Impact of Mothering on Demographic Behaviors in Japanese
Society: Labor Shortage and the Preference for Parent-Child Co-Sleeping
Yoshie Moriki (International Christian University)
IUSSP International Population Conference, Busan, Korea
Session 119: Anthropological demography
28 August, 2013 (13:30-15:00)
Room 110, Convention Hall (BEXCO)
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<Introduction>
This study examines relationships between macro-population dynamics and
internalized cultural values, focusing on the issue of female labor force participation and
mothering in the case of Japanese society.
As a consequence of a long-term decline in fertility
rates, Japan is facing a problem of labor shortage and women’s labor is increasingly recognized
as an important source of work force (Matsukura et al. 2008: 97-98).
The Japanese
government has identified female labor as a key factor for revitalizing the Japanese economy
and has been discussing and implementing measures to encourage more productive use of
female labor (Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office 2013).
However, as indicated by
various statistics, Japanese women, particularly married ones, have not been well represented in
the labor market, retaining a traditional pattern of work-termination at marriage and childbirth
(The Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training 2013: 5-6). The inadequacy of social
institutions that can help women combine work and family responsibilities is one of the often
mentioned causes for the under-representation of women in the Japanese labor force (e.g.
Nosaka 2009). While recognizing the fact that these institutional problems are negatively
affecting work decisions, this paper shifts the focus to women’s daily practices and their
internalized values with an assumption that deeply grounded underlying values are a powerful
factor in Japanese society.
In order to reveal a culturally conditioned internal mechanism that
determines married women’s work termination patterns, the paper explores Japanese people’s
values based on data collected through focus group discussions held in Tokyo.
Ultimately, one
of the aims of the paper is to contribute to finding ways for more successful management of the
impeding demographic problem of labor shortage, by taking into account internalized
motivations of the Japanese people.
<Background>
A number of studies have demonstrated that mothering in Japanese society is greatly
valued. Japanese families are typically described as “child-centered,” with children and their
needs being the focus of the family’s attention (White 2002: 102-103). In such a family,
Japanese mothers have a special role in raising and educating children to fit into the society that
emphasizes harmony and collectivity (Shand 1985: 57, 61).
For example, an American
anthropologist argues that Japanese parents, especially mothers, are expected to guide their
children to develop into a person that can function well as a part of the Japanese society by
treating them as if they were an extension of the mothers (Small 1998: 102).
Because of the
high social values and responsibilities attached to mothering, married women’s focus tends to
be on their children, and, accordingly, they take pride in being housewifes, which is regarded as
a full-time work (White 1987: 153-155).
In fact, Shirahase (2005: 182-183) reports that
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among six developed countries (the United States, Great Britain, Sweden, former West
Germany, Italy, and Japan) Japanese women show an exceptionally strong preference for being
a housewife, and find it as fulfilling as being employed in the labor market.
A good example of intensive mothering is a preparation of obento (a lunch box) for
school-age children. Allison (2008) who came to Japan to conduct her fieldwork found herself
obliged to make an obento every day for her son attending a kindergarten. She could not help
wondering why Japanese mothers spend tremendous amounts of time and energy planning and
making daily obento. For a while she also could not understand why school teachers
emphasize issues related to obentos.
Finally, she concluded that obento was a symbol of
motherliness, representing the identity of mothers who are socially requested to help young
children become proper Japanese and follow detailed regulations and unspoken social norms.
Thus, mothers’ provision of carefully home-made obento and children’s having them are one of
the first lessons to be learned. Nakatani (2012: 56-57) also compares the types and amount of
housework in Holland and Japan and agrees that cooking, including obento-making, is by far
the most invested area of housework in Japan.
She explains that popularity of small decoration
tools that help create “kawaii” (cute) obento indicates that obento-making in Japan is treated as
a value-added work, and is believed to be properly managed only by mothers, and not a routine
housework anyone can perform.
As Goldstein-Gidoni (2012) describes in her ethnography of Japanese housewives, a
housewife position in Japanese society is an established social role - a career she calls the
“professional” housewife. According to her, a strong social belief related to the
“three-year-old myth” has successfully convinced Japanese women to stay at home and
exclusively take care of their child at least until the child is three so as to avoid any wrong
childrearing outcomes (Goldstein-Gidoni 2012: 14). The three-year-old myth is a concept
which has consistently emphasized the role of mothers as the main agents of child socialization.
It has been carefully developed since as early as the Meiji era (Takahashi 2004: 80), and the
essence of it has survived numerous changes in social conditions and economic development
(Tendo 2004: 38-39). Jolive (1997: 3, 145) blames Japanese pediatricians for reinforcing this
myth by promoting maternal behavior they view as good and acceptable. She critically
observes that heavy social pressure created by such “medical” advice has made the life of
mothers painful and has played a part in discouraging young women to have children.
In
addition, Ishiguro (1997: 128-129), who analyzed childrearing magazines, points out that as a
result of the introduction of a series of policies favoring women’s full-time work in the 1990s,
Japanese mothers have started facing double difficulties: on the surface, they are given more
choices and being encouraged to participate in the labor market, but in reality their identity and
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value system are rooted in motherhood and proper traditional motherly-ness, which is difficult
to achieve if one is in the labor market.
The Japanese women’s tendency to see themselves as mothers rather than as
individual persons is said to be contributing to their lower labor force participation. Women in
Japan typically leave the workforce after marriage and the birth of a child, making a so-called
“M-shaped curve” in labor force participation rates- a characteristic work pattern for Japanese
females (Kono 2007: 23). An argument has been advanced that with drastic changes in
socio-economic conditions over the past decade, such as decreasing average household income
and increasing temporary employment for both male and female workers (Iwai 2011: 33), the
Japanese family system and the traditional female work pattern themselves are undergoing
changes (Inaba 2011: 44). However, after examining recent rounds of the National Family
Research of Japan, Inaba (2011: 47-50) concludes that traditional family structures, based on the
divisions of labor, are solid and remain unchanged as far as “standard” families, defined as
containing at least one nuclear family and consisting of a couple married for the first time with a
child(ren), are concerned1.
His argument is supported by the Labor Status Survey results that show a continued
low-level proportion of married and childrearing women who work. Among childrearing
women, the proportions that worked (both full-time and part-time included) in 2012 were 47.7
percent (aged 25-29), 51.2 percent (aged 30-34), 53.2 percent (aged 35-39), and 56.7 percent
(aged 40-44).
Furthermore, surveys also revealed that unlike in the past, more women are now
quitting work at the time of the birth of their first child or for childrearing purposes, than at the
time of marriage (Statistics Japan 2013: 65-67).
