The Second National Survey on Family in Japan
Report (Summary)

1. Introduction

The date of the survey

July 1, 1998

Questionnaires distributed

13,630 (Among them 11,951 were analyzed as valid responses. The proportion of valid responses accounted for 87.7 percent of all questionnaires distributed.)

Total sample for analysis and estimation in this survey

8,186 married women (Compared to the total sample of 7,578 married women in the previous survey in 1993)

The objective of the survey

The survey was conducted to understand various factors and trends behind changes in family functions, by looking at situations in childbearing, child rearing, care of the elderly, and relationships between family members. The analysis in this report are based on data obtained from those questionnaires which had been filled out properly by married women.

Summary of the survey report

1. Married women's parents as human resources for child rearing

• Among married women 39 years old and under, approximately 100 percent had at least one of their mothers/mothers-in-law alive.
• Married women 44 years old and under were likely to prefer living separately from their parents/parents-in-law. Married women in areas with high population, compared with those in areas with low population density, were more likely to prefer living separately from their parents/parents-in-law. However, even among married women in areas with low population density, the proportion of those who preferred living separately from their parents was increasing.
• Among the young married women who did not live with their parents/parents-in-law, a tendency to live close to their parents/parents-in-law was observed.
• Among married women 39 years old and under, those who took care both of their children and of their frail parents/parents-in-law at he same time represented a small proportion.

Grown-up children of married women

• Among married women whose daughters were married, more than 70 percent communicate with those married daughters as often as once to twice a week.
• Among married women with grown-up unmarried children, 30 percent provided economic support to their grown-up unmarried sons, whereas 40 percent gave economic assistance to their grown-up unmarried daughters. A sizable proportion of married women with grown-up children continued to provide some kind of economic assistance to their children even after their children got married.
• Two thirds of married women with married daughters assisted their married daughters with childbearing and child rearing.
• 40 percent of married women with married daughters listened to their children's worries and gave advice on their problems. Mothers and daughters were likely to have close relationships regardless of marital status of daughters.

Sharing of family responsibilities between husband and wife

1. The average time married women spent on household chores and the level of husbands' participation in household work

• Married women in their thirties spent the longest hours doing household chores on average. This trend was observed both for weekdays and holidays.
• Even among married women with full-time employment, 30 percent spent more than 4 hours on weekdays doing household chores.
• The average time spent on household chores was 30-minutes shorter for those married women whose husbands came home earlier than 8 pm.
• Even when married women were employed full time, 30 percent of their husbands did not participate in household work at all.

Sharing of responsibility for child rearing

• Even among married women with infants under the age of one, the majority were responsible for 80 percent of child rearing activities. Among the same population, about 10 percent did not receive any assistance from their husbands.

The trend in husbands' participation in child rearing

• The proportion of husbands who participated in child rearing activities increased in almost every category of work involved in child rearing. However, the proportion of those husbands who participated in 'putting children to sleep' remained relatively stable between 1993 and 1998.
• 60 percent of husbands with small children participated in 'putting children to sleep', whereas half of the same population did not participate in 'feeding children', as well as in 'changing diapers'.

The level of married women's appreciation of their husbands' participation in household work and child rearing

• The proportion of those married women who were not happy with the level of their husbands' participation in household chores and child rearing increased between 1993 and 1998, in spite of a slight increase in the overall husbands' participation rate in household work.
• As married women had become to expect slightly more cooperation from their husbands in household affairs, the proportion of those married women who were satisfied with the level of husbands' participation in household affairs decreased, while a slight increase in the overall husbands' participation rate in household chores was found.

Communication between husband and wife

1. Communication between husband and wife

• Overall, 70 percent of married women had dinner with their husbands every day. However, among married women in their thirties and forties, those who had dinner with their husbands every day represented only 60 percent.
• One out of every three married women often sought advice from their husbands on their problems.

Decision making in married-couple households

• It was more likely that married women take initiation of making decisions about their household matters. Their husbands tended to have a smaller say in those affairs compared to married women.
• 70 percent of decisions on the management of family budgets and the administration of households were made by married women. Furthermore, only 3.6 percent of making decisions regarding the rearing and the education of children were made by their husbands, reflecting the low level of involvement by those husbands in child rearing activities.
• Married women who lived with their own parents tended to have a larger extent of in making decisions of household matters, whereas married women who lived with their parents-in-law had relatively smaller influence over their household affairs.

Balancing time between work and child rearing activities

• Labor force characteristics of mothers--difference between the ideal and the reality

Among all married women, 50 percent had returned to work after the childbearing, while 20 percent did not participate in the labor force in 1998. Among the same population, those who were DINKS (dual incomes, no kids) - those who had two incomes and no children, represented a small proportion. The ideal and the reality were matching the most for those who had returned to work after the temporal interruption due to childbearing

Married women's attitude towards the conventional norms of Japanese families

1. Married women's perspective on the roles of husbands and wives

• Married women who were not in the labor force tended to want their husbands to take an active role in household chores and child rearing, while fulfilling the role as a breadwinner at the same time. A tendency to avoid shouldering all the responsibility involved in household work and child rearing was observed among married women who did not participate in the labor force.
• Approximately 80 percent of married women in their twenties were opposed to the view that equated being parents with being respectable married Japanese citizens. The proportion of those who supported the view was larger among married women in their sixties than those in their twenties by as much as 35 percentage points.

Married women's views on child rearing

• The overwhelming majority of married women supported the view that 'mothers with small children should concentrate on child rearing and should not be distracted by work', representing 90 percent of married women.

Married women's views on relationships between grown-up children and their elderly parents/parents-in-law

• The proportion of married women who supported the view that 'elderly parents should live with their sons and their daughters-in-law' decreased by 10 percentage points.

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