Content uploaded by Richard Ronald
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Richard Ronald on Nov 21, 2016
Content may be subject to copyright.
This article was downloaded by: [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ]
On: 05 February 2014, At: 01:28
Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of
Feminist Geography
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cgpc20
Single women and housing choices in
urban Japan
Richard Ronald a b & Lynne Nakano c
a Department of Geography, Planning and International
Development Studies , University of Amsterdam , Amsterdam ,
the Netherlands
b Department of Housing and Interior Design , Kyung Hee
University , Seoul , Republic of Korea
c Department of Japanese Studies , The Chinese University of
Hong Kong , Hong Kong
Published online: 12 Jul 2012.
To cite this article: Richard Ronald & Lynne Nakano (2013) Single women and housing choices
in urban Japan, Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 20:4, 451-469, DOI:
10.1080/0966369X.2012.694357
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2012.694357
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the
“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,
our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to
the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions
and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,
and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content
should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,
proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever
or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or
arising out of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
Single women and housing choices in urban Japan
Richard Ronald
a,b
* and Lynne Nakano
c
a
Department of Geography, Planning and International Development Studies, University of
Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands;
b
Department of Housing and Interior Design, Kyung Hee
University, Seoul, Republic of Korea;
c
Department of Japanese Studies, The Chinese University of
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Japan has experienced a particularly sharp decline in marriage in recent decades and a
subsequent increase in ‘never-marrieds’ and single-person households. Social
fragmentation has been associated with prolonged economic instability and
neoliberalization that has restructured employment, housing and policy contexts.
A particular social concern has been the difficulties facing those who do not follow
conventional married life-courses. While marriage has been important to progress up a
housing ladder and property asset ownership, singledom constrains housing choices and
shapes very different life-chances over the life-course. This is especially true for single
women who are disadvantaged in both housing and labour markets. This article
examines the ongoing restructuring of housing opportunities that are helping reshape
gender differences and experiences, as well as the new housing careers being followed by
the growing number of urban single women in Japan. Based on interviews with female
singles in metropolitan Tokyo, as well as secondary data from national surveys, the
article considers how housing opportunities and choices are being renegotiated in regard
to changing expectations of marriage, life-courses and home. We also reflect upon
relationships between housing choices, social policy, single life-courses and processes
of individualization.
Keywords: single women; ‘never-marrieds’; housing choices; Japan
Introduction
Housing opportunities and choices have been increasingly identified as aspects of social
disadvantage and structures of gender inequality (Kurz and Blossfeld 2004; Kennett and
Chan 2011 ) as well as determinants of family formation (Mulder and Billari 2010). This
study sets out to examine how emerging housing opportunities, in combination with
socioeconomic restructuring, are (re)shaping the lives of many, particularly younger
women in urban Japan. Despite the advancing workforce participation of women, gender
divisions in access to housing have been resilient in Japan. In the post-war period, a social
mainstream was established around standard male-breadwinner families, an owner-
occupied housing ladder and social security founded on the pillars of family and male
employment-based welfare practices (Hinokidani 2007). Since the 1980s, however,
economic destabilization has stimulated socioeconomic fragmentation and restructuring.
These shifts have been associated with declining marriage rates and an expansion of single
households. Public and academic discourses have focused on young women, whose
reluctance to marry and start their own families has often been put down to growing
q2013 Taylor & Francis
*Corresponding author. Email: r.ronald@uva.nl
Gender, Place and Culture, 2013
Vol. 20, No. 4, 451–469, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2012.694357
Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 01:28 05 February 2014
individualism (Yamada 1999). However, women who do not marry have been significantly
disadvantaged as company and state benefits target family households, while ‘husband-
earned’ owner-occupied housing is often essential to living conditions and welfare security
in later life (Hirayama and Izuhara 2008).
This article explores how housing opportunities and choices have been embedded in
life-courses and life-chances of Japanese women. It specifically considers how the growing
numbers of single women in Japan are (re)negotiating housing careers in the context of
changing socioeconomic conditions and diminishing expectations of marriage and family
formation. As well as drawing on national survey data, we examine qualitative interviews
conducted between 2001 and 2008 with 25 single women living in metropolitan Tokyo, to
illustrate emerging orientations to housing careers. Essentially, declining marriage in the
context of a family-orientated housing system and shifting labour market conditions
has driven sharp increases in unmarried women staying on indefinitely in the both natal
home and privately renting compact apartments. There has also been some increase in
condominium purchase, reflecting expectations of security needs as a single person in later
life. This has also had some impact on housing development in urban centres.
These 25 interviews, while not representative of all urban Japanese women, provide
insights into how some single women make housing decisions given the high cost of home
purchase, unstable work trajectories and pressures to care for ageing parents. The
examples we provide show women making choices that allowed them to cultivate and
maintain freedoms in regard to work, romantic relationships and lifestyle. Our findings
challenge hegemonic assumptions that assert that female adulthood derives from marriage,
homeownership and living independently of parents. At the same time, they also challenge
assertions that that independent living among single women is buttressing neoliberal
individualization and undermining norms and aspirations towards marriage and family.
The first section of the article considers the basis for addressing hou singas a gender issue
and the significance of Japan as an empirical case. The second establishes the empirical
context of post-war Japanese housing and socioeconomic frameworks as well as more
recent transformations associated with the rise in unmarried adults and single households.
The third section explores both the context and perceptions of housing conditions and the
housing and partnership choices of young single women. The final part discusses shifting
alignments between life-courses and housing opportunities and the implications of these for
social policy as well as processes of, and resistance to, individualization in relation to gender
in Japan. There are also insights that enhance international understandings of emerging
patterns of social fragmentation and individualization.
Women, housing and families
Early feminist explanations of social differences that are structured by housing systems
focused on gender roles and tended to describe rather than explain inequalities. Empirical
analyses, meanwhile, dwelt upon white, middle class experiences in English-speaking
societies. More recent approaches have sought to develop women as a category of analysis,
making housing needs as well as discrimination in housing markets more visible. While the
usefulness of treating women as a special group has been questioned, it reveals housing-
based processes that serve to reproduce patriarchal relations (see Gilroy 1994; Watson 1986).
A particular feminist concern has been the proliferation of owner-occupied dwellings
and advancing suburbanization, which has idealized private home-life and normalized
female domestic roles (Watson 1986). Expectations of women as unpaid domestic workers,
along with labour market disadvantages, have historically marginalized them in the housing
452 R. Ronald and L. Nakano
Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 01:28 05 February 2014
market, sustaining female dependency on male-breadwinners. The rise of suburbanized,
home-owning breadwinner households further separated women spatially and socially from
public spheres and paid employment. With neoliberalization and the unravelling of Fordist
modes of production in advanced capitalist societies, however, the stability of male-
breadwinner nuclear families has diminished in recent years. While transformations in
labour markets have made incomes less secure, housing market volatility has made the
male-breadwinner model decreasingly viable as a means to support family home purchase.
Essentially, recent transformations have begun to alter the interface between housing and
gender (Kennett and Chan 2011). While the break away from the suburban homemaker role
has been potentially liberating, it has also promoted new gendered forms of spatial and
social differentiation. Neoliberalization has been argued to promote not only new patterns
of inequality but also new forms of individualization (Song 2010). The manifestation of
neoliberalization through the housing market and the impact of individualization, however,
are proving to be highly variegated, shaped by local practices and socio-cultural norms.