Moreover, the Japanese Fertility Survey
conducted in 2010 shows that the percentage of wives with at least one child who work as a
permanent full-time employee has not changed since the 1970s across all age groups. The
proportion has been fairly stable at around 20 percent in case the couple had a plan for an
additional child, stood at about 15 percent in couples who had no plans for an additional child,
and where the youngest child was three to five years old.
What has increased over the past 40
years, however, is the percentage of mothers working part-time or temporarily. For example, the
proportion of part-timers increased from seven percent in 1982 to 20 percent in 2010 for women
planning to have an additional child (National Institute of Population and Social Security
Research 2011: 18)2. These statistics confirm a continuing preference for the family-bound life
of Japanese women, whether it be a traditional “professional” housewife type or a “part-time”
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However, what appeared to be changing was that there was an increase in the proportion of
“non-standard” families, such as those formed by re-marriages, single-parent families, and aged nuclear
families with an aging parent(s) and an older adult child(ren) (Inaba 2011: 48).
2 Female workers in Japan are said to be marginal workers with low wages and few job entitlements. A
major reason for taking up a part-time job is to help with educational expenses for children (Ogawa and
Hodge 1994: 109, 125).
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housewife with some outside paid work. In any case, there is a definite continuing trend of
withdrawal from more engaging full-time paid work after having a child.
The persistently popular work termination pattern seems puzzling considering the high
educational attainment level of Japanese women and the expected high motivations for future
career building.
Currently, over 95 percent of Japanese males and females attend high school,
whereas 54 and 41 percent, respectively, pursue university education (Gender Equality Bureau
Cabinet Office 2008).
Calculations tabulated from Labor Status Survey data (Statistics Japan
2013: table 2) show that it is true that a higher percentage (86 percent) of university educated
women work (either full-time or part-time) at ages 25-29, compared with high school educated
women (67 percent). However, the proportion of the former in employment drops sharply
with age, to 73 percent (30-34 years old), and 69 percent (35-39 years old), rebounding slightly
to 71 percent (40-44 years old), while the corresponding proportion for the latter remains around
70 percent for all of these age categories. At age 40, their percentages merge at 71 percent.
Gotteried and O’Reilly (2002) argue that, from the viewpoint of the labor market and related
laws, Japan still retains a firm male-breadwinner model, with some modifications intended to
employ married women as part-timers (p.40-41). According to their analysis, the social benefits
for dependent married women (i.e., those not working or working part-time but making less
than a certain amount of yearly income) have been too large for them to make use of the newly
introduced female-worker friendly policy measures, which are supposed to facilitate gender
equality in employment (p. 48). Thus, a secular rise in women’s educational attainment and an
associated increase in their human capital (Ogawa and Bauer 1999: 22) have not been
effectively linked with a rise in full-time employment.
The work-termination model is well reflected in the views of Japanese women on
work.
According to the National Survey of Work and Family, only less than a quarter (24
percent) of respondents aged 20 to 59 think that a woman should continue to work all her life.
The percentage does not exceed 30 percent regardless of age, gender, and marital status, except
for those who have been separated (36 percent).
By far the most supported work trajectory is
to work until marriage or child birth, quit and go back to work when children have grown up
(Moriki 2008: 3-4). The same survey further suggests that married women who thought (when
they graduated from the last school attended) they would be working full-time at age 40 are a
minority (about 25 percent) across all age categories (20s, 30s, and 40s). For those with
university education, the percentage is relatively higher (32 percent) (Moriki 2008: 6), but not
as high as one would expect. Thus, what is significant here is that although
thechildrearing-related work-termination pattern described could be explained by
socio-structural factors, more importantly, the pattern is so consistent because it has been
internalized in the Japanese value system.
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One of the key words that explain the internalized mothering values among Japanese
women is “hands-on” childrearing.
Ogawa, (2005: 131-132) analyzing the results of a national
survey, reveals that a major reason for not placing children in day-care centers (and terminating
work) was that respondents wanted to “raise the child by themselves,” indicating that
institutional issues such as a lack of childcare facilities are secondary.
Nagase’s study (1998:
67) also suggests that Japanese women’s desire to fully concentrate on childrearing is negatively
affecting both marriage and fertility decisions since they set a high standard for childrearing and
then have difficulties imagining that they can handle as the load of a full-time worker and
mother.
In addition, a comparative study of childrearing in Japan, Korea, and China shows
that in Japan the (full-time working) mother was the dominant person who took 100 percent
care of her child until age one, while in the other two countries the mother’s role was less
significant (59 percent in Soul and 48 percent in Beijing) (Nagase 2005: 88).
What these
findings point to is that the fundamental issue is internal, rooted in the value system concerning
the way of mothering and the concept of a family.
Another impact of Japanese-favored mothering is seen in the area of parent-child
sleeping arrangements.
Several studies have discussed, more or less in comparison with the
American case and with a flavor of curiosity and surprise, a strong preference of Japanese
parents to sleep in close proximity with their children. Although an exact arrangement differs
depending on a household’s situation, such as the room size, family composition, and bedding
(i.e., Western-style beds or Japanese style quilt-mattresses called futon), a typical and symbolic
style is the one in which parents and a child sleep together in the shape of the Chinese character
kawa (川), as described in Small (1988: 99).
Caudill and Plath (1986) provide one of the early
accounts of sleeping arrangements in Kyoto, Tokyo, and Matsumoto and show a clear pattern
for parent-child co-sleeping.
According to their data, involving a total of 323 households, as a
basic preference, Japanese tend to sleep in two to three person clusters, even when there is an
available bedroom in the house. The study examined535 cases of children and found that 79
percent of them, aged one to five, slept together with a parent(s) and 12 percent did so with an
extended kin(s). Only two percent slept alone. As for the ages six to ten, 68 percent co-slept
with a parent(s), and 11 percent with an extended kin(s). Even a significant proportion of older
children, of ages 11 to 15, slept with an adult: as many as 46 percent slept with a parent(s),
while 14 percent slept alone (p. 288).
As for the parents, a majority of them (86 percent) slept in the river-shape style while
their child was still a baby (average three to four months).
As the average age of the child
increases and a sibling(s) is added, the simple river-shape style becomes less common, but
different variations of the river-shape sleeping pattern become noticeable, such as each parent
separately co-sleeping with a child(n), or the mother co-sleeping with children separated from
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the father. Couples sleeping alone are rare (six percent) at this stage of the family cycle, but
their proportion increases to 35 percent when the average age of children is 13 years old (p. 292).
Unfortunately, there are no equivalent data for the recent situation that the author is aware of.
