The Japanese Family Faces 21st
-Century Challenges
Anne E. Imamura
Family-related issues are at the forefront of social challenges
facing Japan: women are postponing marriage, the birth rate is
falling, the divorce rate rising, teenage girls are dating middleaged
men to earn money to buy luxury goods, young men are
finding it difficult to attract wives, and the percentage of the
elderly is growing rapidly and their care is a major social
problem. Japanese leaders are lamenting the breakdown of the
Japanese family system or seeking to develop policies to shore
up that system.
Background
The development of the Japanese family was a cornerstone of
the formation of the Japanese state in the late nineteenth
century.1
The low position of Japanese women was among the
various criteria the West used to declare Japan a backward
society, and the Meiji state (1868–1912) developed an
ideology centered on the importance of educating women to
be good wives and wise mothers.2
The legal code and ideology of the Meiji state defined the
Japanese family as: patriarchal, with the role of each member
well-defined by age, gender, and relationship to the patriarchal
head. Children were raised according to their roles. Eldest
sons were treated as future heads of family, served after their
father and before their younger brothers; daughters were last
because they would one day marry out of the family. The
bride’s position was lowest of all. This family became the
foundation of social stability and order as Japan moved from
the nineteenth century into and through the Pacific War.
After the War, during the Occupation, new laws were enacted
and marriage became a union between two consenting adults.
Inheritance and responsibility for caring for parents was to be
divided equally among all children.
As Japan moved into the 1960s and its period of double-digit
economic growth, new family forms developed. However the
assumption remained that the happiness of a woman lay in
marriage and that the role of married women was to be good
wives and wise mothers.
Economic growth and industrial development led to an
increase in salaried workers, a minority of whom had
“permanent” (until retirement) jobs. These men were excellent
candidates for marriage. The path to obtaining one of these
plum positions was education. As competition increased,
education became even more important. The salaryman’s wife
was an important part of corporate Japan; as her role took on
new dimensions, it required the commitment of a profession.3
As wife, her duty was to manage the household and its
finances so that her husband could come home and relax to be
energized for the next day’s work. As mother, her duty
increasingly focused on getting her children through the
education system, and the phenomenon of the “education
mother” was born. Indeed, it has been argued that corporate
Japan found the ideology of the Japanese family system and
its division of labor a very convenient base for motivating men
(as husbands/fathers) to put in long hours.
The economic growth and industrialization of Japan impacted
gender roles. Education (through junior college when
possible) became increasingly important for women who
wanted to attract a salaryman husband. Once married, women
were available to do piece work in the home, and their cheap
labor provided the foundation for Japan’s industrial
development.4
Men’s jobs took them outside the
neighborhood and local community, which resulted in separate
social networks for husbands and wives, and over time the
necessity and opportunity for women to take on community
responsibility.
As this hard-working salaryman family moved into the second
generation, a variation appeared that was called the new
family5
in Japanese. This new family was based on the belief
that husbands and wives should be companions and have
shared interests.
In the 1980s, Japan signed the United Nations Declaration on
Women and consequently passed the 1986 Equal Employment
Opportunity Law that opened more job opportunities to
women. This law was merely advisory: it had no penalties for
non-compliance and no affirmative action components. In
theory, men and women have equal opportunity in both tracks.
In practice, the majority of women are in routine work and
virtually all managerial track positions are held by men.
By the late 1980s and early 1990s a number of trends became
noticeable: women were marrying later and later; the birth rate
was falling; Japanese men were increasingly seen as
undesirable husbands and as problems when they grew older.
Throughout this period, as Japan became increasingly aware
that its society was rapidly aging, the government called on
women to carry out three key missions: to bear children, care
for the aged, and fill the needs of the shrinking labor force.
Women resisted not with protests and marches, but by
changing their behavior or by quiet noncompliance.
Resistance and New Patterns
One of the most striking behavior changes reflects the fact that
marriage is becoming less and less attractive to Japanese
women. Sexual mores are also changing. One example is
young girls dating older men for money. When interviewed,
the girls say there is nothing wrong with what they are doing.
If anyone is wrong, they say, it is the older men who pay for
their services.
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JAPAN
DIGEST
September 2004
In fact, pregnancy seems to have become a recognized catalyst
for marriage. The term dekichatta kon, (marriage after the
child is conceived) is in common usage, even in commercials.
Media reports the availability of maternity wedding dresses
and according to Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Labor
statistics released in March 2002, 26.3 percent of brides are
pregnant.6
Why is marriage so unattractive to Japanese women? One
reason is that women have other options for economic
security: employment. Another is the difficulty of combining
family and career in Japan today because of the Japanese
employment system and the expectation of total commitment
of worker to company. Yet another important reason is the
legacy of the Japanese family system, including care for the
aged, the burden of which falls on women.
