Single Mothers in Contemporary Japan: Motherhood, Class, and Repro ductive Practice by Aya Ezawa

Abstract

Reviewed by: Single Mothers in Contemporary Japan: Motherhood, Class, and Repro ductive Practice by Aya Ezawa Yoko Yamamoto (bio) Single Mothers in Contemporary Japan: Motherhood, Class, and Repro ductive Practice. By Aya Ezawa. Lexington Books, Lanham MD, 2016. xxvi, 127 pages. $84.00, cloth; $78.50, E-book. Mothers have been one of the central topics in studies on Japanese families and education. Since the 1970s, middle-class to upper-middle-class Japanese mothers, in their role as "professional housewives," have enjoyed a reputation as a critical agent contributing to family members' well-being and children's healthy and successful development. Over the last few decades, more studies have demonstrated diverse forms of motherhood and mothering, especially by examining working-class mothers whose major responsibilities include contributing to family finances. Nevertheless, studies on Japanese mothers in poverty as well as those outside marital status are still scarce, particularly in English-language literature. The rate of single mothers is relatively low in Japan. However, about 60 per cent of single mothers in Japan live in poverty (p. xii), which is significantly higher than the proportion in other developed nations, even though the majority of them work. Thus, studies on single mothers offer insights into persisting gender hierarchies and inequality that lead to structural and psychological barriers to women in Japan. In Single Mothers in Contemporary Japan: Motherhood, Class, and Reproductive Practice, Aya Ezawa skillfully depicts the "gendered meanings of social class" (p. xii) through her analyses of single mothers' life trajectories, experiences, and perspectives as mothers and working women. Ezawa delves into the variations and diversities among single mothers, especially across generations and social classes, in addition to commonalities in their experiences related to mothering. Her research method focuses on qualitative analyses of life-history interviews with 59 single mothers with preschool-aged children in Tokyo that were collected from 1998 to 2000. In 2004 and 2005, she conducted follow-up interviews with some of the original women and additional mothers with older children. Her research also included ethnographic fieldwork and participant observation at events and meetings providing support for single mothers. She intentionally recruited single mothers who were born in different generations, ranging from the 1950s to the 1970s. In so doing, she was able to capture shifting ideals of family and motherhood in a rapidly changing social and economic environment that powerfully shaped Japanese women's construction of aspirations and life decisions. [End Page 182] Unlike earlier periods when marriage was viewed in relation to patriarchy and women's subordination, during Japan's economic growth period marriage and family consisting of a salaryman husband and a stay-at-home wife and mother became a symbol of a happy life and the norm of the middle class. Around this time, many people, including women, started to perceive stay-at-home mothers as a symbol of status and achievement for women. Ezawa argues that the challenges faced by single mothers came not only from economic conditions and practical issues such as time management and living conditions but also from negotiations of maternal identities and roles. Single mothers, most of whom worked at low-paying jobs, struggled to provide what, in their minds, ideal and happy families had, such as financial stability (provided by a father) and cultural capital (fostered at home). The book consists of five chapters in addition to the introduction and conclusion. After describing the overview of this study and the research method in the introduction, chapter 1 provides careful literature reviews on shifts in family systems during the postwar era and on women's life courses, along with the development of professional housewife ideals. This section also describes social policy, economic status, and employment opportunities for single mothers. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on women's life stories based on analysis of the interviews, including their childhood experiences and socialization processes in the prebubble and bubble generations, respectively. Chapters 4 and 5 move on to elaborate women's experiences, views, and attitudes toward childrearing and negotiations of identities as single mothers. These chapters also highlight the challenges facing single mothers, such as structural discrimination and work-life balance. Sometimes, I found it difficult to keep track of some...