouses is greater, alternatives to marriage are fewer, and the legacy of the traditional gender division of labor continues to influence the actions and attitudes of men and women.Japan; institutional change; divorce; gender; norms; dependency; cohabitation; marriage; children.

Parasites and Raven Mothers: A German-Japanese comparison on (lone) motherhood

Having a child out of wedlock used to be associated with shame and scorn. This is mostly not the case any more in the western world. Therefore, freed from social sanctions, single motherhood has become an additional family-choice alternative for women, along with marriage and childlessness. Yet, the institutions that influence women’s decisions differ across countries. We compare the institutional frame, in particular labor-market characteristics and family law, in Germany and Japan and, in addition, the interaction between culture and institutions. Both countries had a very traditional (one-earner) family system until the second half of the 20th century. Now we can observe that social changes that happened in Germany decades ago are happening only now in Japan. We analyze if and how the consequences in terms of family structures and fertility rates that resulted in Germany can be transfered to Japan.

Delay in Marriage and Income Inequality in Japan: The Impact of the Increased Number of Unmarried Adults Living with Their Parents on the Household Economy

The continuous decline in the fertility rate has been witnessed since 1980 in Japan. Japan's total fertility rate in 2005 is 1.32, which is far below the replacement rate, 2.08. One of the main reasons for declining the fertility rate is the delay in marriage or even shy away from marriage among young adults. In this paper, looking at youth interms of their relation to the household, we will examine the economic disparities of unmarried adults living with their parents in Japan in comparative perspective with Europe and U.S. The countries which I analyze in this paper are France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, U.K., U.S., and Taiwan, compared with Japan. The paper consists of twoparts. First, I will examine economic disparities among households with unmarried adults, and second, the determinants of co-residence with their parents will be scrutinized. The degree of the Japanese youth unemployment rate is not as high as those in European countries, but it is commonly found that the youth tend to be targeted by economic downturns, and that they are exposed to high economic risk. Young unmarried people do not always live alone, but share their households with their family, mostly their parents. Less than 20 percent of unmarried adults live alone in Japan, and in Italy and Taiwan, its corresponding figures are even lower than thatin Japan. The proportion of income derived from unmarried adults in the household economy is more or less negatively associated with family income. Therefore, unmarried adults are not always dependent on their parents in the household but there are cases in which unmarried adults are the ones who support the family incomeby living with their parents, particularly in low-income groups. The economic role of unmarried adult children in the household differs by the level of household economy. In determining if unmarried adults live with their parents, the economic factor is important for both men and women. Since their individual income is not high enough to have their independent households, they stay in their parental home. The most interesting finding in this analysis is on the gender role in living arrangement with their parents. Unmarried female adults are less likely to stay in their parental home if their mothers are at work, while there is no significant impact of mother's work on their male counterparts. Unmarried daughters are like to be expected to take over the mother's role in the households when she is in the labor force, so there is a gendered allocation of family role for unmarried adults. Thus, the economic levels of unmarried adults and the gender constrain in allocating family roles were important in determining the living arrangement with the parents.Income Inequality, Co-residency of unmarried adults with Parents, Delay in marriage

Parasites and Raven Mothers: A German-Japanese Comparison on (Lone) Motherhood

Having a child out of wedlock used to be associated with shame and scorn. This is mostly not the case anymore in the western world. Therefore, freed from social sanctions, single motherhood has become an additional family-choice alternative for women, along with marriage and childlessness. Yet, the institutions that infl uence women’s decisions diff er across countries. We compare the institutional frame, in particular labor-market characteristics and family law, in Germany and Japan and, in addition, the interaction between culture and institutions. Both countries had a very traditional (one-earner) family system until the second half of the 20th century. Now we can observe that social changes that happened in Germany decades ago are happening only now in Japan. We analyze if and how the consequences in terms of family structures and fertility rates that resulted in Germany can be transfered to Japan.Out-of-wedlock childbearing; fertility; family law; Germany; Japan

Silver hair market in Japan? Good quality of (whose) life with silver-to-black consumption?

Japanese Society (Silver Market?): Exceptionalism in Socio-Economic Sense? What You See is Not What it is in Japan! This question was my Japanese colleagues and informants confronting me, and I concur with them as I completing this brief…. Perhaps this synopsis could help to realize the limited understanding of we have on another Asia society (despite frequent travels and information exchange in the mobile-Internet age), par­ticularly the enigma about Japanese society’s traditionalism embedded into its supra-modernization trajectories of socio-economic development since 1868! 日本社会（银发市场？）：社会经济的例外主义？ 你所见的并不是真实的日本！这是我提出这问题时，我的日本同事跟消息提供者对我的反驳，而我完成这篇概论后也认同他们的理据……也许这篇概论能帮助我们意识到自己对另一个亚洲社会的认知是如此有限（即使我们经常到日本旅游，而且又身处这信息交流发达的年代），特别是自1868年起，深嵌于社会经济发展超现代化进程中的日本传统主义，对我们来说真的有如谜一样

Gender differences in the importance of family and social relations for life satisfaction among elderly Japanese

Objectives. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the associations of life satisfaction with family and social relations differ between elderly men and women in Japan. Methods. Ordered logit models were estimated to explain life satisfaction with a rich set of explanatory variables, using micro data from 3,063 Japanese elderly adults (1,565 men and 1,498 women) collected from the first-wave sample of the Japanese Study of Aging and Retirement (JSTAR), a survey compatible with the HRS in the United States and SHARE in Europe. Results. This study found that life satisfaction is more closely associated with family and social relations for women than for men, after controlling for socioeconomic, health, and other factors. Women are more sensitive than men to coresidence and contact with family members, especially parents-in-law, as well as to social relations with others in the community, while men are much more depressed than women by divorce or widowhood. Discussion. Observed associations between each factor and life satisfaction are largely consistent with those separately reported by preceding studies. However, this analysis compared the relative importance of each factor and its gender difference, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of subjective well-being of elderly people.