Capturing Contemporary Japan: Differentiation and Uncertainty

Chapter 6: Single Women in Marriage and Employment Markets in Japan

Part iii consists of three chapters that examine formerly uncharted or underexplored roles and identities. nakano (chapter 6) analyzes single women and their perceptions of themselves during and after their marriageable years. in postwar Japan the life course was highly standardized, but with the growing number of singles in today’s Japan, how are they scripting their lives? in a society that expects women to play the role of wife-mother and care for others, how do single women see themselves, and what meanings do they find in their lives? How do their experiences of pressure to marry change over time? nakano illustrates that as they grow older, they are no longer pressured to marry but feel an intensified need to remain competitive in the employment market, qualify for pensions, and ensure their security in old age. Long(chapter7)explorestheworldofgrandparentsandgreat-grandparents, part iii exploring new roles and identities inparticulartheirrelationshipstotheirgrandchildrenandgreat-grandchildren. Like the declining marriage rates that led to mass singlehood, increasing life expectancies have led to mass longevity. Many older persons now experience grandparenthood and sometimes even great-grandparenthood, but what are their roles in postindustrial Japan, where co-residence with grandchildren is increasingly unlikely? Despite the fact that grandchildren are no longer seen mainly as inheritors of family businesses perpetuating the family line, the frail elderly interviewed in Long’s study still saw a sense of continuity in their grandchildren but also a sense of difference. Grandchildren remind them that times have changed. nakamura (chapter 8) shifts away from age status to sexual identity. People with disabilities were formerly seen as asexual, but recently there has been a move to reevaluate their sexual needs and access to emerging sexual services. nakamura asks whether people with disabilities have the right to fulfill their sexual needs. if so, how? is it acceptable for their attendants to take them to brothels? whose sexuality is excluded from the current debates? By providing a culturally specific, historically informed account of prostitution and various sexual services in Japan, nakamura examines the lively discussions surrounding what constitutes sexual needs and rights for people with disabilities. 162 part iii 163 CHapter 6 single women in Marriage and employment Markets in Japan Lynne y. naKano single women are described in remarkably negative terms in the Japanese mass media. One such term, for example, “parasite singles” (parasaito shinguru) refers to adult single women who live with their parents. the term became popular following the publication of the book The Age of Parasite Singles (Parasaito shinguru no jidai) (1999) by the well-known sociologist yamada Masahiro, who argued that single people were enjoying a comfortable life and consuming luxury products because they were living with their parents without paying rent or household bills. although yamada explained that both single women and men were parasites, the term has been used in the media largely to describe women. this view of single women as parasites is highly problematic because the decision for a single daughter to live with her parents is negotiated between the two generations; often a single daughter may be chosen among other siblings to care for her parents in their old age (nakano 2010), and parents may prefer that their daughter live with them as a form of social security. terms such as “parasite singles” reveal how some people in Japan view single women, but they do not tell us how single women actually live or how they see their lives. this chapter explores single women’s perspectives based on research that involved extensive interviews with single women and participation in their daily lives. 164 lynne nakano the numbers of single women in Japan have increased significantly in recent decades. in 2010, 4.5 percent of women between the ages of thirty and thirty-four were single, compared to only 7.7 percent in 1975 (national institute of Population and social security research 2011).1 the rise in the number of single women is related to the rise in the average age of first marriage for women. Between 1970 and 2011, women’s mean age of first marriage rose by four years, from 24.2 to 29.0 (Ministry of internal affairs and Communications 2012), a rapid rise compared to western societies, where the age of marriage has risen much more gradually. women marry later in Japan than in most other societies, including the United states, where the age of first marriage was 26.1 in 2010...