Negotiating life: Young women and reproductive decisions in Japan

The issue of the low birth rate, shōshika, has been centralised around in reproductive politics of Japan. With the fear of population and economic crises, the Japanese government has been promoting fertility education especially towards young women. The fertility education promoting marriage, pregnancy, and childbirth during the ‘appropriate’ reproductive ages is influenced by the Japanese family ideology and gender roles which are reinforced by the Japanese legal, welfare, and corporate structure. In addition, due to the severe economic stagnation, the neoliberalist welfare system has been encouraging women to provide care work for their family as well as to contribute to the labour market under unsecured and unstable irregular employment. Having this social, political, and economic context, this MA thesis studies what factors contribute to reproductive decision-making of heterosexual women in their 20s in Japan and how they make their reproductive decisions and life plans. For data collection, I conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with seven heterosexual women in their 20s who lived in Japan. By applying Foucauldian theory of biopolitical governmentality, I analysed how young women interacted with social norms and practices related to women’s reproductive behaviours and life paths in Japan. This study also focuses on the process of negotiation conducted by the research participants for their reproductive decision-making. The results of the study show that the research participants conducted internalisation, critique, and negotiation when making their decisions on reproduction. In addition, most of the participants obtained a sense of agency for their reproductive choices and life plans through the meaning-making process. It also shows the possibility for the application of biopolitical governmentality to individual experiences in gender and feminist studies especially in the context of Japan or East Asia