Understanding of contemporary changes in housing and gender is not yet well
developed. Furthermore, international discourses have been dominated by Western norms
concerning home and family (Chen 2006). Japan provides a particularly insightful case as it
experienced, in the post-war period, an unusually strong orientation towards the male-
breadwinner model, sustained by prolonged economic growth and underdeveloped public
welfare and citizenship rights (Osawa 2002). It has also, in recent decades, undergone a
conspicuous socioeconomic reorientation featuring the disintegration of established
housing and welfare practices and fragmentation in life-courses and household types. This
article specifically addresses the situation of single Japanese women who have rapidly
increased in number along with social fragmentation, and who face different challenges in
comparison to either married women or their male counterparts in regard to housing
conditions. For many female singles finding alternative routes into independent housing or
up a housing ladder is proving problematic. Furthermore, the new household forms and life-
courses that are being adopted by single women have been poorly incorporated into housing
and welfare policies. They have thus been strongly implicated in emerging patterns of
inequality (Hirayama and Izuhara 2008).
There are a number of social, demographic and policy issues raised by the analysis set
out in this article. The first is that despite shifts in family formation and movement through
housing careers, women’s aspirations towards marriage remain normative and persistent.
Second is the disjuncture between the housing system and single lifestyles, which has
meant fewer options for women who do not become owner-occupying spouses who raise
children. A core concern here is emerging relationships between housing and policy that
reinforce low fertility and thus an increasingly aged population without children to look
after them. The third issue is that although life-courses patterns are fragmenting and more
people are spending their lives as singles, this has not necessarily undermined family
bonds with many single people becoming even more dependent on family resources,
strengthening intergenerational bonds. This development contrasts somewhat to
assumptions drawn from Western examples that have emphasized individualization as
an outcome of late modernity and neoliberalization.
Women’s housing conditions
The basis of Japanese housing and social practices has been a distinctive institutional
organization of the family around the ‘ie’ system.
1
This system was legally embedded in the
latter decades of the nineteenth century through the Civil Code and Family Registry
Gender, Place and Culture 453
Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 01:28 05 February 2014
legislation, formally subjugating women to their husband or male head of household. The
new post-war Civil Code (1947), acknowledged greater social equality and formally
abolished the ie system. Nonetheless, post-war housing, welfare and labour market
frameworks continued to institutionalize familialism. Despite an explicit cultural emphasis
on intergenerational family households, the male-breadwinner/female-caregiver model
was considered the most conducive to the development of a Fordist mass production
economy (Osawa 2002). Rapid economic growth became the state imperative and the
advancement of public welfare and citizenship rights subordinate to this goal. The housing
and socioeconomic regime, which emerged was thus based around a complementary
system of ‘standard’ male-breadwinner nuclear family formation and ‘enterprise society’ in
which workers were supported by their employers.
As the vast majority of regular employees were men, women were expected to marry
and thus came under the protection of their husband’s corporate benefits. These benefits
included housing subsidies such as company rental housing and housing loans, both of
which supplemented savings and borrowing necessary for families to get onto an owner-
occupied housing ladder (Sato 2007). Considerable public resources also went into the
Government Housing Loan Corporation (GHLC) to provide working family households
long-term fixed-rate mortgages.
2
Policy assumed that expanding homeownership, with the help of government loan and
corporate benefit systems would enhance the formation of families capable of meeting
their own welfare needs. Owner-occupied housing was considered to support asset
accumulation over the life-course, offsetting dependence on public welfare and enhancing
informal family economies of care and wealth exchange across generations. Indeed,
Hirayama and Izuhara (2008, 643) assert that Japanese industrial modernization is
characterized by a particularly close link between cultural and institutional ‘familialism’
and the welfare system. The government has encouraged the purchase of ‘husband-earned’
housing as ‘family places’ by helping ‘standard families’ through state-assisted housing
loans and a unique occupational welfare system. Wives’ dependency was reinforced by tax
and employment practices favouring male-breadwinner families over dual income ones, as
well as social policies targeting family households with unmarried people not normally
qualifying as individuals or single-person households for public benefits.
Post-war women’s life-chances have thus been bound strongly to marriage which has, in
principle, propelled them up a ladder of husband-earned housing which forms the long-term
basis of welfare security. According to the Institute for Research on Household Economics
(2006), housing tenure strongly correlates with age reflecting the institutionalization of the
housing ladder, family formation and life-courses. The average female rate of owner-
occupation was 54.6% across all ages but only 7.8% for unmarried women.
3
Women’s
housing conditions are thus characterized by residence in properties owned by husbands or
fathers, over which most women have few legal rights, even where they may have
contributed to mortgage payments. Moreover, gendered inheritance practices also continue
with the majority of family housing and financial wealth flowing to male heirs (Izuhara
2002). For women who remain single the chances of becoming a homeowner are
substantially diminished and thus their likelihood of being financially insecure in later life is
higher than for single men or married women (Hirayama and Izuhara 2008).
Socioeconomic and policy changes in recent decades – driven by long-term economic
stagnation since the bursting of Japan’s economic bubble over 20 years ago – have helped
reconfigure women’s relationships to marriage, employment and the housing ladder. The
restructuring of the employment system since 1990 has impacted standard family
formation by undermining the stability of male-breadwinner employment as well as
454 R. Ronald and L. Nakano
Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 01:28 05 February 2014
increasing labour market participation of women. Although the Equal Opportunity Act of
1986 and its major amendments in 1997 and 2006 increased female employment, a
substantial gap remains between female and male labour conditions. Indeed, the ratio of
women employed in full-time permanent positions decreased from 63% to 48% (MIAC
2012) compared to 91% to 84% for men (MHLW 2003). The feminization of work has
been characterized by women filling part-time or temporary positions generated by decline
in regular contracts. The capacity of single women to live independently is thus
considerably less than increased labour market participation suggests, and employment
practices continue to assume that female employees will marry a full-time wage earner or
are supported by their natal family.
Marriage, households and families
Changes in social and economic conditions have had a substantial impact upon domestic
pressures, family-life and household formation. A marked social trend of recent decades
has been a decline in marriage. One distinct trend in Japan has been the rise in average age
of first marriage, which increased from 26.9 to 29.6 years old for men and 24.2 to 27.9 years
old for women between 1970 and 2005. Another more significant trend has been the
marked increase in people not marrying at all (Figure 1). In 2005, 32.1% of women aged
30– 34, 18.7% aged 35 –39 and 12.3% aged 40– 44 had never married, which is an increase
from 7.2%, 5.8% and 5.3%, respectively, in 1970. Rates of divorce among these respective
age groups also increased over the same period from 2% to 4.9%, 2.7% to 7% and 3.7% to
8.1%. It is thus not just that young people are getting married later, but many appear to
remain ‘never-married’ into their 40s and 50s (Figure 2). The impact on household
formation has been remarkable with a staggering rise of single households (Figure 3).
In western societies, cohabitation of non-married couples has become common, with
the numbers of children born to such households catching up with those of married
households in recent decades (Bumpas and Lu 2000). In Japan, however, the social norm
surrounding being married and having children remains very powerful. Cohabitation is
rare and ,2% of unmarried women of reproductive age live at any one time in an
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
25–29 years old
30–34 years old
35–39 years old
Figure 1. Ratio of never-married women aged 25 – 39. Source: Statistics Bureau, Ministry of
Internal Affairs and Communications, Population Census of Japan.