However, the results of a national survey conducted in 2010 show that an overwhelming
proportion of respondents agree (41 percent) or relatively agree (45 percent) with the opinion
that young children should sleep with their parents (Moriki 2012: 36), providing evidence for
continuing preference for co-sleeping.
Furthermore, the dominance of the co-sleeping value in the Japanese society is also
clear from a cross-cultural perspective.
Wolf et al. (1995) examined parental practices
regarding their children’s sleep in Japan, Italy, and the United States. Their study, comprising
indicators such as adult company and adult body contact at bedtime, as well as regular
co-sleeping, confirmed that Japanese parents are more likely to be together with their children
when they sleep. The difference was particularly sharp when the Japanese were compared
with the white American sample that presents a definite independent sleep pattern, while the
sleeping practices of the African-American sample appeared to be more similar to the Japanese
situation (pp. 371-373). Another example is a comparative study by Azuma et al. (1981) that
includes American and Japanese data collected in the 1970s on young children’s sleeping
arrangements3. Their findings showed that in contrast to the American children half of whom
sleep alone in an own bedroom, only three percent of their Japanese counterparts did so. Also,
for American children, the choice was either to sleep alone or to sleep with a sibling(s), while
the Japanese case could choose between several different arrangements such as sleeping with
both parents, the mother alone, the father alone, the mother and a sibling(s), and others (p. 323).
All of these studies agree that parent-child sleeping arrangements are heavily
embedded in a large cultural context.
As Trevathan and McKenna (1994: 100) explain,
answers to the question of where and with whom a child will sleep are based on cultural values
and expectations, and, hence, it is no wonder that in a society that emphasizes harmony children
are encouraged to sleep with parents.
Wolf et al. (1995: 377) similarly state that the Japanese
way of childrearing is characterized by a strong bond between the mother and the child which
instills a sense of interdependency within the family, the group, and eventually, the Japanese
society. They also cite words of Japanese mothers who cherish their child’s dependency on
them and were quite willing to accept the task of satisfying their child’s desire to be reunited
with the mother (p. 381). Thus, the issue of co-sleeping warrants serious investigations as an
important aspect of culturally preferred parenting and mothering that has significant
ramifications for demographic outcomes of a population.
3
Despite that, because co-sleeping is
There is no mention about the ethnicity of the American sample, but the sample was collected in the
neighborhood of Stanford University.
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so deeply grounded in the behavioral patterns of the Japanese and too natural to be questioned
the issue has not received enough attention from the Japanese academia.
In light of current
Japanese demographic conditions in which women are increasingly expected to be reliable
workers in the labor force, intensive mothering style, including parent-child co-sleeping practice
needs to be critically examined.
<Data and Method>
The data used for this paper were collected through focus group discussions. The
author organized six focus groups in March 2013, involving a total of 35 participants (12 males
and 23 females) living in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Each group consisted of six people
(excepting for Group 4 where one person failed to attend). Groups 1 to 5 with consisted of
participants in their 30s and 40s and Group 6 of those in their 20s and 30s. The description of
the groups is as follows: 1) males working as regular full-time employees, married to a working
women (regular full-time employees) and having at least one child, 2) females working as
regular full-time employees, having a working husband (a regular full-time employee) and at
least one child, 3) housewives with at least one child, 4) professionals (three males and two
females) with/out a child, 5) people with more than three children (three males and three
females), and 6) never-married people (three males and three females) without a child.
The participants were recruited by a survey-company that managed administrative
issues, such as the preparation of a meeting room, minutes taking and text transcription, and the
payment of honorarium.
A short screening survey explaining the purpose of the research was
first sent out by email to people registered in a database (57,663 cases) to identify demographic
information such as age, educational level, working status, number of children, family
composition, and income category. The survey also included 12 questions with four-likert
scales asking whether the respondent agrees with traditional Japanese values. Then, the author
selected the 35 participants from the pool of 430 eligible people who successfully completed the
questionnaire (out of 2,168 who showed interest in the participation)4. The discussions
focused on issues related to childrearing and mothering, including such topics as the ideal
mother, the expected roles of mothers, good and bad memories of their own mothers, the
difficulties of being parents in daily life, the joys of being parents, sleeping arrangements, and
4
A screening survey was sent to people living all over Japan. Out of the 2,340 people who agreed to
the research and returned the survey, 430 completed the questionnaire (The rest were found ineligible
because of their place of residence, for example, and they were not able to answer the remaining
questions). On the day of the session, all the participants were again presented with an informed consent.
Personal information was only revealed to the company staff members. During the sessions, the
participants were addressed using an alphabet letter (e.g. Mr. / Ms. A), and were instructed to be careful
not to give away their personal information such as their company name. In cases when despite the
warning words revealing the participant’s personal information were spoken, the information was deleted
during transcription.
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any childrearing problems encountered.
All sessions were led by the author and entire
discussions were recorded and transcribed.
In addition to the focus group text, the paper utilizes field notes by the author. The
author is a native anthropologist who lives, works, and raises two young children in Tokyo. The
field notes cover the period from April to July 2013 during which the author was on a sabbatical
and had the opportunity to participate in the life of Japanese mothers who do not working
full-time.
The activities in which the author participated include being a PTA member of a
local elementally school, joining “mama lunches,” and making obento. As Fujita and
Kitamura (2013) discuss, the category of “native” is not as clear cut as it sounds, and there are
variations in the degree of nativeness. The author is a native Japanese citizen, born and raised
in Japan, but her life path includes long-term experiences outside of Japan, such as graduate
study in the United States, international marriage, giving birth and raising a child in a South
Asian city, all of which has influenced her to find an anthropological research topic in the daily
life of the Japanese.
As Bourdieu (2003) explains, “participant objectivation” (p.287) is a
guiding methodological principle with which the author critically questions the meaning of
mothering practices that are seemingly ordinary and insignificant to the eyes of the “Japanese.”
All data were stored in and managed with the qualitative software NVIVO 10. The focus
group discussion texts were coded, organized into thematic topics and connected with additional
data sources like field notes for interpretation.
As its analytical framework, the paper adopts the concept of “habitus” as discussed by
Bourdieu (1976, 1977) who suggests that in viewing a social phenomenon, one can schematize
a particular situation with the following three elements: “objective structures” that define a
social condition, “habitus” that is an internal motivation of a person involved in the social
condition, and “practices” that are a series of actions that the habitus produces. Habitus is
created by the social environment such as upbringing, social norms, and history, which results
in generating certain practices, because habitus functions as the internal laws of a person.
Importantly, the practices an individual consciously and unconsciously engages in, in turn,
reproduce the objective structures - hence, the relationship between the objective structures and
habitus-led practices is a two-way relationship and they are mutually dependent (Bourdieu
1977: 78-87).
