Coresidence with parents and marriage in recent Japan. Comment
Morioka, K.
Jinko Mondai Kenkyu 47(3): 71
1991
ISSN/ISBN: 0387-2793 PMID: 12155022 Document Number: 318566
Basic underlying objectives common to all 4 reports presented at the symposium to commemorate the 200th issue of the Journal of Population Problems were to measure and analyze today's trends in marriage and household formation, and to make future projections. Marriage in these studies is grasped as a very important "event" in one's life. From this perspective marriage is thought to be ordained to a great extent by preceding "events" such as education and work experience and by environment such as place of residence, place of work and type of work. Marriage will also, in turn, ordain "events" following marriage such as coresidence with parents, child births, employment status and prospect. The 1st report deals with 1st marriage as a series of events which includes mate selection process. Japanese family sociologists started studying the mate selection process 20 years ago. Topics included getting acquainted, engagement, marriage, respectively, in arranged marriage cases and in love marriage cases. Mr. Mochizuki added 1 more topic, "private understanding" that they will be future marriage partners. This private understanding is a point in time which is between getting acquainted and engagement. It differs greatly between men and women. Kaneko's study asks the age when a woman becomes conscious of marriage as a reality under the headings: age to reach marriageable state; age to enter marriage market/process. The 2nd report on attitudes toward marital and intergenerational relationships elucidates main components of norm consciousness statistically, and suggests fluctuating trends in the norm. The 3rd report on attitudes toward marriage among unmarried Japanese women deals with marriage intention, single's life intention, marriage age, and marriage partner intention. The 4th report makes careful and detailed demographic analysis of coresidence with parents and marriage in Japan.