Gender, Place and Culture 455
Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 01:28 05 February 2014
unmarried heterosexual partnership (IPSS 2008). There are significant implications for
fertility rates as ,2% of children are born outside marriage. Female-headed and single-
parent families, including divorcees and widows, are relatively uncommon (,6% of
family households). Fertility rates overall have suffered with the number of children born
on average to every woman declining to 1.32 (in 2006).
Ochiai (1994) suggests that the post-war family system was dependent upon economic
rapid growth conditions, but by the 1970s it was evident, as economic growth slowed, that
young people were no longer able to imitate the marital choices of their parents. With
declining economic stability, male incomes are no longer adequate to guarantee household
security and housewife status for women.
4
The consensus over what constitutes a good life
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
14%
1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
40–44 years old
45–49 years old
50–54 years old
55–59 years old
Figure 2. Ratio of never-married women aged 40 – 59. Source: Statistics Bureau, Ministry of
Internal Affairs and Communications, Population Census of Japan.
Figure 3. Changes in household type. Source: Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and
Communications, Population Census of Japan.
456 R. Ronald and L. Nakano
Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 01:28 05 February 2014
has thus fragmented with delayed marriage also reflecting better education and work
opportunities, and the growing ability of women to control their own lives. However, the
desire to have children remains a consistent force and in national surveys is the main
reason to marry (45%) for unmarried women aged 18–34 (IPSS 2008).
Conflicting expectations of family life between men and women have also generated
problems in the singles market. With the rise of love marriages
5
has come intensification in
‘partner hunting’. In her study, Nakano (2011) discovered strong desires to marry and have
children among unmarried women in their 30s and 40s. However, many said they could
not find someone with whom they could develop ‘an intimate and mutually supportive
relationship’. National attitude surveys hold these findings up: for women aged 33– 39 the
most common reason for not being married (60%) is ‘have yet to meet an appropriate
person’ (IPSS 2008). The 2005 national census found that for 90% of younger women,
most important in a marriage partner was the person’s character. Number two was his
willingness to help with housework and childcare (59%). For Kamano (2004), women shy
from marriage not only because their life-chances will hang on the partner they choose, but
also because, with the persistent gendered division of labour, marriage tends to deprive
women of self-realization. The expectation is that they will take on care burdens for not
only children but also elderly relatives, which many young women have become wary of
from observations of their parents’ marriages. Based on encounters with professional,
single women, Nemoto (2008) identifies how decisions not to marry are quite reasonable
in a society where women are discriminated against both in the workplace and in the
family. Professional women are wary that getting married means that they are expected to
give up paid work and take responsibility for all household work. According to the
national survey (IPSS 2008), when asked about the advantages of being single, 70% of
unmarried women aged 18 – 34 say ‘freedom of movement in lifestyle’.
Housing choices and expectations of single life
For various reasons, marriage has become less imperative or attractive to Japanese
women. Despite greater choice in education and work, the decline in marriage has largely
restructured gender inequalities rather than simply improving women’s opportunities. The
housing and social insurance system has been based on standard families following
standard life-courses under the umbrella of regular male employment and involving family
home purchase. For most Japanese women, marriage remains a crucial first step on an
independent housing ladder and achieving financial security, and alternative routes for
either have not yet emerged.
The next section considers how housing conditions and the housing system are shaping
life-courses in regard to changing marriage preferences and housing choices for Japanese
women. The analysis is based on interview data derived from 25 single women living in the
Tokyo metropolitan area. In the interviews women reflect upon their current housing
situation, their past housing choices and their future life-course and housing prospects.
While recent analyses have emphasized the growing spatial autonomy of unmarried women
(e.g. Song 2010), ours illustrates the complex outcomes of neoliberal social fragmentation
with considerable persistency in family dependencies and normative aspirations.
The women interviewed were approached through snowball sampling. Diversity was
sought by identifying women of different educational backgrounds. Fourteen were regular
employees (seishain) who enjoyed full company benefit packages, seven were temporary
staff (haken shain) or contract staff who earned considerably less and did not receive
company benefits such as housing or medical packages. One worked in her family’s small
Gender, Place and Culture 457
Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 01:28 05 February 2014
company, one was a freelance editor, another ran a small design company and one was
recently unemployed and living off government insurance. Neither extremely wealthy nor
extremely destitute women were interviewed. None of the women had children. They
represented a spectrum of different living and working situations commonly found among
women living in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Table 1 provides an overview of the sample.
The women interviewed include women of marriageable age and those reaching middle
age (age range of 27–43). Such women would need to consider life choices, including
housing choices, with the understanding that they may never marry. Four of the women
interviewed came to Tokyo as young adults for either school or work, and their natal
families lived in areas beyond commuting distance of Tokyo. The remainder had grown up
in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Of the 25 women interviewed, 12 lived with their parents, 2
lived with their mothers, 8 lived alone in rented apartments, one lived in a company dorm,
one lived with a friend in a rented apartment and one lived alone in a condominium she had
purchased. Interviews took place at restaurants, coffee shops, bars, workplaces and homes
in the Tokyo area. The interviews reveal that regardless of their current housing situation,
single women felt that their housing arrangement was temporary, and their housing future
was insecure. The authors suggest that this is because women felt that housing arrangements
depended on their family situation, which they felt was, as single women, unstable.
Single women in the natal home
Considering the limited housing choices for single women, staying on in their parents’
home has become increasingly common. The overall rate of adult children remaining
Table 1. Interviewee characteristics.
No. Job type Age Work status Living situation Hometown
1. Accountant 36 Regular With parents Tokyo
2. (Office clerk) 46 Unemployed Rents, alone Akita
3. Office clerk 37 Temporary With parents Tokyo
4. Accountant 44 Regular With parents Tokyo
5. Technician 37 Regular Rents, alone Osaka
6. Publishing 26 Regular Rents with friend Nagano
7. Management 31 Regular With mother Tokyo
8. Office clerk 34 Regular Purchased condo. Yokohama
9. Fashion buyer 31 Regular With parents Tokyo
10. Editor 33 Freelance Rents, alone Tokyo
11. Bank clerk 32 Regular Company dorm Saitama
12. Advertising 29 Regular With parents Tokyo
13. Retail 34 Family firm With mother Saitama
14. Bank manager 33 Regular With parents Chiba
15. Office clerk 37 Regular With parents Tokyo
16. Office clerk 37 Temporary Rents, alone Yokohama
17. Travel agent 42 Regular Rents, alone Kagoshima
18. Hotel marketing 31 Regular With parents Tokyo
19. Sales 32 Regular With parents Tokyo
20. Advertising 53 Self-employed Alone, rents Tokyo
21. Travel agent 34 Temporary With parents Tokyo
22. Hostess 37 Temporary Rents, alone Tokyo
23. Tel. operator 23 Temporary With parents Tokyo
24. Disabled care 28 Temporary With parents Tokyo
25. Nutritionist 31 Temporary Rents, alone Tokyo
458 R. Ronald and L. Nakano
Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 01:28 05 February 2014
indefinitely in their parents’ home, or ‘parasite singles’ as they are often called in Japan,
increased between 1980 and 2005, from 23.9% to 42.6% for those aged 25 – 29 and
7.6– 24% for those aged 30 –34 (see Ronald and Hirayama 2009). The prolonged presence
of male adult children in the natal dwelling is considered to reflect ‘ie’ traditions of
intergenerational cohabitation as eldest sons take over as family head with obligations for
care of elderly parents. However, around 60% of young male ‘irregular’ workers live with
their parents (Freeter Kenkyukai 2001), suggesting a stronger economic relationship than
socio-cultural one. More recent analyses have emphasized cultural tendencies for parents
to overprotect or delay children’s transition to independence (Miura 2005). As the post-
war housing system drove housing acquisition, many older Japanese people own spacious
homes in which to protect their adult children (Hirayama and Ronald 2008). The more
substantial increase in women staying on in the home (from 17% to 41% and 5% to 21%
for ages 25– 29 and 30 –34, respectively, between 1980 and 2005), however, has been
constituted as a social problem and associated with a reluctance among young women to
accept the adult responsibilities of being a wife and mother.
