This book provides insightful sociological analyses of Japanese demography and families, paying attention not only to national average data, but also to regional variations and community level analyses. In analyzing Japanese family issues such as demographic changes, courtship and marriage, international marriage, divorce, late-life divorce, and the elderly living alone, this book emphasizes the significance of two theoretical frameworks: the dual structure and regional variations of the community network in Japan. By emphasizing the extensive cultural diversity from one region to another, this book represents a paradigm shift from former studies of Japanese families, which relied mostly on national average data. The method of analysis adopted in the study is qualitative, with a historical perspective. The book is thus an invitation to more in-depth, qualitative dialogue in the field of family sociology in Japan. This book will be of great interest not only to Asian scholars, but also to other specialists in comparative family studies around the world.

Fumie Kumagai, a Japanese family sociologist with keen insight into regional variations and a comparative perspective, analyzes the dynamics and variations in Japanese families throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The theoretical frameworks utilized are the dual structural perspective and the community network in the Information Age Society. This book provides insightful sociological analyses of Japanese families, paying attention not only to national average data, but also to regional variations and community level analyses. It is a paradigm shift from former studies of Japanese families, which relied on national average data only. The focus is on sociocultural variations and the diversity of families in Japan. Topics include marriage, divorce, fertility rates, the elderly, labor force participation, population decline, trends among youth, and the changing roles of women.

In many ways, divorce is a quintessentially personal decision—the choice to leave a marriage that causes harm or feels unfulfilling to the two people involved. But anyone who has gone through a divorce knows the additional public dimensions of breaking up, from intense shame and societal criticism to friends’ and relatives’ unsolicited advice. In Intimate Disconnections, Allison Alexy tells the fascinating story of the changing norms surrounding divorce in Japan in the early 2000s, when sudden demographic and social changes made it a newly visible and viable option. Not only will one of three Japanese marriages today end in divorce, but divorces are suddenly much more likely to be initiated by women who cite new standards for intimacy as their motivation. As people across Japan now consider divorcing their spouses, or work to avoid separation, they face complicated questions about the risks and possibilities marriage brings: How can couples be intimate without becoming suffocatingly close? How should they build loving relationships when older models are no longer feasible? What do you do, both legally and socially, when you just can’t take it anymore? Relating the intensely personal stories from people experiencing different stages of divorce, Alexy provides a rich ethnography of Japan while also speaking more broadly to contemporary visions of love and marriage during an era in which neoliberal values are prompting wide-ranging transformations in homes across the globe.

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.

Focusing on three cultural/ethnic groups in terms of empirical data - women from the former Soviet Union countries, the Philippines, and Western countries - this book highlights the complex interplay between national, cultural, gender, and ethnicity boundary maintenance that constructs international marriages in Japan at multiple levels, providing a comprehensive account of international marriage in the contemporary Japanese context.

Research on the family has expanded considerably across Asia but studies tend to be fragmented, focusing on narrow issues within limited areas (cities, towns, small communities) and may not be accessible to international readers. These limitations make it difficult for researchers, students, policy makers, and practitioners to obtain the information they need. The Routledge Handbook of Families in Asia fills that gap by providing a current and comprehensive analysis of Asian families by a wide range of experts in a single publication. The thirty-two chapters of this comparative and multi-disciplinary volume are organized into nine major themes: conceptual approaches, methodological issues, family life in the context of culture, family relationships across the family life cycle, issues of work and income, stress and conflict, family diversity, family policy and laws, and environmental setting of homes. Each chapter examines family life across Asian countries, studying cultural similarities and differences and exploring how families are changing and what trends are likely to develop in the future. To provide a fruitful learning experience for the reader, each chapter offers examples, relevant data, and a comprehensive list of references. Offering a complete interdisciplinary overview of families in Asia, the Handbook will be of interest to students, academics, policy makers and practitioners across the disciplines of Asian Studies, Sociology, Demography, Social Work, Law, Social Policy, Anthropology, Geography, Public Health and Architecture.

This book provides an insightful sociological study of the shrinking Japanese population through a regional variation perspective as it varies significantly by municipality, even within the same prefecture. Using demographic data on municipal levels, the book identifies the power unique to each municipality, which can mobilize a shrinking but sustainable Japan. The study identifies the principal explanatory factors based on the small area data of e-Stat through GPS statistical software tools such as G-census and EvaCva within a historical perspective. The theoretical framework of this study, i.e., the reason for regional variations in Japan, is the Goki-Shichido (Five Home Provinces and Seven Circuits of Ancient Japan). This historical knowledge helps in understanding the significance of the regional cultural heritage that remains in each municipality today. The book pays special attention to municipal variations within the same prefecture, utilizing a completely unique approach, unlike those that have been pursued by other researchers. This volume studies two present-day prefectures for detailed analyses based on the Goki-Shichido framework for impacts of regional variations of population decline in Japan. They are Niigata Prefecture, made up of the formerly named Echigo and Sado provinces; Ishikawa Prefecture, formed by the ancient Kaga and Noto provinces; Fukui Prefecture, based on the earlier Wakasa and Echizen provinces of the Hokurikudo; Nagano Prefecture, still called Shinano Province today and commonly divided into four areas and ten regions; and Gifu Prefecture, composed of the ancient Mino and Hida provinces of the Tosando as examples of the impact of municipal power on regional variations of shrinking Japan. However, due to the limitation of the number of pages set forth for Springer Briefs in Population Studies: Population Studies of Japan, for which the current publication is a part, it has become necessary to divide the book into two volumes, namely Volume I and Volume II. Because of this limitation the current volume I is consisted of three chapters, namely, Chapter 1: Issues, theoretical framework, and methodology; Chapter 2: Niigata Prefecture in the Hokurikudo; and Chapter 3: Ishikawa Prefecture in the Hokurikudo. The remaining three prefectures, i.e., Fukui in the Hokurikudo area, Nagano and Gifu both in the Tosando area will be discussed in the Volume II of this book. By presenting unique analyses of regional variations on small municipal levels, with demographic variables, social indicators, and historical identities, this book offers suggestions for effective regional policies to revitalize a shrinking Japan to a sustainable one. The Volume I, therefore, analyzes and discusses in detail both Niigata and Ishikawa prefectures of the Hokurikudo.