Imagining and Living the Family

September 30, 2014 6:30 PM (finished)

(Professor, Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda University)

Date/Time	September 30, 2014 6:30 PM
Location	Room 549 5th floor, Akamon Sogo Kenkyuto Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo　 [map]
Abstract	In recent decades, Japan has become a rapidly aging, low birthrate society. Late marriage and no marriage have also become commonplace. With the prolonged recession, stable, regular employment declined, wages declined, and the prototypical ‘salaryman’ male of the postwar period took a beating. In this milieu, how do young adults feel about gender roles in marriage? Have attitudes changed in regard to co-habitation, marriage and childrearing, and if so, how? How do the unmarried imagine themselves in the future, and how do the married wish to rear their children? The data from this work in progress come from a qualitative survey of sixteen adults ages 23-39, as part of a larger survey research project of the East-West Center’s Population and Health Research Program on Family Change in Asia.
Bio	Glenda S. Roberts is a socio-cultural anthropologist specializing in gender, work, family, and migration. She is Professor at the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda University. Among her most recent publications are, co-edited with Satsuki Kawano and Susan Long, Capturing Contemporary Japan: Differentiation and Uncertainty (University of Hawaii Press, 2014), and “Salary Women and Family Well-Being in Urban Japan,” in Marriage & Family Review, 47: 571-589.