Yamada (1999) suggested that the comfortable lives of women in their parents’ homes
afforded them greater opportunity to spend their money on themselves. Nevertheless, while
young singles may expect a decline in the quality of life should they form independent
households, many unmarried women experience nothing of a selfish life of material
consumption, but rather found living at home to be a convenient and cost-effective decision.
As single female household incomes are lower than men’s, housing expenditure is higher
for women, at 31.2% of income compared to 20.3% for men for 30– 39 years old (MIAC
2004). Men have also greater access to company dormitories and company housing
allowances. Such unfavourable housing conditions are considered a barrier to young
women leaving the parental home (Kawata 2007).
Interviews reveal that single women choose to live with their natal families for
economic, practical and affective reasons. Nearly all women interviewed who lived with
their parents said that they paid monthly sums to their parents, usually between 30,000 and
60,000 yen.
6
Nonetheless, this amount is considerably less than what they would have to
pay if they rented a place on their own with utility and food costs. Some women used their
remaining income on leisure activities. Others saved the money or used it for taking
courses and investing in their careers. For example, Yoshimoto-san,
7
a woman in her early
30s said:
I don’t have the economic means to move out. I would like to move out but my family lives in
a good neighbourhood and if I moved I’d have to live in a place with less comfortable
environment which I am unwilling to do.
For Yoshimoto-san, like many others living with their natal family, moving out would
mean moving to a less safe and poorer quality neighbourhood. Because of the high cost of
housing in central urban areas, even women with relatively high salaries think twice about
moving out.
Moreover, most female parental-home dwellers said they were satisfied with the
arrangement. Many mentioned the physical and psychological comforts they enjoyed
living with their parents. A 37-year-old respondent lived with her parents in their natal
family home where she had her own room and shared family living spaces. If she had
decided to move out, she would have had to live in a small apartment. She nonetheless
explained her decision to stay with her natal family in largely non-economic terms. She
said that she enjoyed coming home to ‘a hot bath and dinner’. She paid 40,000 yen per
month to her parents, which she admitted was much less than if she had to rent an
Gender, Place and Culture 459
Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 01:28 05 February 2014
apartment herself. Even women who probably could have afforded to rent an apartment
sometimes preferred to live with their parents. Thirty-one-year-old Watanabe-san, a high-
ranking manager at a large bank, preferred to live with her parents after living away from
them for 3 years as a result of a job transfer that took her away from Tokyo. Upon being
reassigned to the Tokyo office, Watanabe-san’s mother urged her to move back to her natal
home, claiming that she had not been able to sleep well in her daughter’s absence.
Watanabe-san now spends 4 hours commuting each day from her parents’ home to her
office. She explained that she enjoyed the current arrangement:
I really like being back in Tokyo and living with my parents. It’s nice to come home at night
and have someone to talk to. Also, I can use the time between work and home [when riding on
the commuter train] as my own (kibun tenkan).
Watanabe-san is able to remain on the fast track in her career because she lives with her
family who support her as a wife might support a husband. In spite of the 4 hours daily
commute, Watanabe-san and her mother felt that Watanabe-san’s health was best cared for
at her natal home. When Watanabe-san lived in a rented apartment alone, she had worked
long hours and fallen ill from exhaustion and from eating convenience store foods every
day. We can see from the above examples that single women with demanding jobs may
continue to rely on their natal family as a married man might rely on a conjugal family.
By living with parents, many young women may sacrifice their own interests to the
needs of their families (Haruka 2002). Koyama-san, a woman in her early 30s, for
example, lived in a small condominium apartment in Tokyo purchased for her by her
father, but she moved back to her natal home to keep her mother company following her
father’s sudden death. Koyama-san felt that she was sacrificing work, romantic love and
other life opportunities by living with her mother, yet she also lacked a concrete idea of
how to best take advantage of these opportunities. A few other single women also
mentioned that living with their parents restricted their love life, as they lacked the privacy
and time to spend with potential partners or lovers. Koyama-san further explained: ‘I think
my mother wants me to marry but she also doesn’t want me to move out’. Parents, as well
as daughters, may be torn between the desire to see the daughter married and the desire for
the daughter to provide support and possibly elder care.
Many single women effectively became designated heirs, reciprocating the giving of
old age care for inheritance. Thirty-seven-year-old Sasaki-san said:
Since I live with my parents I will be the one to care for them. Of course I couldn’t expect to
care for them financially on my own. I would need my younger brother’s financial help – he’s
married and lives somewhere else.
As in the above example, women realized that caring for their parents would be an
enormous task which might force them to leave their jobs. Forty-three-year-old Tsuchiya-
san, an only child, knew that she would need to care for her parents if they fell ill. She
explained:
In general, I like the way I live. But I am worried about my future. If for some reason my boss
decides to end my contract, I don’t know what would happen. Also, if one of my parents gets
ill and requires care, I’d have to quit my job and care for them. If I quit, we’d have no income.
Then I don’t know how I’d be able to keep up the house.
Living at their natal home brings advantages such as emotional and fiscal support, and for
some, the possibility of inheriting the natal home. Yet, women living at home may also be
required to sacrifice social and career opportunities. They may also become financially
vulnerable if they remain unmarried and are forced out of work to care for ailing parents.
Single women thus saw living with their parents as their own, largely satisfactory choice.
460 R. Ronald and L. Nakano
Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 01:28 05 February 2014
Nonetheless, they realized that their life and housing situation depended on the health of
their parents, and would change significantly with the passing of their parents.
Single renters
Other than staying at home, the standard housing option for young singles is the private
rental sector. Along with the erosion of standard families and economic security, between
1983 and 2003 the ratio of all independent households aged 25 – 29 renting in the private
sector increased from 53% to 71%, and for those aged 30– 35, from 33.5% to 55%.
Renting, however, is a difficult option and for young singles, especially women who have
less earning capacity. Public rental housing is limited and normally allocated to family
households with special needs. There is limited access to public rent subsidies and private
rental stock is dominated by poorer quality, small apartment units. Indeed, on average,
private rental units have a floor space of 46.3 m
2
. This compares to around 76 m
2
in
Western Europe. Moreover, more than 60% of stock is ,49 m
2
, increasing to 73.2% in
Tokyo where 40.9% is under 29 m
2
. Women face the additional barrier of prejudice among
property owners reluctant to take on unmarried women, unless they are employees of
major companies, as they are assumed not to have stable incomes for rents (Hirayama and
Izuhara 2008).
