Download or read book The Political Economy of Japan s Low Fertility written by Frances McCall Rosenbluth and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2006-12-08 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes an interdisciplinary approach to one of Japan's thorniest public policy issues: why are women increasingly forgoing motherhood? At the heart of the matter lies a paradox: although the overall trend among rich countries is for fertility to decrease as female labor participation increases, gender-friendly countries resist the trend. Conversely, gender-unfriendly countries have lower fertility rates than they would have if they changed their labor markets to encourage the hiring of women—and therein lies Japan's problem. The authors argue that the combination of an inhospitable labor market for women and insufficient support for childcare pushes women toward working harder to promote their careers, to the detriment of childbearing. Controversial and enlightening, this book provides policy recommendations for solving not just Japan's fertility issue but those of other modern democracies facing a similar crisis.

Download or read book Low Fertility in Advanced Asian Economies written by Shigeki Matsuda and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-01-03 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on the links between family, education, and employment systems in the Asian developed economies, proposing that these three systems and their interrelations are powerful factors causing the low fertility in Asia. The phenomenon of low fertility has been widely observed in developed countries, and the birthrate in Asian countries is among the lowest in the world. Although these countries have implemented measures to counter the falling birthrate, the expected effect has not yet been achieved. Moreover, Asia has seen a rapid decrease in the number of marriages. To promote effective countermeasures, it is necessary to clarify the factors influencing the low birthrate and decline in the number of marriages. Based on a statistical analysis of survey results mainly from Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, this book discusses several important points. First, because the family system is strong, cohabitation and children born to single mothers are not socially accepted. Further, mothers play a strong role in fulfilling expectations for children’s education. Second, the popularization of higher education and intense academic competition, which have been a driving force for rapid economic growth, have led to many parents opting to have fewer children, as the cost of education is high. Lastly, wage disparity is large and employment stability is a matter of concern. These factors increase competition within education and, in turn, make it difficult for the young generation to choose marriage. Within the employment environment, balancing work and family life is problematical, especially for women.

Download or read book Low Fertility in Japan South Korea and Singapore written by Shigeki Matsuda and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-02-18 with total page 91 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes the low fertility status in three developed Asian countries—Japan, South Korea, and Singapore—and outlines countermeasures for their declining birthrates. Based on the characteristics of each society, the authors discuss why their fertility rates have not yet recovered. Low fertility is a demographic phenomenon that first occurred in Europe and subsequently spread across other countries. Currently, the fertility rates in Europe are relatively stable, while those in developed Asian economies are the lowest worldwide. This may cause labor shortages and weaken their social security systems, undermining Asia’s social and economic sustainability despite its remarkable economic development. In response to low fertility, some Asian countries have implemented countermeasures: Japan has introduced measures based on childcare facilities and work–life balance. Similarly, since the mid-2000s South Korea has established countermeasures to promote a balance between work and child rearing, as well as expanded childcare services. Singapore began introducing countermeasures before the other two countries, including various advanced measures. Yet none of these countries has seen a full recovery in fertility rates. Based on a statistical analysis of survey results from the three countries, this book makes several important points. The first is that the policy has been ineffective in Japan due to a discrepancy between the needs of parents raising children and those who are the targets of the countermeasures. Second, the work–life balance and child-rearing support measures that have been promoted in Japan and South Korea have not affected the number of children that women want to have. Third, Singaporean values tend to place individual emphasis on competition with oneself (education and career status) rather than on married life. This intense competition has lowered fertility rates. To restore these rates, each country must promote policies that better address its specific issues.

Download or read book The Political Economy of Reproduction in Japan written by Takeda Hiroko and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-09-23 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyzes the political economy of reproduction and its role in the process of Japanese modernization. Hiroko analyzes state attempts and policies to intervene into women's bodies and everyday lives to integrate them into the Japanese political economy. Based on Foucault's concept of governmentality the author develops a model to assess reproduction in three forms - economic, biological and socio-political - from 1868 until the present day.