Applying this conceptual framework, this paper aims to explain an objective
structure in the Japanese society, that is, the work-termination patterns of married Japanese
women.
In the following analyses, obento-making and parent-child co-sleeping, which are
inspired by child-centered mothering values, are emphasized as examples of practices
reproducing the work-termination structures.
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< Analyses and Results>
Objective structures: Work-termination patterns of married women
The objective structures, i.e. the continuing work-termination trends of women, are, as
discussed earlier, numerically expressed by the national employment status statistics and are
currently under political pressure which seeks to relieve the labor shortage problems.
In this
section, relying on data from the focus group discussions, topics related to women’s (and
families’) decisions to terminate work are highlighted to provide contextual information. The
first noticeable theme that emerged is the fact that even though no direct questions regarding the
relationship between mothers’ work and childrearing outcomes were asked during any of the six
sessions, the participants spontaneously opened the discussions with that question. From their
conversations, it is clear that the participants, both men and women, are thinking, to different
degrees, of some kind of negative impact of mother’s absence from home. Many hesitated to
spell out the details out of consideration for other families’ situations, but some openly
expressed their feelings like the married man with three children below.
Same here (with other people). After all, what I want my wife to do is really about children…to
spend time with them. As much as possible. This is because I usually come home late, and
my wife is a housewife and has time for the children. More importantly, if she does not bond
with the children now, I, as everyone else, cannot help but think that there might be
consequences for the children’s personality formation. Well, I can take care of cleaning and
such. I will do that on Sundays when I can.-Things that simply require labor, we can share.
However, spending a lot of time with children is not something a father can do, and that is what
I expect my wife to do.
Another married man in his early forties with teenage children also articulated his
belief in the necessity of the mother spending as much time as possible with children. He is a
freelance designer working at home and his wife is currently working full-time at a company.
Perhaps because of an untypical work sharing style between the couple, he seems to have more
liberal views on the division of housework, except for the area involving young children.
Reflecting the current social atmosphere in the Japanese society that encourages sharing
housework and accepting alternative work styles, the participants, including this man, tended
not to insist on the traditional divisions of labor. However, when it came to children, their
attitudes became unexpectedly less flexible, as if someone from generations ago was suddenly
talking for them.
Like everyone in our generation, I was of course thinking that women should stay at home and
take care of all the housework, and that men, the fathers, should work outside home. That is the
normal style and I thought it natural. But, the society has changed. Also, if the husband is
making a lot of money and he does not need to let the wife work outside home, then there is no
problem. But, when both the husband and the wife have to work to raise kids, or the wife wants
to work regardless of her husband’s income, then one has to change one’s original values. At
the beginning, I had to forcefully change my traditional ideas. (snip) Now, I do more
10
housework than my wife and I accept, or I have got used to, the arrangement. So, I have no
particular opinion on what housework a mother should do. However, when it comes to children,
at least until the child enters elementary school, I want the mother to spend time with the child
as much as possible, to stay in the same space with the children one second or one minute
longer. That is the ideal. This is a must in terms of the impact on the formation of the child’s
personality in later life. That is how I feel. I cannot point to any specific reasons for why I
think so, I just instinctively feel so.
The participants generally refrained from complaining about their own childrearing
outcomes and from judging those of others, but on one occasion, women, themselves mothers,
started sharing their observations on children whom they judged as being brought up with
outmost care. As the following comments suggest, a key point here is that these participants
are judging whether the mother has dedicated herself enough to the child, physically and
emotionally, when the child was a young preschooler.
As in the case above, the participants
give no specific reasons or proofs for their claims- what matters is the perceived devotion of the
mother to the child.
Watching my friends, I sometimes feel that some of them really invested a lot of effort in their
children when they were infants or during their kindergarden days. Well…things like
listening to what the child has to say attentively, or helping to the child put on shoes with a lot
of care, or always accompanying it to a park. After going through all these childrearing steps
really, really carefully, almost to the point of being too protective, when such a mother finally
starts to work outside home (once the youngest child enters school), her child behave
differently from those of other mothers who did not take good care of them. Carefully
brought up children listen to the parents well. For example, when the mother tells the child to
come home at a certain time, the child runs back home on time. That is what I see. I can tell
when a child has received a lot of care in its early life. Then, I am impressed.
It is difficult to describe just how exactly such a child looks like. Simply, I can tell that a
child has received a lot of care from the mother. It is probably not just one aspect of the child,
but rather the overall impression about it.
The woman’s comments indicate a perceived link between favorable childrearing
outcomes and the mother’s best possible devotion to a child, an ideological connection widely
held in the Japanese society as implied by the three-year-old myths reviewed earlier.
Theoretically, one can claim that full-time working mothers with less available time can still
take a good care of a child, and no one in the groups argued otherwise. Also, no participants
tried to prove their points with substantial evidence. However, what is important to note is that
the participants share the idea that “it is ideal that a mother devotes herself to a child (especially
during early years). ”
Needless to say, this seemingly old-fashioned and vague but firm belief
is one of the fundamental contributors to women’s and families’ decisions to stop working with
the birth of a child to secure maximum possible time for the mother to take care of the child.
In the next section, internalized value systems are explored to explain nature of expected ways
of being the mother in the Japanese society.
11
Internal motivations: Child-centered mothering and self-discipline
One of the common discussion topics introduced in all of the focus groups was the
question regarding acceptable outings by mothers who have pre-school children.
Given the
often discussed child-centered family organization, the question was intended to examine
the
types and occasions for going out for the purpose of satisfying one’s own needs that the
participants felt comfortable about, such as seeing a doctor, going to a hairdresser, meeting with
friends, or exercising at a gym.
In essence, responses to this question were quite consistent,
and can be summarized as: “there are not many occasions in daily life that are important enough
for mothers to peruse.”
Especially, the housewife group developed a heated discussion
insisting that they themselves would not feel comfortable doing anything for their own needs.
According to them, events related to children seem to be the only acceptable occasions for
mothers to leave young children at home, as elaborated by one of the housewives with three
children (ten, seven, and four years old).
For example, the first time I left my infant boy was the kindergaden graduation ceremony of
his older sister. Because I was told not to bring the infant to the ceremony, I asked grandma
to come over and look after him. As for haircuts, I try to get them done in as short period of
time as possible. I changed the hairdresser from the one in central Tokyo to the one in the
neighborhood (laugh). I just have a cut, but even that still takes an hour. I ask papa (her
husband) to look after kids in the meantime. I schedule everything in such a manner. As for the
dentist, if papa is not available, I make a reservation, take the kid with me and have him sit in
my lap while the dentist works on my teeth. As for the parent-teacher meetings for my older
children, when the youngest one was small enough I took him with me in a carry, but when he
got a little older, like, two years old, and was walking around, I had to ask grandma to come
over and look after him. Everything is like that.
