Leaving the parental home in post-war Japan

Abstract

Abstract Leaving home is a key life event in the transition to adulthood, but it has been relatively less explored in demographic studies of contemporary Japan. This paper examines the relationship between home-leaving intensities of young adults and the rapid social, economic, and demographic changes that took place in post-World War II Japan. By using event-history analysis, the study focuses on 1) family and socio-demographic characteristics, 2) stem-family norms, and 3) proximities of life events and leaving home as the main factors affecting the chances of leaving home. This study aims to explain cohort trends and sex differentials in home-leaving behaviors among young adults in post-war Japan. 1. Introduction Leaving the parental home has been extensively studied in Western countries2. It is often studied as a topic closely related to such issues as the independence of young adults (Goldscheider and Goldscheider 1987, Goldscheider and DaVanzo 1989, Goldscheider and Goldscheider 1993a), parent-adult child relationships (Goldscheider and Goldscheider 1989, 1993b, Jong Gierveld, Liefbroer, and Beekink 1991, Buck and Scott 1993), the changing roles of marriage as an adult status (Goldscheider and Goldscheider 1993a, Goldscheider and Goldscheider 1994), educational opportunities (Wagner 1990, Nilsson and Strandh 1999), increasing job insecurity among young adults (Keilmann 1987, Jacob and Kleinert 2008), and the availability of both the intra- and the extra-familial resources needed to establish a separate household (Avery, Goldscheider, and Alden 1992, Whittington and Peters 1996, Garasky, Haurin, and Haurin 2001). Some scholars have also argued that the patterns of leaving home reflect institutional settings inherent in the historical roots of the region, such as welfare regimes (Fussel and Gauthier 2004, Newman and Aptekar 2007), family ties (Reher 1998), and family systems (Kurosu 1996a, 1996b, van Poppel, Oris, and Lee 2004). In the field of demography, the emergence of non-traditional living arrangements, such as cohabitation and extramarital birth, are interpreted as a sign of the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) (van de Kaa 1987, 2001, Lesthaege 1995). Patterns of leaving home are compatible with such non-traditional family behaviors, and are considered to be important factors in explaining the regional divergence in the processes of the SDT (Lesthaege and Moors 2000). Therefore, leaving home, particularly its incidence before marriage, is one of the important indicators in understanding the current development of family behaviors. Over the last half of the 20th century, Japan became highly industrialized, and achieved one of the highest living standards in the world. At the same time, Japanese families underwent enormous social and demographic changes during the post-World War II period. Family size became smaller as fertility rapidly declined, the population became more concentrated in urban areas than in rural areas, and the center of gravity of the labor force shifted away from the manufacturing and agricultural sectors, and towards the service industry. As a result, compositions of family characteristics varied significantly by successive cohorts. Furthermore, each cohort faced different macro contexts as a consequence of economic fluctuations, institutional changes, and erosion of the traditional norms regarding family and household formations. As shown in this paper, these changes in macro contexts facilitated important changes in the transitions to adulthood in post-war Japan. For example, as in other industrialized countries, more young adults enrolled in tertiary education and more single women entered full-time employment, even as the employment of young adults became more insecure, and people began to marry later and less. There is, however, little research into how these social, economic, and demographic changes affected the living arrangements of young adults in post-war Japan. …