Download or read book Low Fertility and Population Aging in Japan and Eastern Asia written by Toru Suzuki and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a unique comparative view of the extremely low fertility and drastic population aging in Eastern Asian countries. After discussing demographic and political developments of Japan in detail as a reference case, accelerated changes in Korea, Taiwan and China are interpreted with a comparative cultural view. In addition to the well-known cultural divide between countries with strong and weak family ties, this book proposes another divide between offspring of the feudal family and that of the Confucian family. Included is a discussion of how the discrepancy between the compressed change in the socioeconomic system and the slow change in the family system has resulted in extremely low fertility in Eastern Asia. A comparison of policy development reveals that the sense of overpopulation has caused difficulty in launching pro-natal policy interventions in Eastern Asia, especially in China. Impacts of fertility decline on population aging, total dependency ratio and the timing of population decline in Eastern Asia are analyzed with a stylized model. The remaining Confucian family pattern is especially important in understanding and predicting political development to cope with accelerated population aging. This book is a valuable resource for researchers who are interested in the latest and most surprising demographic phenomena in the region.

Download or read book Convergence to Very Low Fertility in East Asia Processes Causes and Implications written by Noriko O. Tsuya and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-03-23 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the trends, underlying factors, and policy implications of fertility declines in three East Asian countries: Japan, South Korea, and China. In contrast to Western countries that have also experienced fertility declines to below-replacement levels, fertility decline in these East Asian countries is most notable in its rapidity and sheer magnitude. After a rapid decline shortly after the war, in which fertility was halved in one decade from 4.5 children per woman in 1947 to 2.1 in 1957, Japan's fertility started to decline to below-replacement levels in the mid-1970s, reaching 1.3 per woman in the early 2000s. Korea experienced one of the most spectacular declines ever recorded, with fertility falling continuously from very high (6.0 per woman) to a below-replacement level (1.6 per woman) between the early 1960s and mid-1980s, reaching 1.1 per woman in 2005. Similarly, after a dramatic decline from very high to low levels in one decade from the early 1970s to early 1980s, China's fertility reached around 1.5 per woman by 2005. Despite differences in timing, tempo, and scale of fertility declines, dramatic fertility reductions have resulted in extremely rapid population aging and foreshadow a long-term population decline in all three countries. This monograph provides a systematic comparison of fertility transitions in these East Asian countries and discusses the economic, social, and cultural factors that may account for their similarities and differences. After an overview of cultural backgrounds, economic transformations, and the evolution of policies, the trends and age patterns of fertility are examined. The authors then investigate changes in women's marriage and childbearing within marriage, the two major direct determinants of fertility, followed by an analysis of the social and economic factors underlying fertility and nuptiality changes, such as education, women's employment, and gender relations at home.

Download or read book Childbearing and Careers of Japanese Women Born in the 1960s written by Yukiko Senda and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-05-11 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ​This book provides the keys to understanding the trajectory that Japanese society has followed toward its lowest-low fertility since the 1980s. The characteristics of the life course of women born in the 1960s, who were the first cohort to enter that trajectory, are explored by using both qualitative and quantitative data analyses. Among the many books explaining the decline in fertility, this book is unique in four ways. First, it describes in detail the reality of factors concerning the fertility decline in Japan. Second, the book uses both qualitative and quantitative methods to introduce the whole picture of how the low-fertility trend began in the 1980s and developed in the 1990s and thereafter. Third, the focus is on a specific birth cohort because their experiences determined the current patterns of family formation such as late marriage and postponed childbirth. Fourth, the book explores the knife-edge balance between work and family conditions, especially with regard to childbearing, in the context of Japanese management and gender norms. After examining the characteristics of demographic and socioeconomic circumstances of postwar Japan in detail, it can be seen that the change in family formation first occurred drastically in the 1960s cohort. Using both qualitative interview data cumulatively from 150 people and quantitative estimates with official statistics, this book shows how individual-level choices to balance work and family obligations resulted in a national-level fertility decline. Another focus of this book is the increasing unintended infertility due to postponed pregnancy, a phenomenon that is attracting great social attention because the average age of pregnancy is approaching the biological limit. This book is a valuable resource for researchers who are interested in the rapid fertility decline as well as the work–life balance and the life course of women in Japanese employment practice and family traditions.

