いま家族に何が起こっているのか-問題提起-

Abstract

Up to this day, it is said that Japanese family has become nuclear family in its form after the world War II. Most Japanese textbooks of family sociology still show it in some way. However, since the period of high economic growth, the rate of nuclear household has not increased. It has in fact decreased. Most textbooks show the increase in the proportion of the nuclear household, which includes the rates of the household composed of a married couple and a single person household. It is true that the rates of a couple household and a single person household have rapidly increased, but it is not correct to lump them together. I present my idea which is maybe called “the family diversification theory”. In this theory, I explain that Japanese family has diversified particularly since the period of high economic growth.Industrialization as an explanatory variable can explain how the nuclearization of the family had occured. But, it can not explain how such diversification of the family has taken place. We must find another explanatory variable and a mediating variable. Here, I suggest a change in the family life cycle pattern as a mediating variable derived from the aging of the population structure which is an explanatory variable.