Family Change and Housing in Post-War Japanese Society

The Experiences of Older Women

Misa Izuhara

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9780754612841
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351937153
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Marriage & Family Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book explores the experiences of older women in post-war Japanese society through analysis of their family and housing histories. Three broad themes - family relations, welfare systems and housing - were chosen to highlight issues surrounding the changing role and position of women in the family and society. A qualitative approach is used to address a gap in the literature and to illustrate the real-life experiences of women in Japan. Many aspects of the book are comparable, or related, to studies exploring other industrial and East Asian societies and the book thus contributes to international debates surrounding housing policy, the ageing society and the changing nature of the family. It also provides useful insights into and analysis of, Japan's society and socio-economic system.

1
Introduction

The world is growing older. The proportion of older people is growing, much faster than the global population as a whole. By the year 2000, this growth rate will result in more than 410 million older people world-wide (41% and 59% in developed and developing countries, respectively), compared with 290 million in 1987 (46% and 54%, respectively) (US Bureau of the Census, 1987). In most developed societies, one of the most significant and emerging demographic facts affecting the current and future course of societal development is the ageing of the population. The ratio of ‘societal ageing’ (the percentage of ‘older people’¹ in the total population) increased rapidly while population growth slowed during the 20th century. In line with these trends, Japan has also experienced significant changes in its age structure, and is now at the forefront of an ageing world.

Since 1950, fertility has decreased very sharply, and now Japan has one of the lowest birth-rates in the world (1.43² in the mid-1990s). This low birth-rate, combined with reductions in infant and maternal mortality, and an increase in life expectancy (82.8 years for females, 76.4 years for males in 1995), has brought about a very sharp increase in the number and proportion of the older population (Maeda, 1993). This tendency is expected to continue until the beginning of the twenty-first century, when the rates of societal ageing in Japan will become one of the highest in the world (US Bureau of the Census, 1993) (Table 1.1).

Japan earned the United Nations’ (UN) description of an ‘ageing society’ in 1970. The UN defines an ‘ageing society’ as a society with people 65 years and older comprising over 7% of its total population. By 1995, Japan’s societal ageing had reached 14.5%, exceeding the UN’s definition of an ‘aged society’ of 14% (Management and Coordination Agency, 1995). The speed of Japan’s societal ageing has been phenomenal. It has taken only 25 years for Japan to double its ageing rates from 7 to 14.5% (between 1970 and 1995), compared with 115 years for France and 66 years for the United States. Japan will continue to age rapidly over the next 30 years, and at a greater rate than many other developed societies (US Bureau of the Census, 1993) (Figure 1.1).

Table 1.1 Percentage of the older population (65 and over) in the total population (forecast for 2010 and 2025)

	1970	1990	2010	2025
Japan	7.1	11.8	21.3	26.7
Sweden	13.7	18.0	19.6	23.7
France	12.9	14.6	17.2	22.6
Singapore	3.4	5.8	10.4	20.6
United States	9.8	12.5	13.3	18.7
Rep. of Korea	3.3	4.8	9.0	15.2
China	4.3	5.8	8.3	13.3
India	3.7	3.7	5.3	7.8
Kenya	3.9	2.2	2.7	3.8

Source: US Bureau of the Census. (1993), An Aging World II.

Figure 1.1 International comparison of ageing rates of society (%)

Source: US Bureau of the Census. (1993), An Aging World II.

In addition to changes in the age structure of the population, Japan’s post-war economic growth brought rapid industrialization and urbanization, and with it associated changes in social values and lifestyles. One significant issue is the transformation of living arrangements. The vast majority of people in Japan used to spend their later life living with their children, and approximately 60% of older people still live intergenerationally. The socioeconomic changes, however, have broken down the traditional family structure, and the number of elderly-only households³ has increased rapidly. If the traditional arrangement of coresidency is no longer the only housing option for Japanese people in later life, what is required to accommodate such a transition?

The disproportional growth of the older population and its accompanying changes in lifestyles pose a considerable challenge to the nation’s housing, employment, and welfare policies since existing socioeconomic and legal systems have become obsolete and can no longer meet the people’s ever-changing immediate and long-term needs (Ageing Sogo Kenkyu Centre, 1995; Coleman and Salt, 1992). Furthermore, as the ageing of the population advances, the economy may suffer supply-side economic problems caused by an increased social security burden, a shortage of savings, and both a decline and ageing of the working population⁴ (Maruo, 1992). Issues of an ageing society have become primary concerns for Japanese society ahead of the twenty-first century.

Older people in the 1990s have witnessed major changes in Japanese society – from the devastation and defeat of the Second World War to the birth of the world’s second economic superpower. The economic growth brought affluence to the nation, and the ranks of ‘middle-class’ people in Japan swelled. According to the OECD’s Economic Outlook, Occasional Studies (1976), by the late 1960s, Japan had already achieved a Gini coefficient of 0.316 (after taxes),⁵ to rank as one of the leading nations in the world with respect to egalitarian distribution of income (Nakagawa, 1979). Although the development of post-war housing, employment, and welfare policies successfully raised the living standards of Japanese people, those policies also helped to create new forms of social stratification and reinforced gender roles. Gender inequality in the family and society has remained a significant feature of Japanese society, with women’s dependency on their working husbands continuing throughout the process of post-war industrialization.

Japan’s economic miracle has been achieved largely at the sacrifice of the family. The male breadwinner family model developed to maximize family resources. The government also promoted this model in order to achieve full employment rates by excluding women from the labour market. It was believed that gender roles among married couples helped to sustain an efficient and strong male labour force. In fact, without the domestic support of their wives, few kigyou-senshi [corporate warriors],⁶ who dedicated themselves to their company, often working for long hours, and sometimes until their death from work-related stress or fatigue, would not have been able to participate fully in Japan’s post-war economic mirac...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Social Change and Family Change
• 3 Women and Family Relations
• 4 The Japanese Welfare State in Transition ‘From Feudalist to Post-Bubble Capitalist State’
• 5 Women and the Welfare State
• 6 Housing and Older People ‘Impacts of Housing Policies and Processes’
• 7 Women and Housing Choices
• 8 Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Appendix A Methodology and Approach
• Appendix B Glossary