Another feature of rental living in Japan is the relative absence of shared housing. Even
among people aged 20– 29, only 1.1% lives with non-family members compared to 68.5%
with parents and 26.5% living alone (in 2004). In the interviews, only one woman lived
with a roommate. She explained why other women did not live with roommates:
[My roommate and I] have been friends since we were young. Japanese people don’t like to
live with strangers (tannin) because they feel uncomfortable. By ‘strangers’ they mean anyone
who is not family. Even a good friend is considered a ‘stranger’.
Another reason for the tendency to live alone may be the small size of housing units. Single
renters are overwhelmingly found in small compact units of ,29 m
2
. Tokyo in particular has
become dominated by the rise in single households who now make up as much as 43% of
households, the majority being under 40 years old and unmarried (IPSS 2008). It has been
argued that urban infrastructure sympathetic to single lifestyles has developed, facilitating a
growing atomization and individualization of social life(Ronald and Hirayama 2009). Urban
housing landscapes have thus been increasingly fragmented and compacted with a
proliferation of young singles in capsule-like rental dwellings.
Interviews provide insight into perceptions of single female renters. Most women who
rented apartments said that they wanted more privacy and to have their own space away
from their parents. This desire for space was strong enough to override the expense of
renting. A 27-year-old divorcee, Akai-san, explained:
Now I live on my own. I like it but it’s very expensive and I don’t have any money. I pay
60,000 for rent and it’s half of my salary. It’s impossible to save anything. It’s not that I’m
suffering, but I can’t live extravagantly. My parents live about 40 minutes from here [referring
to her office]. My apartment is about 10 minutes away. I chose it because it’s close. Actually,
there is a reason why I’m living on my own now. It’s because I got married and then divorced.
After the divorce I didn’t want to go back to live with my parents.
Other women mentioned that they wished to be free of the family pressures and
responsibilities. Thirty-three-year-old Fujita-san said that she had watched her mother care
for her ailing grandmother (on her father’s side) with both appreciation and pity. Fearing
that she too would be compelled to become a caregiver, she decided to move out to try to
live her own life and possibly find a partner.
Gender, Place and Culture 461
Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 01:28 05 February 2014
Women also contrasted their independent living with the constraints and incon-
veniences of marriage and living with a partner. Thirty-three-year-old Yamamoto-san said:
I’ve been seeing my boyfriend for about six years. I’m not interested in getting married. I
can’t imagine living with him. Our lifestyles would clash. I’m worried that if I live with
him I would start to feel stress ... He’s the kind of person who doesn’t take care of things
in his house. He eats out and doesn’t pay attention to his diet. That would worry me
and maybe I would constantly remind him about his diet or start trying to cook things for
him. But I also think that in living alone, one is able to control everything in one’s
environment. If you live with a partner you have to be flexible and allow for things beyond
your control.
A number of women mentioned that they would like the comfort and security of having a
partner but wanted some separation in living arrangements. One said that she would enjoy
a ‘Heian period style’
8
marriage in which the husband lived in his own apartment and
visited his wife occasionally. She believed that living together with a partner in a small
Tokyo apartment would be inconvenient and uncomfortable.
Women who rented apartments understood the situation to be temporary. Most were
open to the possibility of marrying and starting a family as the next stage in their life-
course. A minority of renters had concrete ideas about their futures. These women’s views
ranged widely from those who said they hoped to buy a place in a retirement home with
their savings, to those who hoped to live overseas in South East Asia where the cost of
living is cheaper than in Japan. We suggest that this diversity of views reflects the lack of a
clear model or facilities to support single women’s housing choices.
Single female homebuyers
According to the Institute for Research on Household Economics (2006) survey, the
average rate of owner-occupation is only 7.8% for unmarried women. While tenure is
partly a corollary of age, it also reflects the family orientation of the housing system. The
majority of women who climb-up the housing ladder to homeownership do not do so as
individuals but via marriage (Hirayama and Izuhara 2008, 651). Inevitably, the decision
not to get married reduces the housing options of most single women who do not normally
qualify for subsidies and have fewer inheritance rights on parent’s property. Home
purchase has been particularly important to post-war generations as a means to access
better quality housing as well as tap into property asset accumulation, which has provided
financial security in old age. However, for single women in non-regular work, it is next to
impossible to get a housing loan, accumulate a deposit or service repayments. Despite
price declines, the average price-to-income ratio for a Tokyo condominium, for example,
is 5.2 (MLIT 2005). Even for regular workers (seishain), a single income can be
inadequate. While Japanese banks require 20% down payments, the average is normally
around 32% of purchase price (Moriizumi 2003).
Nonetheless, many single women have been able to take advantage of labour market
restructuring, with increases in female professionals buying their own homes. City
apartments have been particularly popular with a recent commercial survey finding that
7.7% of urban condominium purchasers were single women (Recruit 2005). Yui (2006)
has identified a growing housing market of single women who focus on convenience and
short commutes in residential choices. The emerging market for young female singles is
focused in central districts and feature ‘compact condominiums’ of 30—50 m
2
with high
specification, fashionable designs in trendy metropolitan locations. According to a survey
by the Real Estate Economic Institute, the proliferation of compact apartments in the
Tokyo region accounted for a rise from 1799 units in 2000 to 6699 units in 2003.
462 R. Ronald and L. Nakano
Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 01:28 05 February 2014
It may also be suggested that housing investment may be particularly important to
single professional women in order to counter the risk of poverty and welfare dependency
in old age as they are less likely than men or married women to inherit property. A recent
commercial survey (Recruit 2006) found that the main reason given for condominium
purchase among single households was the desire to build up assets. A particular
motivation expressed was the desire to prepare for old age (24.2%), which was notably
higher among female singles (33.1%). For non-single households, motivations were
remarkably different and reflected desires to buy a home ‘for the sake of family and
children’ (61.2%).
Our interviews revealed that single women were divided on whether or not it was a
good idea to buy a home. Many thought that buying a condominium alone was like giving
up on marriage and may even jeopardize their chances of marrying as being so openly
autonomous may put a potential husband off. At the same time, there was some desire for
independence. There was also an important economic question. A condominium
represented an investment for the future which could be sold if and when they married. On
the other hand, considering the more precarious nature of employment, there was also
concern over keeping up with the mortgage in future.
A few women interviewed said that they would like to buy their own place if they
could afford it. One woman had hoped to buy a place with her cousin but had to give up on
her plans when she quit her job and had to rely on unemployment insurance. Of the 25
women interviewed in Tokyo, only one, 34-year-old Nagamine-san, had purchased a
condominium. She explained her decision-making process as follows:
I had been living with my parents for a long time, but I felt that I was getting old and our house
was very small ... There was no place to go if I wanted to cry, not that I always wanted to cry.
But even if I just wanted to sit and not talk, there was no place for that either. So I decided to
move out. When I started looking around for apartments I found that I would have to pay
about 80,000 yen per month in rent. When I heard that I started looking into how much it
would cost to buy an apartment. I was surprised to find that it was actually cheaper to buy. I
pay 70,000 yen per month in mortgage and another 10,000 yen in maintenance fees. This
apartment cost 25 million yen (about U.S. $260,000), which was a bargain for this area [in
central Tokyo]. I researched many places and saw many model rooms but this was the best
deal. It’s designed for a woman. There are windows in both the bathroom and the kitchen,
which is unusual. It has a large mirror. Most apartments like this have a wall partitioning the
room, but this one is open, and the closets came with the apartment.
Unlike most women interviewed, Nagamine-san felt that she did not need to marry, which
perhaps allowed her to take the risk of buying the condominium. She made the decision
without consulting her parents, suggesting an unusually high degree of independence.
