Social Change, Social Networks, and Family & Fertility Change in Japan

Japan, unlike most Western countries, has experienced limited movement in several components of the second demographic transition, including non-marital fertility, use of childcare centers, and, somewhat less so, cohabitation. Yet Japan has experienced many of the structural changes found in Western societies that are related to the second demographic transition, including increased education levels with the increases more marked for women than men, rise of the service economy, urbanization, shift to work settings not conducive to caring for young children, and out-sourcing of labor-intensive manufacturing jobs to low-wage countries. Using longitudinal and cross-sectional data that include information on knowing relatives, friends and co-workers who have engaged in non-traditional fertility and family behavior, this paper examines the extent to which knowing such people has changed over time and longitudinally over the life course. We also examine the extent to which knowing someone engaged in non-traditional behaviors is patterned by such structural variables as birth cohort, sex and education, as well as the connection between knowing someone who has engaged in non-traditional behavior and one’s attitudes toward such behaviors.