Download or read book The Economic Impact of Population Decline and Aging in Japan written by Kohei Wada and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-11-05 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the remarkably serious problems caused by aging and population decline in Japan, there are very few books that inform the world about them in English. Through this book, a Japanese economic demographer clearly shows the various economic consequences of population problems in Japan, especially the impacts of continuing ultra-low fertility and the world’s highest life expectancy in the post-demographic transition phase. The explanation is at a basic level but covers the overall economic issues including labor, capital, technical progress, consumption, savings and investment from a demographic perspective. Finally, some remedies for economic growth in Japan are proposed. Because economic policies are expected to have short-term effects while demographic ones to increase the fertility rate need some time to take effect, earlier books about the Japanese economy have hardly ever dealt with demographic policies. Furthermore, this book directly addresses the integrated economic and demographic policies appropriate to Japan. These are different from the French natalistic social policy, the Scandinavian policy of a work–life balance or the immigration policy in Australia or the United States. This book emphasizes the power of local communities in Japan as a part of East Asia. In this sense, the book provides a new key to readers who are interested in the future Japanese economy and population.

Download or read book The Political Economy of Reproduction in Japan written by Hiroko Takeda and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new work analyzes the political economy of reproduction and its role in the process of Japanese modernization.

Download or read book Work and Family in Japanese Society written by Junya Tsutsui and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-12-11 with total page 61 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a systematic framework for interpreting the fertility decline in Japan. It situates the change in fertility rates in a broader context, such as family life and working customs. The basic argument it puts forward is that Japan has failed to establish a “dual-earner” society: women still face the trade-off between having a career or starting a family, which has led to an extremely low fertility rate in Japanese society. Further to this rather common explanation, which could also be applied to other low-fertility societies such as Germany and Italy, the author presents an original view. Japan has had its own momentum in holding on to its strong “men as breadwinners and women as housekeepers” model by creating a unique regime, namely, a Japanese model of a welfare society. This regime places special emphasis on the welfare provided by private companies and family members instead of by the government. Private firms are expected to secure men’s jobs and income to the greatest extent, taking advantage of Japanese employment customs. On the other hand, women are expected to provide care for their family members. The book argues that the familialist orientation is still dominant in Japan and is repeatedly reinforced in the policy context.

Download or read book Active Pursuit of Pregnancy written by Isabel Fassbender and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-12-06 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What is ninkatsu? Who promotes and governs this "active pursuit of pregnancy?" Trying to answer these questions, this unprecedented publication exhibits how mass media, policymakers, and biomedical science-corporate capitalism govern the individual's reproductive choices in contemporary Japan through gendered discourses of self-improvement, life planning, and biomedical technology. Analyzing a broad range of media, popular science, and government material, it links historical and social processes with an original theoretical framework on self-governance, neoliberalism, and postfeminism. While deeply engaging with Japanese sources, this rich scholarship takes the study of reproductive politics beyond Japan. This book is not only of interest for Japanese studies scholars but more broadly also those curious about neoliberal government strategies, gender, and biomedical capitalism"--

Download or read book Low Fertility and Reproductive Health in East Asia written by Naohiro Ogawa and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a unique blend of social and biomedical sciences in the field of low fertility and reproductive health. It offers a significant contribution to understanding the determinants of low fertility mostly in East Asia, including an assessment of the effectiveness of policies that aim to raise fertility. It introduces new analytical tools and methods and shares application of innovative approaches to analyzing cross-sectional and longitudinal survey data and macro socioeconomic data to shed light on changing mechanisms of low fertility in the context of reproductive health. The volume introduces the demographic dividend into the study of fertility, analyzes possible impact of population ageing on the amount of resources allocated to child rearing, i.e. the so called "crowding effect" in social care and public spending between the elderly and children. The book also tests the Low Fertility Trap (LFT) hypothesis, a new important theory regarding fertility trends. The book focuses on East Asia which is numerically large but relatively under-researched with regard to issues covered in various chapters. The relevance of the volume, however, goes beyond countries in East Asia. The book breaks new grounds and reveals little known facts regarding the influence of endocrine disruptors on male fertility through falling sperm counts, the phenomenon of marital sexlessness and about the sexual behavior of adolescents in East Asia.