Nagamine-san was considering buying a second condominium as an investment, yet she
was also concerned that if she ever lost her current job, she would be unable to pay her
mortgage and would have difficulty securing another job (as a regular employee) due to
institutionalized corporate gender and age discrimination. While buying a flat is an
attractive option for single women, it remains out of reach for many due to the high price
of real estate and the limitations on older single women’s employment prospects.
Discussion
So what does this analysis of changing conditions and experiences of single women tell
us about the shifting interface between housing and gender in Japan, and what are the
broader implications for understanding both the impact and differentiated processes of
neoliberalization?
Gender, Place and Culture 463
Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 01:28 05 February 2014
While Japanese modernity has maintained strong gender divisions built upon
institutionalized familialism and corporate welfarism, recent socioeconomic restructuring
has forced readjustment. For women, marriage no longer offers a secure route to middle
class status. At the same time, for unmarried women, access to, and progress up a housing
ladder is inhibited by housing markets, gendered flows of inheritance and labour market
disadvantages. Access to owner-occupied housing is particularly limited in this context,
but remains important due to the inferior quality, size and status of rental housing as well
as the importance of housing assets for security in old age.
Household fragmentation in Japan mirrors many other advanced societies, especially
those that have been orientated towards husband-earned owner-occupied housing that
have been destabilized by neoliberalization and volatile economic restructuring in recent
years. Most economically advanced countries have experienced similar increases in single
households (Wasoff et al. 2005), as well as declining homeownership among the young,
who are tending to stay longer in the parental home (Mandic 2008). In many Western
contexts, women may face fewer systematic disadvantages, have greater access to social
support, and face ostensibly less discrimination in the housing market and employment.
Nonetheless, similar features of restructuring in the interface between housing and gender
are also evident, especially as disadvantaged female positions in the labour market
translate into inferior housing market positions.
The interviews explored in this article reveal a particularly strong relationship between
changing expectations of marriage and housing decisions, illustrating the significance of
this relationship in shaping life-courses in Japan. In many Western contexts too, dual
household incomes have become increasingly necessary to home purchase, although
unmarried cohabitation largely compensates for declines in marriage. Furthermore, in
Europe and North America, housing and mortgage markets, together with the state, provide
greater access for singles to form independent households and maintain relationships
necessary for the rearing of children.
9
In Japan, however, marriage remains more essential
to home purchase, and both are critical to producing children and economic security. Within
the Japanese housing system, choices for the unmarried are both limited and limiting.
As other societies in East Asia experience the social, economic and demographic
changes that Japan is undergoing, they are likely to develop shifts in family formation
more akin to Japan than Western societies. In South Korea, for example, relatively few
women manage to move from the natal home to a place of their own, let alone buy
property, without getting married (Song 2010). In Japan’s case, family decline is not so
effectively measured by divorce rates and extramarital births, but rather by increasing
numbers of never-married singles and decreasing fertility (Ueno 1994). Economic
restructuring and labour market changes, which undermine the male-breadwinner model,
along with housing systems that function in terms of a rigid ladder shaped around standard
family life course, in East Asian contexts, are likely to result in family decline featuring
more-and-more singles and fewer-and-fewer children.
The changing interface between housing and gender in Japan offer up some rather
fundamental policy implications. Never-married elderly women in Japan are unlikely to
own housing assets (making them asset poor and welfare dependent), and are very unlikely
to have any children. As the number of elderly without children to care for them increase,
greater pressure will be brought to bear on public welfare services. This will occur at the
same time as Japan’s ageing society becomes an even greater concern. Around 22% of the
population is already over 65 and it is expected that by 2025 there will be ,2 working
people to support every pensioner. Although Japanese national debt is nearly double annual
Gross Domestic Product (GDP), making public spending cuts exigent, changes in
464 R. Ronald and L. Nakano
Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 01:28 05 February 2014
households along with social ageing will necessitate greater state intervention as well as
greater pressure on informal arrangements (where available) involving intergenerational
exchanges of caregiving and housing assets. A key dilemma for the state is the choice
between continuing with policies that focus on supporting families and the self-reliance of
households, or extending welfare to the growing number of single people with housing
needs and significant welfare shortfalls.
The shift towards, and emerging negotiations of, long-term singledom also pose
questions for understanding processes of individualization (Beck 1992; Giddens 1991) as
both a material and ontological outcome of neoliberalization in the Japanese context. It has
been argued that while individualization of risk and discourses of the ‘self’ have been in the
ascendancy – as opposed to collective risk mechanisms and group discourses – the
Japanese mode of modernity has mediated more unpredictable unravelling of the individual
from the family and community (Clammer 2000). Indeed, the urban middle class women in
our interviews did not reject Japanese family norms or aspirations towards marriage. Neither
did they seem to have internalized a neoliberal subjectivity focused on the achievement of
independent living space, social individuality and economic sovereignty. Their sense of
independence reflected an awareness that adulthood normatively derives from marriage and
new household formation, as well as, ideally, home purchase. At the same time, these
women did not measure their own autonomy by whether or not they lived alone, with
parents, or if they owned a property. Housing decisions – in the context of high housing
costs and the lack of alternative forms of unmarried cohabitation – were personal decisions
that emerged from relationships with parents, career goals and lifestyle aspirations.
Among women who lived in the natal home and to a lesser extent womenwho rent or buy
apartments, expectations of eventually caring for elderly parents, among other reciprocities,
persist. There appears to be no well-defined alternative route between belonging to either their
natal house and the household of a yet to be identified, future husband. For women buying or
contemplating buying a home, property investment was a rational strategy in respect to
negotiating welfare risks in later life. Nonetheless, there was typically reluctance in that this
step marked disengagement with a future life involving a husband. In understanding the
negotiation of single life-courses and housing careers as a process of individualization, Japan
contrasts somewhat with Western contexts. Differences suggest that individualization
develops unevenly reflecting various mechanisms, and diverse experiences of individuation
and risk. Moreover, housing systems, as they interact with family and marriage norms, play an
important part in shaping this differentiation.
Concluding remarks
While past generations of women largely achieved economic security through the formation
of standard families and ascent up an owner-occupied housing ladder, young women now
face a more unsatisfying marriage market and have considerably less chance of assuring
economic security by marrying a breadwinner. Although employment opportunities have
improved, conditions for unmarried women and single female households remain poorly
aligned with routes into improved housing conditions and property asset security. There are
nonetheless growing numbers of single women who are able to take advantage of improved
work opportunities and who are reshaping urban housing markets. In considering the
relationship between housing and gender, it is important to grasp that inequality is not
simply mediated by the division of labour promoted by the promotion of suburban
homeownership. Rather, women are also affected by their individual housing opportunities
that result from the intersection of labour and housing market positions, and in context of the
Gender, Place and Culture 465
Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 01:28 05 February 2014
playoff between public provision, family support dependency on owner-occupied housing
assets.
This article set out to explore the unravelling of the historic integration of owner-
occupied housing careers and marriage and how this is being experienced by, and is related
to increasing ratios of, unmarried women. The interview data illustrate how single Japanese
women both contradict and conform to Japanese family norms and adult identities.
