Issues of sex and gender
matter because they sit at the heart of the demographic shifts that will shape
the coming century for Japan. Sex, sexuality and gender reveal tensions that
affect the lives of individual Japanese, and which consequently steer the
economic and political direction of the country.
Marriage is no longer the
universal norm it once was: in 1965, only 1.5 per cent of men and 2.5 per cent
of women remained unmarried at age 50. In 2010, these figures had jumped
to more than 20 per cent for men and 10 per cent for women.
Those who do marry are
having fewer children than in the past, with an average of 1.96 ‘completed number of
children’ per married couple in 2010. Extramarital births account
for just 2.4 per cent of all births, and ‘shotgun weddings’ have steadily
increased. It is clear that Japanese prefer to marry before having children,
and so a decline in marriage means fewer babies.
This declining trend in
Japanese marriage rates reflects socioeconomic barriers, such as economic
insecurity and underemployment, as well as differing perceptions of marriage
and marriageability between men and women. The qualities that make individuals
marriageable and marriage-minded — along with the circumstances in which
prospective partners meet — have shifted considerably since the post-war
period.
Two decades of recession,
economic insecurity and underemployment make the male breadwinner model
untenable. Unable to support a wife — not to mention children — men working as
non-regular or part-time (freeta) workers are increasingly priced out
of the marriage market.
One way to address the
problem of marriageability would be to remove this barrier for underemployed men:
a revision of marriage roles that would see both paid and unpaid work shared
more equally.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ‘womenomics’
policy ostensibly aims to address gender barriers by promoting greater
full-time female labour force participation. But, as many have noted,
the policy does not address the gendered inequality on which the system is
based. It is still predominantly women who are corralled into a domestic caregiver
role, supporting men who work prohibitively long hours
in rigid corporate structures, with limited flexibility for leave or
alternative work styles. There is little incentive for educated women who want
a family to stay in the workplace.
And what of those women who
do not marry? Unmarried women experience a number of labour-market and
non-market constraints. In addition to the gender wage gap, unmarried women are much less
likely to own their dwelling and more likely to live in private rental
dwellings or with their parents at all ages.
Divorced women with children
are particularly vulnerable. Although the vast majority work, typically for
more hours per week than their married counterparts, they do not tend to have
greater earning levels than married women. For professional women decreased
social pressure to marry along with the increased convenience of urban life
make marriage less inevitable and possibly less attractive.
In light of a growing
percentage of individuals who do not marry, the implications of other
relationships become salient, for individuals and for the state. In March 2015,
Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward Municipal Office became the first place in Japan to
officially recognise same-sex unions,
passing an ordinance to allow it to issue ‘partnership’ certificates to gay
couples.
The conservative Abe
government is opposed to legislative reform on marriage. But the Shibuya
ordinance suggests an increased public awareness, if not acceptance, of the
rights of those outside the mainstream. This is also evident in increased
corporate activity on LGBTIQ issues: employee training in diversity and gender
sensitivity, sponsorship and participation in events like the Tokyo Gay Pride Parade.
Making non-marriage a
supported and realistic life possibility requires policy support that extends
beyond pronatalism to more fundamental gender equality. It needs something
close to the definition given in Chapter One of Japan’s 1999 Basic Law for a
Gender-Equal Society, which aims for a society ‘where both women and men shall
be given equal opportunities to participate voluntarily in activities in all
fields as equal partners in the society, and shall be able to enjoy political,
economic, social and cultural benefits equally as well as to share
responsibilities’.
While marriage continues to
feature in the life course of most Japanese, it is only one possible lens
through which to understand intimate adult relationships. For never-married,
queer, divorced and widowed Japanese, non-marital — and non-familial —
relationships offer scope for wellbeing and belonging. For this growing
population, there is a critical need for policy initiatives that support new
possibilities for housing and care, particularly for the elderly and the
economically marginalised. This includes share houses, co-operative housing and
LGBTIQ friendly aged-care.
Far from being marginal
concerns, gender and sexuality are central to the socio-political landscape of
contemporary Japan. The decline in marriage demonstrates that institutionalised
constraints have a significant effect on labour force participation and on
fertility levels.
But rather than construing
current demographic trends
as symptomatic of the decline and doom of Japanese society, it is possible to
see them as an opportunity to invent new traditions of community that extend
beyond the nuclear, reproductive family. Considered attention to the needs of
the increasing number of people who do not marry, or do not remain married,
invites a broader conceptualisation of what it means to be a Japanese woman or
man in the 21st century.
Laura Dales is a lecturer in
Asian Studies at the University of Western Australia.
An extended version of this
article was published in the most recent edition of the East
Asia Forum Quarterly, ‘Asia’s Intergenerational Challenges‘.
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