The Japanese government has begun to recognize that
systemic change is necessary to prevent population decline.
The Revised Equal Employment Opportunity Law that went
into effect in 1998 aims at improving the employment
environment so that working women are not discriminated
against, can make full use of their abilities and skills, and can
feel free to have children while continuing to work. Changes
in the Labor Standards Law are also family-friendly and
gender-equal.
In a time of economic stagnation, the true effect of the above
legislation is difficult to see. Although the above-mentioned
laws protect women, companies may pressure women on
maternity leave to resign because their jobs must be cut as part
of “restructuring”.7
Child Care
Although many Japanese are legally entitled to take up to a
year’s Childcare Leave with guaranteed re-employment and
financial compensation of 40% of the salary during the leave
(10% is paid when the employee returns to work), relatively
few take it. There is increasing concern that informal
pressure in the work place encourages women to resign after
childbirth rather than depend on others to do “her work” while
she is on childcare leave and it is particularly difficult for men
(less than 1% currently take this leave) to take advantage of
this without worrying about their future careers. As part of a
new government policy to combat the declining birthrate, the
Japanese Government has enacted new legislation that
requires local governments and large companies (over 300
employees) to draft concrete measures for attaining the target
of 80% of women and 10% of men taking Childcare Leave.
This new policy is entitled the Plus One Proposal to End the
Low Birthrate.
Divorce
An interesting trend is the growing number of divorces after
20 years of marriage. Once their children are raised, these
women want to retire, just as their husbands are retiring. They,
however, want to retire from housekeeping, caring for their
husband, caring for his aged parents, and someday caring for
him. They thus reject many of what were considered women’s
most important roles.
Care for the Aged
Changes in demographics, the family, and the role of women
mean that care of the aged by the eldest son and his wife is no
longer a viable model for Japan. With the vast increase in the
number of senior citizen households, there is less consensus as
to who should provide care.
The changes in the Japanese family have led to increasing
demand for men to cross the boundaries of conventional
gender roles by caring for elderly parents and spouses.8
Care
for the aged, a responsibility that cannot be avoided or
postponed, may provide the best insight into change and
continuity in the Japanese family, gender roles, and the role of
the family versus the state.
Conclusion
What we are seeing is a diversification of patterns, from a
single desirable model (the “Japanese family system”) to a
range of socially acceptable choices. Young people quietly
but firmly reject many assumptions of the generation ruling
Japan. They look for greater flexibility in work and family,
including care for the elderly. Yet Japan clearly has not
developed solutions that adequately meet goals set by its own
government: to focus on men’s and women’s roles and how to
balance child care, elder care and work.
Notes
1
. For a discussion of this, see Liddle, Joanna, and Sachiko
Nakajima. Rising Suns, Rising Daughters. (London and New
York: Zed Books, 2000).
2
. Liddle and Nakajima, op.cit., 32–39.
3
. See Vogel, Suzanne H., “Professional Housewife: The
Career of Urban Middle Class Japanese Women”. Japan
Interpreter 12 (1) 1978: 16–43.
4
. See Brinton, Mary C., Women and the Economic Miracle:
Gender and Work in Postwar Japan. (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1993)
5
. English words written in Japanese phonetic script.
6
. Curtin, J. Sean. “Japanese Marriage Trends in 2002: Later
Unions and More Diverse Families” October 3, 2002,
www.glocom.org/special_topics/social_trends/20021003_tren
ds_s9/
7
. Nihon Keizai Shinbun.”Shigoto to Ikiru,” (Japan Economic
News) January 6, 2003.
8.
Long, Susan Orpett, and Phyllis Braudy Harris “Gender and
Elder Care: Social Change and the Role of the Caregiver in
Japan.” Social Science Japan Journal, April 2000; Vol. 3,
Issue 1. 21–36.
Anne E. Imamura is Adjunct Professor of Sociology at
Georgetown University. Her publications include Urban
Japanese Housewives: At Home and in the Community and
Re-Imaging Japanese Women, and articles on Japanese
women and on international marriage. She is also the Area
Studies Division Director at the Foreign Service Institute.
A longer version of this Japan Digest appeared in the Fall
2003 issue of Education about Asia (volume 8 number 2).
Reprinted with permission of the Association for
Asian Studies. Full text of the article is available at
http://www.aasianst.org/EAA/Imamura.pdf.
The National Clearinghouse for U.S.-Japan Studies is
made possible through the generous support of the
Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership.