In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

NWSA Journal 12.1 (2000) 198-203



[Access article in PDF]

Book Review

Japan: The Childless Society?

From My Grandmother's Bedside, Sketches of Postwar Tokyo

Broken Silence, Voices of Japanese Feminism


Japan: The Childless Society? by Muriel Jolivet, translated from the French by Anne-Marie Glasheen. London: Routledge, 1997, 244 pp., $18.95 paper.

From My Grandmother's Bedside, Sketches of Postwar Tokyo by Norma Field. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997, 204 pp., $24.95 hardcover.

Broken Silence, Voices of Japanese Feminism edited by Sandra Buckley. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997, 382 pp., $15.95 paper.

Persons aged 65 and over comprise 15 percent of the population of Japan and by the year 2025, thirty-three million individuals, 27 percent of the population, will be aged 65 and over. This percentage is considerably higher than estimates for the United States and Europe. As essayist Hashimoto Akiko (1997, 56-65) terms it, "Old age is no longer a bonus or a stroke of good luck. It has now become a social problem." By the year 2000, there will be a shortage of more than two million beds for those critically needing nursing home care in Japan. Japanese family configurations are changing; multi-generation households are becoming less common; many more women are now employed outside the home; and married children do not necessarily live near their aging parents. Primogeniture [End Page 198] has been abolished in Japan; however, social expectations require that the first born son, more specifically his wife, take care of aging parents at home until they die. The Japanese desire predictability and certainty, i.e., what "ought to be," denying extraordinary societal changes. Dependency on relatives in old age is considered inevitable. Social services for the aged are doled out according to whether or not one has children or other relatives whose resources can be utilized. The Daily Life Security Law stipulates that anyone receiving public assistance must have exhausted his or her own means and those of family members. The social status, financial compensation, and availability of home health aides are all problematic. As the population ages and those elderly individuals become increasingly infirm, adequate numbers of persons to care for them are not likely to be forthcoming. The Japanese woman is encountered in Jolivet's book as an increasingly reluctant juggler of maternal responsibilites. Field's book features vivid depictions of the physically and emotionally taxing strain of providing long term care for an aged individual.

Plummeting birthrates, fewer marriages, rising divorce rates, and an aging population characterize contemporary Japan. Feminist stirrings add to great change in societal structures. Until recently, the woman unmarried at age 26 was termed "a Christmas cake," as unwanted as that treat the day after Christmas. Now, many males over age 31 find themselves unable to marry, especially if they are blue collar workers, are employed in fishing or agriculture, and/or have the responsibility for an aged parent. The title of her book, Japan: The Childless Society?, indicates that Muriel Jolivet, a professor of French and Sociology at Sophia University, exaggerates. The Japanese are not the Shakers--but birth rates are down. In May 1996, a government study showed that the number of children under age 15, at 19.87 million, was the lowest since World War II. As a percentage of the nation's total population, 15.8 percent is a record low. In the United States the comparable figure is 22 percent ("Fewer Children"). Jolivet does convincingly demonstrate that the rewards of motherhood are elusive for Japanese women. Childbirth is supposed to be painful. Agony during labor is said to more fully promote bonding between mother and child. Jolivet explains, "In Japan the most difficult path is always the most favourable and labor is no exception to this rule" (82). In the media contemporary mothers are compared unfavorably to their predecessors, as in the television series, Oshin. Furthermore, mothers are warned of dire consequences for their children if they indulge themselves by using commercially prepared baby...

pdf

Share