Since the stories given by the mothers sounded too narrow in range, another question
was asked, specifically about going to a sports gym, as exercising is viewed as an important
health-promoting activity and seemed acceptable.
However, the group participants
immediately rejected this activity as “pleasure” and something not suitable for mothers to
engage in.
Interestingly, a mother, age 30, who had a nine month old baby revealed that
attending the focus group discussion was one of her first outings without the baby because she
felt bad about enjoying herself alone, let alone going to a gym. She decided to join the session
because her mother was worried about her being too focused on the baby and offered to come
over from the country side for a week to let her go out. She then added that joining the session
is permissible.
Since she did not elaborate on why it is permissible, another woman offered
her feelings about it. As the conversation quote below shows, the expression “self-discipline”
is another key word the participants used repeatedly to describe their situation. Furthermore,
their answers to the additional question which sought to clarify who exactly permits them to
12
conduct various activities revealed that it was themselves and not anyone else like the husband
or the mother-in-law, who “permits” or “does not to permit” a certain action.
Ms. C (the mother of seven, and five year old children): As for going out for a drink at night, to
me it is beyond what is a mother is permitted to do. I am not a big drinker anyway, but the
point is that, right now, it is not the time to do that. If I am stressed out, I should deal with it
in a different way, so that I can stay at home at night. It’s not like I am trying hard to endure
it’s more like I am trying to be disciplined because I know that’s how I should behave.
Author: Could you please explain to “whom” these feelings are directed?
Ms. E (the mother of 13 years old): Not to a specific person, hum… to myself, I think.
Ms. C: To myself.
Ms. D (the mother of ten, seven and four year old): I think, to myself.
Ms. C: I myself am the biggest reason, my thinking about the responsibility I have.
Ms. E: You are not allowed…
Ms. D: To abandon (the responsibility).
Ms. C: Then, there is amae (spoiled, dependent). (snip) Listening to our conversation I got
the impression that as soon as we became mothers, there ceased to be time “off.” We are
mothers 24 hours a day. So, I feel guilty about abandoning the post (leaving home) even when
someone offers to fill the spot. I have problems accepting the offer and abandoning “the
mother” role at home and going out as an individual. I know I need to be a mother all the time
even if it is sometimes hard. But I still do it because I knew from the very beginning that the
job would be hard. I would do it because I should have known from the beginning that the job
is hard.
Furthermore, people in the never-married group provided even stricter opinions on
outings by the mother and parents in general. When the author proposed a hypothetical situation
where a working mother with a pre-school child leaves her workplace at five pm and spends
early evenings on weekdays doing various activities such as going out for a movie with the
husband, going to a gym, shopping, and meeting with friends, they reacted with disbelief that
the author could even think of such a situation.
In particular, a young woman (Ms. D) seemed
rather offended with the hypothetical setting and implied that she was refraining from marriage
and childbirth because she was not yet able to dedicate enough time to raising a child.
Ms. F (36 years old): Well…if you have a child, watching it grow is a pleasure. So, not doing
the task thoroughly is a no- no.
Mr. A (26 years old): You should adjust your time during these five days, really, if you have a
child. You can go to the movies once a month, for example. You do not need to do such things
every day. If we are talking only about a couple, then, there is no problem. But if you have a
child and still go out,…to put it plainly, I think such people are not qualified to be parents. I
do not believe such parents exist.
Author: So, maybe having an event five days a week is too extreme. Then, how about going
out (leaving a child with a caregiver) once a week?
Mr. A: Even once a week…I’m not sure. But, I believe that even once a week is too much.
Ms. D (27 years old): If you want to do that it’s better not to have a child. Such people should
not have children. Having such a desire (of going out) and still wanting a child? You should
know how much time you need to give to your child to begin with. For instance, regarding
myself, I came to the conclusion that because I cannot afford to give so much time right now I
should not marry or have a child.
13
Ms. E (32 years old): Going to a cinema or a gym is purely a pleasure-seeking activity. If you
are sacrificing children and family time for pleasure, then I feel that you are betraying yourself
because you should have known what would be awaiting you (once you have a child). I have
to say that you are a liar (to yourself) (laugh). Funerals and weddings are exceptions; they are
not pleasure events and you cannot avoid asking people to look after your kids so as to attend
them together with your husband.
This self-imposed expectation to devote one’s time fully to childrearing, even to the
extent of feeling “self-disciplined,” is another side of the child-centered family organization and
intensive mothering that are said to be characteristic of Japanese families.
A particular aspect
of the child-centered mothering is the emphasis on parents looking after their children by
themselves.
Some participants, like Ms. A and Ms. C, openly expressed the desire to spend as
much time as possible with their children, while some, like Mr. F and Ms. D, shared their
dilemma between the need to work and a latent desire to stay at home for children’s sake.
Regardless of the actual employment status, the underlying attitude is to prioritize in the
decision making the (perceived) need of children to be with their mother over the personal
needs of the mother and/or parents, the question of working or not working included. Of course,
the actual degree of prioritizing the needs of children varies from person to person, depending
on their perception and the household conditions. However, as aptly expressed by a male
participant, “as long as the child is not dissatisfied” seems to be the benchmark.
That is, the
mother’s private activities are permitted as long as the parents are convinced that their decisions
are not threatening the best possible future for their child, and accordingly, it is only then that
the mother’s work can be considered as an option.
Ms. A (30 years old): I saw comments on Twitter that because some mothers work outside
home nowadays, they miss a chance to witness the moment their child stands on its feet for the
first time. A caregiver at a daycare center is the one who witnesses it, not you. So, someone
who is not the mother records on a note such an important event in the life of your child! I
thought I don’t want this, especially now when my child is still small. I want to do everything
together, from eating to taking a walk outside.
Ms. C (38 years old): As for work, I myself would never work before my child entered
kindergarden. Well, it is an extremely important period and it needs to be the mother who takes
care of the child. I do not want to work if I have to ask others to take care of my child. Of
course, I understand that others may have a different opinion. But, this is my thinking. When
the child enters a kindergaden, then it is OK to do things while the child is at school.
Ms. D (38 years old): I am the type of woman who wants to be with the child, even a minute or
a second longer, until the child enters elementary school. There are people who do not agree
with me, there are people who think that the mother should not be too close with her child, but
not me. However, as other people have pointed out, money is needed for education and other
things. If I lose my current job, I may not be able to get another one or I may earn only a half of
what I am earning now. So, I have reluctantly placed my small child in a daycare center.
