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Marriage in Contemporary Japan

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International Handbook on Gender and Demographic Processes

Part of the book series: International Handbooks of Population ((IHOP,volume 8))

Abstract

Japanese women and men are marrying later and less, and marriage is no longer the universal norm it once was. This chapter will consider the construction of marriage in social, economic and political terms, with relation to ideals of the family, employment, and marriage roles. The links between marriage, fertility, labour and population decline are central to this discussion: Japan is regarded as one of the more extreme examples of an ageing, low-fertility society (Traphagan and Knight 2003, Jones 2007).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Shinguru mazā (single mothers) are women who have children and are currently unmarried, but may be divorced or cohabiting with a partner.

  2. 2.

    In January 2016, Setagaya also held a Coming-of-Age ceremony (accessed 12/04/16) for young people in the LGBT community, offering participants and their families a public forum for discussion of LGBT youth transitions to adulthood (Times 2016).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Asian Studies, School of Social Science, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

    Laura Dales

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  1. Laura Dales
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Correspondence to Laura Dales .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, USA

    Nancy E. Riley

  2. Department of Anthropology, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

    Jan Brunson

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Dales, L. (2018). Marriage in Contemporary Japan. In: Riley, N., Brunson, J. (eds) International Handbook on Gender and Demographic Processes. International Handbooks of Population, vol 8. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1290-1_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1290-1_19

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