Significantly, this can often reinforce interdependencies between adult daughters and their
parents rather than processes of individualization, contrary to assumptions derived in
Western societies. While in some cases women stayed on in the natal home to support their
parents, in others natal families provided the kind of support for working women that men
normally derive from the stay-at-home wife. For women who moved out of the family
home, achieving greater privacy, escaping family obligations and having their own space
were given as core motivations. Becoming independent and especially buying a home were
also considered economic and social risks.
The exploration of housing experiences and choices, through interviews with single
women, substantively illustrate how life-courses intersect with housing careers as well as how
they are both embedded with marriage in contemporary Japan. While the interview data were
limited, it sheds considerable light on how women negotiate the leaving of, and possibly
returning to, the natal home, as well as reasons why more and more women are not starting
new households at all. Of particular note are the insights gained by emphasizing the role of the
housing dimension – encompassing policy, markets and urban and cultural systems – which
has been either understated in feminist geographies or examined in largely Western terms.
Other societies too, with ongoing shifts in neoliberal conditions, have also undergone
restructuring in socioeconomic conditions, social policies and housing systems. Single-
living and non-married lifestyles are comparable phenomena and are expected to increase
beyond 30– 40% of households across developed societies. The Japanese case highlights
growing divisions between men and women, married and unmarried and family and single
households providing a provocative case for reassessing the role of housing markets and
systems. Gender and marriage relations can be fundamental to how housing systems
operate, and vice versa. In Japan, the post-war family and housing model is disintegrating,
leading to a decline in new households and consequently new members of society.
Furthermore, women appear disadvantaged rather than liberated by realignments as a life
of female singledom is less likely to lead to property asset ownership and thus economic
and welfare self-reliance.
Acknowledgements
The work described in this article was supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No. CUHK4018/02H) awarded to Lynne
Nakano. The research was also made possible by a 2001 Summer Grant for Research and a 2001–
2002 Direct Grant awarded to Lynne Nakano by the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The authors
thank the Department of Japanese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong for financial
support, and Moeko Wagatsuma and Chan Yim Ting Helen for their assistance in conducting
research. We are indebted to all the women who shared their stories and their time. This project
would not have been possible without their help.
Notes
1. The word ‘ie’ literally denotes both family and house.
2. Of more than 50 million housing units built between 1945 and 1995, 28.9% received GHLC
finance (MLIT 2005). Meanwhile, homeownership expanded from around 25% of urban housing
before 1940 to 64% by 1965.
466 R. Ronald and L. Nakano
Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 01:28 05 February 2014
3. Female homeownership rates were 32% for ages 30 –34, 55% for ages 40–44 and 70% for ages
50–54.
4. Employment restructuring is argued to have diminished the capacity of male-breadwinners to
support families, with men reluctant to wed until they feel financially secure enough to support a
household. In 2002, the ratio of unmarried men aged 30 – 34 in regular employment was 41%
compared to 70% among non-regular workers (MHLW 2006). By contrast, the argument for
women has been that improved educational and employment opportunities have reduced the
possibilities for women to find suitable, higher status men (see Yamada 2005; Shirahase 2005).
5. The ratio of arranged marriages fell from 29.4% in 1982 to 6.4% in 2005 (IPSS 2008).
6. 10,000 Yen ¼90 Euro approx.
7. All names of informants used in this article are pseudonyms.
8. The Heian period of Japanese history (794 – 1185), considered the peak of the Japanese imperial
court.
9. For example, the social rental sector makes up around 18 and 32% of the housing market in the
UK and the Netherlands, respectively.
Notes on contributors
Richard Ronald is Assistant professor in Urban Studies at the University of Amsterdam and a visiting
scholar at Kyung Hee University in Seoul. He has been the recipient of doctoral and postdoctoral
fellowships from the Japan Foundation and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. He is
currently investigating the role played by housing markets and family housing property in shaping
welfare systems in Europe and Pacific-Asia (HOUWEL) with an Independent Researcher Grant from
the European Research Council. He is review editor of the International Journal of Housing Policy
and section editor of the International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home. He is the author of the
book, The Ideology of Home Ownership, and co-editor of a number of volumes including Housing
and Social Transition in Japan;Home and Family in Japan: Continuity and Transformation and
Beyond Home Ownership: Housing, Welfare and Society.
Lynne Y. Nakano is a professor in the Department of Japanese Studies at the Chinese University of
Hong Kong. She received her doctorate in anthropology from Yale University. Her research focuses
on the emergences of new social identities in East Asian societies including volunteers in Japan and
single women in Japan and urban China. Her current research compares the experiences of single
women in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai. She is the author of the book, Community Volunteers in
Japan: Everyday Stories of Social Change.
References
Beck, U. 1992. Risk Society. London: Sage Publications.
Bumpas, L., and H.H. Lu. 2000. Trends in cohabitation and implications for children’s family
contexts in the United States. Population Studies 54: 29– 41.
Chen, Y.L. 2006. Housing and single mothers in the KMT regime of Taiwan, 1949–2000.
Geography Research Forum 26: 93–114.
Clammer, J. 2000. Consumer Capitalism, Social Processes and the Management of Emotions in
Contemporary Japan. In Globalisation and Social Change in Contemporary Japan, ed. J.S.
Eades, T. Gill, and H. Befu. Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press.
Freeter Kenkyuukai [Temporary Workers Research Group]. 2001. Furiitaa ga wakaru hon [A book
for understanding temporary workers]. Tokyo: Suken Shuppansha.
Giddens, A. 1991. Modernity and Self Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Gilroy, R. 1994. Women and owner-occupation in Britain: First the price, then the palace? In
Housing women, ed. R. Gilroy and R. Woods, 31 – 57. London: Routledge.
Haruka, Y. 2002. Kaigo no ren’ ai [Elderly care and romantic love]. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo
ˆ.
Hinokidani, M. 2007. Housing, family and gender. In Housing and social transition in Japan, ed.
Y. Hirayama and R. Ronald, 114 – 39. London: Routledge.
Hirayama, Y., and M. Izuhara. 2008. Women and housing assets in context of Japan’s home owning
democracy. Journal of Social Policy 37, no. 4: 41– 60.
Gender, Place and Culture 467
Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 01:28 05 February 2014
Hirayama, Y., and R. Ronald. 2008. Baby boomers, baby busters and the lost generation: Generational
fractures in Japan’s homeowner society. Urban and Policy Research 26, no. 3/4: 325 – 42.
Institute for Research on Household Economics. 2006. Josei no raifu ko
ˆsu to ju
ˆtaku shoyu
ˆ
[Women’s life-course and homeownership]. Tokyo: Institute for Research on Household
Economics.
IPSS. 2008. Institute of population and social security research. http://www.ipss.go.jp/index-e.html
Izuhara, M. 2002. Care and inheritance: Japanese and English perspectives on the ‘generational
contract’. Ageing and Society 22: 61–77.
Kamano, S. 2004. Dokushin danjo no egaku kekkonzo
ˆ[Images of marriage portrayed by single men
and women]. In Shoshika no jenda bunseki [Gender analysis and low fertility], ed. Y Meguro
and H. Nishioka. unpaginated, Tokyo: Keiso Shobo.
Kawata, N. 2007. Single people in context of Japan’s housing system. European Network of Housing
Research Conference, Sustainable Urban Areas, Rotterdam, July.
Kennett, P., and K.W. Chan. 2011. Women and housing: An international analysis. London: Routledge.
Kurz, K., and H. Blossfeld. 2004. Homeownership and social inequality: In comparative
perspective. Stanford, CL: Stanford University press.