Mr. F (47 years old): Perhaps, my wife can quit working full-time when our child enters
elementary school. To tell you the truth, I want to quit my job (laugh). Maybe I’ll quit and let
my wife work. Originally, until I got married, my ideal was that my wife would stay at home
and be a housewife. But when I got married and realistically looked at my income and I got
worried. So, right now, I am asking my wife to work as long as her work situation can be
14
adjusted so as not to be too inconvenient for the child. But, I am now worried what will happen
if either of us quits working when the child enters school (when the child needs more
educational attention).
Another common discussion topic introduced in all the sessions was a possible use of
immigrant domestic workers. Similar to some South East Asian countries, Japan might opt to
adopt the policy of accepting more immigrants in the future.
Foreign workers could
potentially help run the households, freeing Japanese women from labor at home. Contrary to
the author’s expectation that the participants would have diverse attitudes towards the usage of
immigrant workers, opinions on this issue were surprisingly uniform.
The participants did not
see any need to hire an immigrant worker (or any non-relative) to take care of their household
matters, even in the case they could financially afford it. Some participants were
understandably worried about having a stranger at home, some housewife participants stated
that would be a waste because a willing housewife is already working at home, and some
full-time working parents raised the concern that letting their child spend too much time with a
non-Japanese person would produce a “non-typical” child who would not fit well into the
Japanese society.
Some people were particularly uncomfortable about letting non-family (and
non-Japanese) members take care of young children who they believe would learn behaviors
and habits of the caregiver. Somewhat upset with these rather conservative responses, the
author tried to bring about more discussion by pointing out possible benefits of having a helper
at home, such as having more free time.
Then, curiously, a similar answer emerged in
different groups, that having a native English-speaking helper could be a good idea because that
would enable their children to learn English at a young age.
In addition, some mentioned that
being able to eat ethnic food that they do not know how to make could be a merit in the sense of
cultivating a broader taste in children.
From these discussions, it became clear that even the
use of a domestic helper is judged in reference to children - the participants would try doing
new things if they thought beneficial to their children.
Furthermore, it became visible that the participants were quite conscious about the
impacts of enculturation. This is because, as the participants recurrently pointed out during the
discussions, in daily childrearing, they think of own mothers and either follow the way they are
familiar with or intentionally go against it if they disliked the way their own mother raised them.
In other words, since the participants were painfully aware of the influence of mothering they
received, they tended to insist that the child needs the mother and not anyone else, and that
mothers tended to be with their children as much as possible in order to successfully socialize
them.
15
Of course, the arguments presented here do not mean to suggest that Japanese mothers
are uniquely altruistic. Rather, the bottom point is that our data demonstrate that
child-centered attitudes are firmly internalized among participants across sessions and that the
values of prioritizing the perceived needs of children are the underlying motivation of Japanese
people when they are making decisions, those regarding the employment of the mother included.
As many participants who repeatedly used the words “self-discipline” and “endurance” to
describe motherhood have pointed out, putting children first and being a proper mother requires
conscious efforts.
Even though demanding, they still follow the expected way. In the next
section, two practices, obento-making and parent-child co-sleeping, are closely examined to
help further understand the powerful impacts of the internalized child-centered mothering.
Practice: Obento-making and parent-child co-sleeping
The child-centered mothering in Japan produces some distinctive daily practices.
A
notable example is the effort directed towards preparation of meals, especially making of a
small lunch box called obento.
As has been reported by past studies, Japanese mothers are
said to have a special attachment to obento.
Both working and non-working women in our
focus groups indeed showed a particular interest in this topic. A housewife expressed her
commitment to obento preparation realizing that the practice was both her responsibility and a
representation of her identity as the mother. A couple of full-time working women with hectic
daily schedules emphasized that they get up early in the morning, around five am, to make
breakfast and obento. Also, another working woman recalled a fond memory of obento that
her mother used to make for her, and associated the obento episode with a good/ideal mother
figure. The fact that Japanese people can easily think of a little story or two about obento
indicates that this small lunch box occupies a significant place in the Japanese society.
Obento-making is a practice that symbolizes the ideal motherhood and dedication of the mother
to the family and children.
Ms. D (housewife): When my eldest daughter entered elementary school and started eating
school lunch I kind of felt relived from the responsibility (of making obento) , having finished
making her kindergarden obento. However, she would always ask “What do we have for
dinner?” when she would come back from school. One day I finally told her: “You have good
lunch at school, why are you so interested in dinner?” She said “School lunch is not as good as
meals at home.” When I heard that, I realized that being a mother means making meals. My
children feel that their mother’s taste is the best. Being a mother equals being someone who
prepares food for children. Then, I started feeling a huge responsibility regarding making
meals, especially dinner.
Ms. D (full-time worker): In my family, I get up at five am to make obento for the children, the
husband, and myself. Then, the children get up around ten to seven and leave by seven
twenty-five. After that, I hurry so that I can leave between seven forty and seven fifty.
16
Ms. F (full-time worker): My mother continued to work even after my father managed to make
good money. I needed obento all of my school life. My working mother made me and my
little sister obento from kindergaden to high school. When my mother finished making her last
obento, she cried. She felt sad thinking that it was the last obento she would make for her
daughters. She was such a busy person, but she made the tastiest and cutest obento at school.
(snip) I now cook a lot. However, my mother’s rice balls are the best. Mine are not as good.
So, I want to be a mother like her.
Conversations exchanged in the never-married group further support the close
relationships between obento and the mother’s dedication.
According to these single people
who are likely to have more memories of obento as recipients than as providers, the feeling that
“my mother did all she could for me” is important, as is shown below. Their comments indicate
that obento making symbolizes a mother’s efforts for her children, and that obento-making is a
perfect activity for a mother to exhibit her dedication to motherhood in the child-centered value
system.
A male participant even said that one is a failure if one lets the child know that he or
she does not have time for making the child’s daily obento. From the perspective of a child, it
seems that using ready-made food items or putting routinely the same food items in obento
does not present a problem, but that, rather, the act of making obento is important as a
demonstration of the mother’s effort.
Here again, what is valued is the attitude of devotion,
and the devotion of time, energy, and care. From a practical aspect, of course, this ideological
request for the mother to devote her time is not easily compatible with work outside of home.
Ms. D (27 years old): (About the usage of ready-made food items in obento) I think that’s
alright. That was my mother’s maximum (she did not have capacity to make all food items
from scratch). If the mother tries to make obento to the best of her ability, then, when the
child grows older, the child will understand how much the mother did for it.
