Good wives and wise mothers: Establishing the foundations of modern Japan through women's accounting education

Abstract

This article aims to provide a chronicle and analysis of how the household accounting role for women in Meiji era Japan was created, starting with the government's hurried introduction of ‘bookkeeping’ and ‘home economics’ as separate disciplines, followed by its later ‘Japanisation’ and gender assignment of these subjects and ending with its consequent popularisation in Japan of keeping track of the inflow and outflow of money in a household (receipts and disbursements, and bookkeeping) that eventually led to the unification of both disciplines into a single system of ‘household bookkeeping’. Our work also sheds light on how the introduction of Western-style bookkeeping and its customisation to Japanese needs played a role in the development of Meiji-era household accounting education in Japan, and in so doing helped lay down the groundwork for the establishment of the country's future social fabric.