Trends In Familial Social Status Of Japanese Women And Potential Causes

2 Pages 607 Words

NEW TRENDS IN FAMILIAL AND SOCIAL STATUS OF JAPANESE WOMEN AND POTENTIAL CAUSES.




Japan is experiencing a major change of gender roles as women enter the workforce in record numbers. The result is the rise of financially independent Japanese women who have careers, financial independence and personal freedom. Having experienced independence, women are less interested in the responsibilities of a wife and mother, which would include not only running the household but also caring for aging parents.
Concurrent economic, demographic, and social trends have quietly created dramatically different lives for Japanese women, as they live longer, marry later, have fewer children, and spend longer periods of their lives alone or at least without a husband.
Technology and longer lives free women to consider expanded options, with new choices , possibilities, and problems. The changes in women’s life cycles also stimulate changes in the roles they choose and are required to take in society, with important ramifications for family life, education, and the world of work. Japanese women have valid reasons to prepare themselves for long lives with a greater degree of independence, whether by necessity or choice. (1)

In result to Japanese women experiencing independence many have chosen to postpone marriage or just not get married at all, many Japanese women feel that getting married will mean giving up their freedom and independence . Because delaying marriage usually results in fewer children, the birthrate in Japan is steadily declining well below the rate required to sustain Japan’s current population and is the lowest rate in the world. At the same time, the Japanese have the longest life expectancy in the world, The result is a rapidly aging population that soon will begin to shrink unless these trends are reversed. (2)

There are women who do want to become a mother and wife, but the cost of having to resign from...