Another distinctive practice that materializes child-centered family values is found in
sleeping arrangements. In the sessions, almost all participants who have a child indicated that
they are co-sleeping in the river-shape style (kawanoji) or variations of it, or have co-slept with
a child at one point in the family life (except for a divorced woman with two teenage boys who
implied presence of a boyfriend at home), believing that co-sleeping is a good practice for the
sake of the child. An important point that repeatedly emerged from the discussions is that
participants with a pre-school age child would like to continue the current co-sleeping style until
the child expresses the wish to terminate it or needs a separate room for him/herself, as is the
case with of Mr. A and Mr. F.
As has been pointed out in past studies, the number of available
rooms is not necessarily a significant factor in deciding the sleeping arrangements. Instead, as
the last quote below clarifies, some people choose to co-sleep as a family in order to introduce
the ideal sleeping arrangement when a larger room becomes available.
17
Mr. F (sleeps with a five-year-old): In my family, we sleep in kawanoji as our child is still
small. I think that’s ideal. The only problem is that I am not sure how long she will want to
sleep with us. As for myself, I would like to co-sleep with her as long as possible, until she
starts to complain about the arrangement.
Ms. B (sleeps with an eight- and a four-year-old): We are still sleeping all together on futon
(Japanese style quilt-mattress) next to each other, in the order of my husband, a child, another
child, and I. As our feeling, we would prefer to continue this style because it is only that now
we can sleep together.
,
Ms. D (sleeps with a ten-, seven-, and a four-year-old): In the beginning, we were talking about
separating one bedroom for our two girls since they had been already attending elementary
school, while the third one was still in kindergarden (letting him to sleep with older sisters).
However, my husband said: “Let’s sleep in kawanoji.” We had just moved to a new house
and a Japanese-style room was available. Before that we had slept on a bed. It was a small
bed, so only children and I slept on it, while my husband slept alone in a separate room on a
futon. With the move, we got space that is large enough for everyone to sleep together.
Then, we decided to co-sleep all together since we can sleep that way only in this period of our
family life.
What is clear from these comments is that parents actively choose the co-sleeping
arrangement thinking that being able to sleep with a child is a temporary opportunity in life.
In
addition to the general positive image of co-sleeping for the growth of a child, some participants
specifically pointed out that sleep time is also a time for communication between parents and
children. This concept was reiterated in the never-married group in which people talked about
ideal sleeping arrangements for their future family.
It was rather a surprise that these young
people heavily prioritize the time with children, and even considering the impact of mothers’
work.
Ms. D (27 years old): If I also have to work, then I want us to sleep altogether even more. If I
am working and cannot secure enough time to be with the child during the day, then I want to
use the sleeping time to give a sense of security to the child.
Mr. A (26 years old): I would like to co-sleep with a child before entering elementary school.
(Asked why he replied) Just because… it’s an emotional issue. I just feel that it is better for the
child to secure a time to be together, even if it that means being together during the night while
we are sleeping.
Mr. B (26 years old): Same here. It is probably better to be together with the child as long
as possible. Unless there is a reason not to do so, I think it is better to sleep together.
Participants with older children shared their histories of sleeping arrangements.
Typically, they tried to sleep separately when their child started going to elementary school, but
many stated that the new arrangements did not last too long for various reasons.
When the
children start complaining about sleeping alone, the parents seem to go back to co-sleeping.
The children would eventually start sleeping alone, but the participants appear to have been
convinced that that should happen as spontaneously and not as a controlled decision. As one
woman explained: “When the children start asking to sleep alone, that means that they are
getting independent, not the other way around.” Two participants specifically discussed their
18
failed attempts to have their pre-school children sleep alone. Both experienced behavioral
problems of children and changed sleeping arrangements back to co-sleeping, supposedly to
provide more emotional support for their children. It is not the aim of the paper to examine the
advantages and disadvantages of co-sleeping, but the underlying point is that people tend to
focus on the positive influence of emotional closeness generated by co-sleeping arrangements,
and connect the closeness with good childrearing outcomes and the wellbeing of the children
involved.
Mr. E (sleeps with a 12- and a seven- year-old): To tell you truth, the older child slept alone
from early on. But there were a lot of problems with him, so we decided to sleep together with
him. As others have said, we were thinking that as he grew up he would separate from us.
However, we are still sleeping in kawanoji, although he has already entered junior high school.
It seems that he does not care about the sleeping place. The seven year old, on the other hand,
now wants to sleep alone. The older one is sleeping at various places. That is not a problem for
us, so we let him sleep as he likes.
Ms. F (with a 14- and a11- year-old): When our 14 year-old was a baby, my husband and I
were sleeping on a queen-size bed. Because she was the first child, we invested a lot of money
and emotion for her. We bought a wonderful baby bed that we did not use even once. The baby
slept with us on our bed until the age of two. Because I liked American dramas, I wanted to
let her sleep in her own bedroom. (snip) For a while, she slept wonderfully well and I thought
her independence was growing. However, after the younger girl was born, the older one
started to peal wall papers off during sleep. I realized that it must be due to stress. So, after the
birth of the second baby, I started sleeping on the queen-size bed with both of my daughters.
(In response to a question about a sleeping place for the husband) He slept wherever he liked.
Needless to say, co-sleeping arrangements require consensus between a husband and a
wife as a couple.
In this respect, it is worth noting that there were no strong objections from
the participating fathers who had often been kicked out from the mother and child co-sleeping
space.
Instead of complaining, many fathers spoke positively about it saying it was better for
them to sleep somewhere else because they would come home late at night and did not want to
wake up their child (and/or the mother who might be already sleeping with the child). Also,
from the way the topic was discussed, they seemed to understand the situation as a natural
circumstance, because co-sleeping is the arrangement they themselves grew up with and did not
know the alternatives.
For example, when asked about the decision making process regarding
sleeping arrangements, many participants looked confused saying there was no need to
specifically discuss the issue with the wife or the husband since both of them grew up
co-sleeping in various styles, and they spontaneously resorted to sleeping that way when their
child was born. Furthermore, as the words of the father of a two year-old suggest, these
co-sleeping fathers seem to derive a sense of happiness from watching the child and the mother
sleeping together peacefully.
19
Mr. C (sleeps with a two-year-old): I am not sure if my child feels safe sleeping with me, but
I can tell you that she really feels at peace when sleeping with her mother. This is just my
subjective impression, but I can tell that it is good for her - she sleeps peacefully holding hands
with the mother. (In response to the question whether he wanted to join the “couple”). Me?
No. I am fine (laugh). I see that my child relies on my wife and feeling gives me a peace of
mind.
Finally, as much as the co-sleeping arrangements are a source of peace for the
participants, the arrangements often entail physical discomfort.
