The Institute of Population Problems, Ministry of Health and Welfare carried out the Tenth Japanese National Fertility Survey on July 16, 1993. The unit of observation was currently married women aged under 50 based on the two stage cluster sampling method. 490 census districts were systematically sampled from about 800 thousand census districts, yielding 10,878 currently married women among whom 9,908 wives (91.196) responded satisfactorily. Major findings are as follows:
(1) Age at marriage
The mean age at marriage for each spouse has gradually increased since the mid-1970s. Tendency of late marriage is remarkable for couples in urban areas compared with those in rural areas. The mean age at first marriage of couples who married on a love-match basis is lower than that of couples who had recourse to an arranged marriage.
(2) Love match and arranged marriage
The proportion of love matches is about 83 per cent of all marriages among couples who are married during the last five years. The couples with a higher age at first marriage tend to have recourse to an arranged marriage.
(3) Time from encounter to marriage
The average time elapsed from the encounter of the partners to marriage ceremony for love matches is three years and four months, while it is just eleven months for arranged marriages.
(4) The age at encounter and late marriage
The mean age at the encounter of the partners is stable among all the marriage cohorts who got married since mid-1970s. These are about 25.0 years for husbands and about 22.5 years for wives, respectively. However, the mean age at first marriage for both husbands and wives have increased in the same marriage cohorts. It is observed, thus, that the average time elapsed from encounter to marriage has increased by one year from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s.
(5) Fertility
The mean number of children ever born (CEB) for couples with the marriage duration of 15-19 years is around 2.2. More than 80 percent of wives have had two or three children within the first 5 years of marriage. On the other hand, the proportion of childless and one-child families is still very low, suggesting the stability of the two-child norm in the Japanese society.
The first marriage age is the most powerful determinant of the differentials in fertility. The number of CEB for wives who married at ages 19-20 have 2.51 children on average while the mean number of CEB for those who married at the ages 29-30 is for smaller, 1.63.
Socio-economic differentials in fertility still exist to some extent. The comparison of the number of CEB by urban-rural residence indicates that the mean number of CEB in rural areas remains larger than in urban areas. Among various occupations of the husband, the largest number of CEB is recorded for the self-employed in agriculture while the smallest number is recorded for the white collar workers.
(6) Fertility preference
Sixty per cent of younger couples with the wife's age under 30 intend to have two children, whereas three-child families are intended by 30 per cent of younger couples. There are many couples considering the three-child family es -an ideal while intending to have only two children.
Sex preference of children showed a drastic change from son to daughter preference during the last decade. Fifty two per cent of wives, who idealized one-child family, responded that male is more desirable for the sex of the only child in the Eighth NFS conducted in 1982. However, it is observed in the Tenth NFS that the daughter preference has strikingly increased to 76 per cent.