Download or read book Biodemography of Fertility in Japan written by Shoko Konishi and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-01-22 with total page 63 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents original data on the proximate determinants of fertility in Japan. Its goal is to disaggregate low fertility levels in Japan into physiological, behavioral, and social components. Further, the book reviews previous studies on the proximate determinants of fertility in Japan, and compares the data to that on other countries. This book is the first to summarize previous research projects conducted in Japan on this topic, and proposes future research directions to fill the remaining research gaps. Further, it sheds new light on the similarities and differences between the fertility level in Japan and in other countries in terms of biodemographical components, helping readers understand the mechanisms of fertility change in Japan.

Download or read book The Political Economy of Japan written by Gordon C. K. Cheung and published by Cavendish Square Publishing. This book was released on 2000 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Social Stratification in an Aging Society with Low Fertility written by Sawako Shirahase and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited book discusses stratification in contemporary Japanese society. It is unique for its empirical examination of social inequality in relation to declining fertility and an aging population. Japan is the most aged society in the world: according to the Statistics Bureau of Japan, people who are aged 65 and above accounted for 29.1% of the country's total population in 2021. Meanwhile, the fertility rate has continuously declined since the mid-1970s. Japan experienced a dramatic change in its demographic structure in a short period of time. Such fast change could be a major factor in generating social stratification. In her industrialization, Japan was thought to share a pattern of social stratification similar to that of developed European and North American countries but with a low degree of socio-economic inequality and a high degree of homogeneity. There is no clear support for this description of Japan, although the country does share a pattern and degree of social stratification similar to that observed in Europe and North America. The social stratification theory has been developed in close relation to the labor market; however, it is necessary to further examine the social stratification of very aged societies in which a substantial number of the population-namely, retired persons-no longer have any ties to the labor market. In this book, the contributors explore the pattern of social stratification at three life stages: young, middle-aged, and elderly. Included are discussions of various aspects of stratification such as education, work, wealth, marriage, family, gender, generation, and social attitudes. Sawako Shirahase is Professor of Sociology at the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, The University of Tokyo.

Download or read book Lowest Low Fertility and Its Demographic Impact in Japan written by Toru SUZUKI and published by Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca. This book was released on 2014-05-20 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aunque el envejecimiento de la población sea hoy ya en sí mismo un tema de interés para cualquier país y la comparación de las políticas públicas dirigidas a afrontarlo la forma más elemental y siempre fructífera de abordarlo, el estudio específico de los casos japonés y español (y, por extensión, europea) de sus elementos comunes y sus diferencias, tuvo, tiene y tendrá un especial interés para los investigadores, las autoridades y los actores sociales implicados en el problema. Envejecimiento de la población en España y Japón: estudio comparativo y posibles implicaciones para Europa y Asia Pacífico surge a partir de la celebración entre el 13 y el 17 de octubre de 2008 de un simposium, en el centro cultural Hispano-Japonés de la Universidad de Salamanca, con la participación de profesores de Europa y de Japón. El éxito de este seminario determinó la voluntad de plasmar en un libro las aportaciones más interesantes de cada uno de los brillantes investigadores que allí participaron.

Download or read book Social Inequality in Japan written by Sawako Shirahase and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan was the first Asian country to become a mature industrial society, and throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, was viewed as an ‘all-middle-class society’. However since the 1990s there have been growing doubts as to the real degree of social equality in Japan, particularly in the context of dramatic demographic shifts as the population ages whilst fertility levels continue to fall. This book compares Japan with America, Britain, Italy, France, Germany, Sweden and Taiwan in order to determine whether inequality really is a social problem in Japan. With a focus on impact demographic shifts, Sawako Shirahase examines female labour market participation, income inequality among households with children, the state of the family, generational change, single person households and income distribution among the aged, and asks whether increasing inequality and is uniquely Japanese, or if it is a social problem common across all of the societies included in this study. Crucially, this book shows that Japan is distinctive not in terms of the degree of inequality in the society, but rather, in how acutely inequality is perceived. Further, the data shows that Japan differs from the other countries examined in terms of the gender gap in both the labour market and the family, and in inequality among single-person households – single men and women, including lifelong bachelors and spinsters – and also among single parent households, who pay a heavy price for having deviated from the expected pattern of life in Japan. Drawing on extensive empirical data, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars interested in Japanese culture and society, Japanese studies and social policy more generally.