Unless one is lucky to have a
room large enough to accommodate the whole family comfortably, someone, usually the mother,
has to tolerate less than perfect sleeping conditions. Many participants acknowledged the fact
that they have given up quality sleep time, as quoted below. However, they do not seem to be
bothered by the inconvenience; instead, they take the lack of sleep caused by co-sleeping
arrangements as a necessary childrearing phase and seem to be accepting it.
Ms. A (sleeps with a nine-month-old): I sleep in the middle, between two single beds.
Ms. E (sleeps with an 11- and eight-year-old): I understand the situation!
Ms. A: I sleep so flat (between the husband and a child). I bought a baby futon, but the baby
would not sleep on it. I need to hug and feed her many times during the night. I always sleep
next to her to be able to take care of her quickly. I do not want to make noise because of my
husband, so that he can sleep as long as possible.
Ms. F (with 14- and 11-year-old): I am not sleeping well at all. I have bought different
beddings (laugh), but nonetheless I am not sleeping comfortably.
Ms. D (sleeps with a seven-year-old): I know. Your bed is a good one, isn’t it?
Ms. E: Quality sleep cannot be expected when there is a child around. I came to understand
that no mothers have a good night sleep during the co-sleeping period.
Ms. C (sleeps with a one-year-old): I have given up on good night sleep. If the situation was to
continue forever, I could not give it up, but this is only for a certain period of time. Someday,
children leave the parents and even if we ask them to sleep together, they will refuse. So, I
prefer to sleep together now even if it means giving up good sleep. Also, I myself feel happy
and secure sleeping together.
The conversation above was between full-time working women.
It should be noted
that a couple of them mentioned their husband’s need to have quality sleep at night because the
husband has to drive a car as his job or has to work until late in the evening. This means that
they are aware of the relationship between quality sleep time and work performance, and that
they are making intentional efforts not to disturb their husbands at night. However, it should
be pointed out that in reality these mothers also work and face similar physical conditions as
their husbands. In addition, as has been argued throughout this paper, all these practices are
self-imposed and the mothers involved gain satisfaction from co-sleeping. So, does that mean
that there are no problems at all?
Given the impeding demographic conditions that are asking
for more engaged female workers, it is time for the Japanese society to consider the impacts of
the culturally preferred style of mothering. Because the preferred mothering is intense both
physically and emotionally, it is natural that women are likely to terminate their working careers
20
upon becoming a mother. Or on the other hand, as one woman argued, it is understandable
why some women decide not to be a mother at all when they are forced to work full-time.
<Discussion>
The analyses of the focus group data provide clues for how Japanese society might
cope with its urgent demographic problems of low fertility and labor shortage, while taking into
account internalized values and the practices associated with them.
First, the mothering value
of prioritizing the needs of the child who wishes to “be with the mother” is deeply internalized
among the participants, and this internal logic is working well to produce specific practices such
as obento-making and co-sleeping.
Because the values are so internalized, people are willingly
and blindly following the expected ways even though at the same time they feel painfully that
they are “disciplining themselves” and “enduring” in order to be a socially accepted mother.
As many participants indicated during the discussions, they have learned to behave the way they
do by living with and watching their own mothers. One participant recalled that her mother
never left her or her siblings at home with another caregiver to go out for shopping or meetings.
She also thought that perhaps because she is the daughter of that kind of a mother, she herself
would not enjoy going out alone leaving her child behind despite the fact that she was aware
that her motherhood was maintained by strict self-discipline.
Because of this system of enculturation, mothering values and the resulting practices
examined in the paper have been socially reproduced over generations. At the same time,
since it is a result of social reproduction, it does not necessarily mean that the mothering style
investigated here applies to all Japanese. There might be specific groups of people who were
raised in different conditions and were reproducing motherhood styles different from those
depicted in this paper. For instance, groups of people to whom the current study did not give
special attention such as individuals who have remarried, junior high school graduates, or
people with manual jobs, might exhibit different patterns if they came under a more careful
focused.
Second, the entire system of women’s work termination and preferred mothering and
motherhood seems to be working in totality.
Nonetheless, one should bear in mind that the
fundamental social order that has supported and also required Japanese mothers to stay at home
has been rapidly and drastically changing in recent years.
Statistics suggest that more average
families find it difficult to survive relying solely on the husband’s income. Accordingly, in
addition to the demographic request for more engaged female workers, there pressure on
mothers’ income at a household level will be mounting.
When the traditional work termination model becomes no longer sustainable, it is
critical to monitor what will happen to the internalized mothering values. The results
21
presented in this paper suggest that the internalized mothering values and the related practices
will not change quickly enough to adjust for the changes in the broader social order. Because
the internalization is a result of enculturation, it would take generations to change people’s
internal structures. However, the preferred mothering style revealed here is time consuming
and labor intensive and is not easily compatible with full-time employment requested by the
new social order. So, what lies ahead for Japanese women?
According to our analyses, one
can hypothesize that an increasing number of women will be caught between the existing
responsibilities of full-time mothering and the new duty as paid workers without realizing that
their habitus no longer matches the social order. These women would become “the structural
victims,” to use Bourdieu’s (1976: 139) expression. In addition, in terms of the problem of
low fertility, women who want to avoid being a structural victim may choose to stay away from
becoming a mother, further depressing Japanese fertility rates.
Finally, our results at the same time suggest brighter aspects of the picture too. Even
if the internalized values stay more or less the same in nature, people’s practices can be flexible
to a certain extent to keep up with the new realities. One such example is found in the opinion
of a never-married man in his mid-thirties. This man, who believes that it is not good for the
mother to come home from work after six o’clock since she cannot prepare dinner for children
in time, assumes that his future wife will be willing to work full-time because of his earning
capacity.
Asked what he would do if his wife could not return home early, he suggested he
would change his job so as to be able to arrive home early enough for children. If Japanese
husbands who are traditionally and notoriously famous for their devotion to work develop
flexible attitudes like this participant, an improvement in women’s work pattern can be expected
without jeopardizing the child-centered family orientation.
One obvious solution for achieving higher female work participation is lowering the
mothering standard in order to free the time that women currently devote to children.
However,
when it is not easily accomplished or culturally not desirable, introducing social measures that
help maintain the preferred level of mothering would be more effective. Because of the
cultural preference for involved mothering, simply pushing women into the workforce,
assuming that they have a desire to work, will not yield the desired results. When women’s
labor force participation can be seen as more beneficial for the sake of children, then people will
have more positive attitudes towards women’s work in the labor market.
22
<Acknowledgement>
This work was supported by MEXT Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists B, Grant number
24720395.
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