Mandic, S. 2008. Home-leaving and its structural determinants in Western and Eastern Europe: An
exploratory study. Housing Studies 23, no. 4: 615– 37.
MHLW. 2003. Ministry of health, labour and welfare. Chingin Ko
ˆzo
ˆKihon To
ˆkei Cho
ˆsa [Basic
statistical survey on the wage structure in Japan]. http://www.mhlw.go/jp
MHLW. 2006. Ministry of health, labour and welfare. National survey on lone mother and other
households. Tokyo: cho
ˆsa, ho
ˆkoku.
MIAC. 2004. Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, National Survey of Family Income
and Expenditure, http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/zensho/index.htm.
MIAC. 2012. Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications., Labour Force Survey of Japan.
http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/roudou/index.htm.
Miura, A. 2005. Karyu
ˆshakai [Low class society]. Tokyo: Kobunsha.
Moriizumi, Y. 2003. Target saving by renters for housing purchase in Japan. Journal of Urban
Economics 53: 494–509.
Mulder, C.H., and F.C. Billari. 2010. Homeownership regimes and low fertility. Housing Studies 25,
no. 4: 527–41.
Nakano, L. 2011. Working and waiting for an ‘appropriate person’: How single women support and
resist family in Japan. In Home and family in Japan: Continuity and change, ed. R. Ronald and
A. Alexi, 131–51. London: Routledge.
Nemoto, K.K. 2008. Postponed marriage: Exploring women’s views of matrimony and work in
Japan. Gender and Society 22, no. 2: 219– 37.
Ochiai, E. 1994. 21-seiki kazoku e [Toward a twenty first century family]. Tokyo: Yuuhikaku.
Osawa, M. 2002. Twelve million full-time housewives: The gender consequences of Japan’s postwar
social contract. In Social contracts under stress: The middle classes of America, Europe and
Japan at the turn of the century, ed. O. Zunz, L. Schoppa, and N. Hiwatari, 255 – 77. New York:
Russell Sage Foundation.
Recruit Co., Ltd. 2005. Shutoken shinchiku manshon keiyakusha do
ˆko
ˆcho
ˆsa [Research on new
condominium purchasers in the capital metropolitan area]. Tokyo: Recruit Co.
———. 2006. Shutoken Shinchiku Manshon Keiyakusha Do
ˆko
ˆCho
ˆsa [Survey of condominium
purchasers in the Tokyo region]. Tokyo: Recruit Co.
Ronald, R., and Y. Hirayama. 2009. Home alone: The individualization of young, urban Japanese
singles. Environment and Planning A 41: 2836 – 54.
Sato, I. 2007. Welfare regime theories and the Japanese housing System. In Housing and social
transition in Japan, ed. Y. Hirayama and R. Ronald, 73 – 93. London: Routledge.
Shirahase, S. 2005. Sho
ˆshi ko
ˆrei shakai no mienai kakusa: janda sedai kaiso no yukue [The unseen
gaps in an aging society: Locating gender, generation, and class]. Tokyo: University of Tokyo
Press.
Song, J. 2010. ‘A room of one’s own’: The meaning of spatial autonomy for unmarried women in
neoliberal South Korea. Gender, Place and Culture 17, no. 2: 131– 49.
Wasoff, F., L. Jamieson, and A. Smith. 2005. Solo-living, individual and family boundaries across
the adult life-course. In Families and society: Boundaries and relationships, ed. L. McKie and
S. Cunningham-Burley, 207–25. Bristol: Policy Press.
Watson, S. 1986. Women and housing or feminist housing analysis. Housing Studies 1: 1 – 10.
468 R. Ronald and L. Nakano
Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 01:28 05 February 2014
Yamada, M. 1999. Parasaito shinguru no jidai [The age of the parasite singles]. Tokyo: Chikuma
Shobou.
———. 2005. Meiso
ˆsuru kazoku: Sengo kazoku moderu no keisei to kaitai [Runaway family:
Decline in the post war family model]. Tokyo: Yuhikaku.
Yui, Y. 2006. Purchases of condominiums by single women and their backgrounds in Tokyo:
Housing problems for women. Geographical Review of Japan 12: 629–43.
ABSTRACT TRANSLATIONS
Las mujeres solteras y las elecciones de vivienda en el Japo
´n urbano
Japo
´n ha experimentado una particularmente ra
´pida caı
´da en los casamientos en las
recientes de
´cadas y un subsecuente incremento en los ‘nunca casados’ y los hogares de
personas que viven solas. La fragmentacio
´n social ha estado asociada a una prolongada
inestabilidad econo
´mica y neoliberalizacio
´n que ha restructurado los contextos de empleo,
vivienda y polı
´ticas. Las dificultades que encuentran aquellas personas que no siguen los
caminos convencionales de la vida en matrimonio han sido una particular preocupacio
´n
social. Mientras que el matrimonio ha sido importante para facilitar el acceso a una
vivienda cada vez mejor y a la propiedad de bienes, el ser soltero/a limita las opciones de
vivienda y da forma a opciones de vida muy distintas a lo largo de la vida. Esto es
especialmente verdad para las mujeres solteras que esta
´n en desventaja en los mercados de
la vivienda y el trabajo. El artı
´culo examina la restructuracio
´n en curso de las
oportunidades de vivienda que esta
´n contribuyendo a reconfigurar las diferencias y
experiencias de ge
´nero, ası
´como tambie
´n las nuevas carreras profesionales de vivienda
que son seguidas por el creciente nu
´mero de mujeres urbanas solteras en Japo
´n. Basa
´ndose
en entrevistas con mujeres solteras en el a
´rea metropolitana de Tokio, ası
´como en datos
secundarios de encuestas nacionales, el artı
´culo estudia co
´mo las oportunidades y
opciones de vivienda esta
´n siendo renegociadas con respecto a las expectativas de
matrimonio, las trayectorias de vida y el hogar, que esta
´n en proceso de cambio. Tambie
´n
reflexionamos sobre las relaciones entre las opciones de vivienda, polı
´ticas sociales,
trayectorias de vida de personas solteras y procesos de individualizacio
´n.
Palabras claves: mujeres solteras; ‘nunca casados’; opciones de vivienda; Japo
´n
日本都会单身女性与住宅选择
近数十年来，日本结婚率急遽下降，‘不婚族与单人家户则显著增加。长期经济不稳
定，加上再结构就业，住宅和政策环境的新自由主义化，社会分化(social fragmenta-
tion)随之而生。非遵循传统婚姻生活模式者所面临的困难，则成了特别的社会问
题。婚姻做为在住居方面向上移动(progress up a housing ladder)与获得财产所有权
的重要机制；单人宿舍则限缩了住房选择，并在生涯中形塑了不同的生命机运，对
于在居住与就业市场中皆处于不利位置的单身女性而言更是如此。本文检视持续
进行中的住宅机会重构，此一过程重新形塑了性别差异与经验，新兴的房仲业亦随
着日本都会单身女性的成长而产生。本文根据对东京大都会单身女性所进行的访
谈，以及国家资料库的二手资料，考虑在婚姻、生涯与家庭期望的转变中，住宅机会
与选择如何进行再协商。我们同时反思住宅选择，社会政策，单身生活与个人化过
程的相互关系。
关键词：单身女性，不婚族，住宅选择，日本
Gender, Place and Culture 469
Downloaded by [UVA Universiteitsbibliotheek SZ] at 01:28 05 February 2014
