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The Japanese Family System

Change, Continuity, and Regionality in the Long Twentieth Century

Authors:

  • Provides a comprehensive study of the Japanese family system, testing theories of family change and gender revolution
  • Evaluates factors affecting intergenerational living arrangements and married women’s employment across the life course
  • Demonstrates persistent regionality in distributions of stem family, maternal employment, and communal parenting systems

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Population Studies (BRIEFSPOPULAT)

Part of the book sub series: Population Studies of Japan (POPULAT)

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Table of contents (5 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-viii
  2. Background and Questions

    • Akihiko Kato
    Pages 1-14
  3. Change and Continuity in the Stem Family

    • Akihiko Kato
    Pages 15-46
  4. Discussion and Conclusions

    • Akihiko Kato
    Pages 111-122

About this book

This book offers a new perspective and empirical evidence that are relevant for understanding changes in family structures, intergenerational relationships, and female labor force participation in the “strong family” societies and that also shed light on those in the “weak family” societies. Focusing on the stem family and the gender division of labor, presenting detailed quantitative evidence, and testing the theories on family change and gender revolution, the book provides a comprehensive examination of change, continuity, and regionality in the Japanese family system over the twentieth century.


By analyzing data from a nationally representative life course survey with event history techniques, it investigates factors affecting post-marital intergenerational co-residence and proximate residence along with those influencing continuous and/or discontinuous employment of married women across the life course. In this way, it reveals the mechanisms underlying the stem family formation and those behind married women’s M-shaped employment pattern. It further explores regionality in the Japanese family system, applying a demographic mapping method to data from a nationally representative community survey and official statistics. The mapping analyses demonstrate persistent geographical contrasts between two types of living arrangements (single-household versus multi-household) in the stem family accompanied by two types of maternal employment (full-time versus part-time). They also reveal a historical correlation between traditional communal parenting systems and modern childcare services, linking past to present from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century.

Authors and Affiliations

  • School of Political Science and Economics, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan

    Akihiko Kato

About the author

Akihiko Kato, Meiji University

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Japanese Family System

  • Book Subtitle: Change, Continuity, and Regionality in the Long Twentieth Century

  • Authors: Akihiko Kato

  • Series Title: SpringerBriefs in Population Studies

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2113-0

  • Publisher: Springer Singapore

  • eBook Packages: History, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-981-16-2112-3Published: 14 August 2021

  • eBook ISBN: 978-981-16-2113-0Published: 13 August 2021

  • Series ISSN: 2211-3215

  • Series E-ISSN: 2211-3223

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: VIII, 122

  • Number of Illustrations: 17 b/w illustrations, 18 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Demography, Sociology of Family, Youth and Aging, Human Geography, Social Sciences, general, Education, general

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access