Miho Iwasawa

National Institute of Population and Social Security Research

To evaluate claims that empirical patterns based largely on data from a single country are broadly generalizable, two types of comparative research are useful. One involves gathering data from a large number of countries and comparing patterns across those countries.

“Diverging destinies” is a term used by Sara McLanahan in her 2004 presidential address to the Population Association of America to describe growing socioeconomic differentials in family behaviors associated with the second demographic transition.

In this chapter, we describe trends in educational differences for several dimensions of childbearing including early childbearing, nonmarital childbearing, and bridal pregnancy. We also examine maternal employment. These analyses are based on the data described above in Sect. 3. 2 and employ descriptive regression methods similar to those used in...

In this chapter, we describe trends in educational differences for several dimensions of marriage and union formation—early marriage, nonmarital cohabitation, divorce, and husband’s education. Before presenting these figures, we describe the data used for these analyses.

The overarching objective of this book is to summarize, extend, and update previous research on educational differences in family behavior in Japan. This is the first comprehensive treatment of the subject and the first to evaluate family differentials in Japan in the context of ideas articulated in research on “diverging destinies” and “patterns o...

Few studies have focused on the sexual behavior of Japanese during the transition from adolescence to adulthood, and little is known about the level of sexual activity or the prevalence of unsafe sex among young Japanese. Drawing upon large, nationally representative sample surveys, this chapter documents the sexual behavior of Japanese youths (pri...

Recent research on fertility in industrialized countries focuses primarily on delayed childbearing, despite the facts that large numbers of women continue to enter parenthood at relatively young ages and that early childbearing has been linked to economic disadvantage. Objective: This cross-national comparative study describes relationships betwe...

We examine educational differences in the intendedness of first births in Japan using data from a nationally representative survey of married women (N = 2,373). We begin by describing plausible scenarios for a negative, null, and positive educational gradient in unintended first births. In contrast to well-established results from the U.S., we find...

The authors examined relationships between single parenthood and mothers' time with children in Japan. Using data from the 2011 National Survey of Households with Children (N = 1,926), they first demonstrate that time spent with children and the frequency of shared dinners are significantly lower for single mothers than for their married counterpar...

In a cohort approach, the extrapolation may refer either to the incomplete fertility of a cohort or to the time series of the parameters of the model. By "forecasting" or "extrapolation" we mean here the capacity of a method to both complete the childbearing period of cohorts of women who have not yet reached its end and forecast the entire set of...

BACKGROUND Evidence of a negative relationship between educational attainment and divorce in Japan is not consistent with predictions derived from standard theoretical emphases on the costs of divorce. OBJECTIVE AND METHODS Using marital history data from a cross-sectional survey, we estimated educational differences in divorce for two marriage coh...

In this article, the authors argue that to understand the very low incidence of outside-of-marriage childbearing in contemporary Japan one needs to take into account perceptions of all possible solutions to a premarital pregnancy: marriage, abortion, and childbearing outside wedlock. To demonstrate the particular impact of these perceptions in Japa...

Owing to equal and increased opportunities for education and employment, today's trend in Japanese marriages is characterized by late and less frequent marriage. This paper discusses unavoidable diversity in rural families to point out the anticipated consequences of aging in rural areas and to discuss limitations in current public social care poli...

Explanations for very low fertility in ‘strong family’ countries emphasise the relatively high costs of childrearing but pay little attention to the potentially offsetting influences of distinctive living arrangements. In this paper, we use data from nationally representative surveys of married women of reproductive age in Japan and Italy to demons...

This article documents the prevalence, duration, and marital outcomes of cohabiting unions in Japan. It then examines the correlates of cohabitation experiences and also describes differences in the family-formation trajectories of women who have and have not cohabited. Cohabitation has increased rapidly among recent cohorts of women, and cohabitin...

This article documents the prevalence, duration, and marital outcomes of cohabiting unions in Japan. It then examines the correlates of cohabitation experiences and also describes differences in the family-formation trajectories of women who have and have not cohabited. Cohabitation has increased rapidly among recent cohorts of women, and cohabitin...

In this paper, we examined two aspects of recent increases in marriage preceded by pregnancy (bridal pregnancy) in Japan. Using information on 28,973 respondents to the Japanese National Fertility Surveys, we first demonstrated that increases in bridal pregnancy between 1970 and 2002 were concentrated among women without postsecondary education. We...

This chapter consists of three sections. First section draws upon data from the Japanese census, Vital Statistics, National Fertility Surveys, and other sample surveys to summarize trends in the transition to marriage. It discusses related trends in divorce and non-marital cohabitation and the dramatic increase in the heterogeneity of the family li...

In this article, we focus on how the trend in meeting opportunities between men and women, especially at work or through jobs, is related to the decline in marriage. Using data from the Japanese National Fertility Surveys conducted by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, we show the extent to which changes in the incid...

Although Japan is among countries of low fertility, that is common to the developed countries today, its situation of fertility control is very different from others. In this paper, we review the trends of contraceptive practice and induced abortion in postwar Japan, examine demographic characteristics of contraception users, and estimate the contr...

In Japan, unlike in most other industrialized societies, the decline in marriage rates has been most pronounced among highly educated women. Theoretical interpretations of this distinctive pattern of change have typically emphasized increasing economic independence for women and reductions in the gains to marriage. In this paper, the authors develo...

Very little is known about recent trends in divorce in Japan. In this paper, we use Japanese vital statistics and census data to describe trends in the experience of marital dissolution across the life course, and to examine change over time in educational differentials in divorce. Cumulative probabilities of marital dissolution have increased rapi...

Since the 1970s there has been a drastic drop in fertility, as well as a sharp decrease in the married popu- lation in Japan. The total fertility rate (TFR) reached its lowest point in 2002, at 1.32. The decline of married people has been one of the main causes of the below- replacement fertility in Japan, where the rates of extra- marital birth ar...

This is a theoretical study on the integration of models concerned with marriage and fertility.

The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research released the 12th national population projections for Japan in January 2002. This paper ex- amines the recent fertility decline in Japan which is essential for diagnosis in esti- mating future fertility rates for the projection. Using data from the Vital Statistics and Japanese Natio...

Abstract The major goal of this paper is to explore the explanation of the ,fertility upturn in Japan after 2005. We focus on possible explanations such as elimination of tempo effects of delayed childbirth, inflation by immigrant women, improvement of the economic condition, policy improvements facilitating childbearing among working women, and co...

The major goal of this paper is to explore the explanations for the total fertility rate (TFR) upturn in Japan after 2005 1 . Following the view on the retreat from lowest-low fertility in European countries (Castiglioni and Dalla Zuanna 2008, Goldstein, Sobotka and Jasilioniene, 2009), we focus on possible factors such as elimination of tempo effe...