Bernhard Nauck & Rokuro Tabuchi
One or Two Pathways to Individual
Modernity?
Effects of Education on Family
Formation in Japan and Germany
Two competing hypothesis
• Model of the Second Demographic Transition
(SDT)
• Dirk van de Kaa & Ron Lesthaeghe
• Background: Social Demography; Model of the
„First“ Demographic Transition
• Model of Family Change (MFC)
• Cigdem Kagitcibasi
• Background: Cross-Cultural Psychology;
Criticism of classical Modernization Theories
Model of Family Change (MFC)
• Family Change is path dependent on the respective cultural
baseline
• „Individualistic“ and „collectivistic“ cultures may be
distinguished as different baselines
• Family types, emphasizing „nucleation“, „individual autonomy“,
„self reliance“, are bound to a „culture of separateness“ and
stem from the tradition of the Western European Marriage
Pattern
• The „majority world“ has developed a „culture of relatedness“,
which develops from „material interdependence“ to
„psychological interdependence“ with growing affluence and
urbanization
• The „culture of relatedness“ persists as a different pathway
Model of the Second Demographic Transition (SDT)
• Family Change depends on worldwide value diffusion
• With increasing affluence, a culture of „higher order needs“
becomes attractive, accepted and diffused
• Higher order needs emphasize self-actualization, individual
autonomy and recognition, and the pursuit of individual
happiness
• Value diffusion is independent of economic and cultural
preconditions
• The result of social change is a unified pattern of family related
behavior
Empirical implications of both models
MFC
Stable, path dependent differences
between family cultures
SDT
Vanishing differences between family
cultures
Empirical implications of both models
MFC
SDT
Stable, path dependent differences
between family cultures
Vanishing differences between family
cultures
Stable intergenerational solidarity
Decreasing intergenerational solidarity
- Stable low childlessness
- Increasing childlessness
- Stable high investments in children
- Varying investments in children
according to „tastes“
Empirical implications of both models
MFC
SDT
Stable, path dependent differences
between family cultures
Vanishing differences between family
cultures
Stable intergenerational solidarity
Decreasing intergenerational solidarity
- Stable low childlessness
- Increasing childlessness
- Stable high investments in children
- Varying investments in children
according to „tastes“
Stable entry and maintenance of
partnerships
Increasing rates of „single“ life forms in
the life course and divorces
- Standardized entry into partnership and
marriage
- Destandardization of entry into
partnership and marriage
- Low influence of social inequality and
- High influence of social inequality and
individual preferences on family formation individual preferences on family formation
Why a comparison between Japan and Germany?
• Both societies have already undergone a long lasting process of
modernization and industrialization
• In a worldwide perspective, both societes enjoy high affluence
already for more than two generations and have developed
private life styles accordingly
• Both societies have a similar experience of the Second World War
But both societies show a markedly different cultural pathway
• Germany belongs to the Western European Marriage Pattern and
may represent the „family culture of individualism“
• Japan belongs to the collectivistic East Asian cultures and may
represent the „family culture of relatedness“, but has already a
long lasting access to Western mass media information and
values related to the model of the SDT.
The research question is:
Does Japan
retain the „culture of relatedness“
(as the Model of Family Change proposes),
or do both Germany and Japan converge in a
Second Demographic Transition?
Design of the Study
12 cumulated demographic, life course and family surveys from both
societies:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
German Life Course and Social Change Study (West) (n = 5.591)
German Family Survey (West) of 1988 (n = 10.043)
German Family Survey (East) of 1990 (n = 1.952)
German Life Course and Social Change Study (East) of 1991 (n = 2.331)
German Family Formation and Fertility Survey of 1992 (n = 10.012)
German Family Survey of 1994 (n = 10.994)
National Family Research of Japan 1998 (n = 6.985)
German Family Survey of 2000 (n = 10.318)
National Family Research of Japan 2003 (n = 6.302)
German Generations and Gender Survey of 2005 (n = 10.017)
German Family Panel 2008 (n = 12.402)
National Family Research of Japan 2008 (n = 5.203)
Coverage
49.983 women from both societies from 7 cohorts:
• 1920-cohort (1915 – 1924)
• 1930-cohort (1925 – 1934)
• 1940-cohort (1935 – 1944)
• 1950-cohort (1945 – 1954)
• 1960-cohort (1955 – 1964)
• 1970-cohort (1965 – 1974)
• 1980-cohort (1975 – 1984)
70 years of family formation from before the Second World War
to the beginning of the 21st century
Cohort changes of the family formation process in Japan and Germany
relationship
1st birth
3rd birth
Country: Germany
1.55***
1.18***
1.25***
Education (centered)
.56***
.47***
.64***
1920
1.25**
.98
2.97***
1930
1.28***
.99
1.35***
1940 (reference)
1.00
1.00
1.00
1950
.98
.96
1.09
1960
.83***
.77***
1.29***
1970
.64***
.60***
1.29***
1980
.42***
.46***
1.68**
Country x 1920
.53***
.71***
.47***
Country x 1930
.48***
.80***
.87
Country x 1950
1.26***
.94
.68***
Country x 1960
1.32***
1.08*
.65***
Country x 1970
1.32***
1.16***
.89
Country x 1980
1.33***
1.33***
.94
Education and family formation process in Japan and Germany
relationship
1st birth
3rd birth
Country: Germany
1.82***
1.24***
.96
Education (centered)
.73***
.57***
.94
Year of Birth (centered)
.98***
.99***
1.00
Country x Education
.72***
.75***
.61***
Country x Birth
1.01***
1.01***
.99
Education x Birth
.99
.99**
1.02*
Country x Education x Birth
.99
.99
.98*
The research question revisited…
Does Japan retain the „culture of
relatedness“?
or
Do both Germany and Japan converge
in a Second DemographicTransition?
Does Japan retain the „culture of relatedness“ ?
No and YES!
No, because the family formation process in the
younger cohorts becomes increasingly
destandardized and delayed.
Yes, because even women of the younger
cohorts are included in marriage and in
motherhood on a comparatively high level.
Do both Germany and Japan converge?
Yes and No!
Yes, because in both societies the
destandardization process in the family
formation increases in the younger cohorts
No, because the differences between both
countries are at all times significant and seem
even to increase in the younger cohorts
Requests for the related paper
may be directed to
bernhard.nauck@soziologie.tu-chemnitz.de
r-tabuchi@sophia.ac.jp
Thank you for your interest!