家族格差と子育て支援

――育児戦略とジェンダーの視点から――

抄録

This paper examines inter/intra family differences and child-care support policies in Japan from child-rearing strategies and a gender perspective. For the theoretical consideration of mechanisms of reproduction of family differences, this paper proposes a Child-rearing Code and Gender Code based on B. Bernstein’s theory of cultural transmission. The Child-rearing Code system reveals not only inter family differences based on parental economic background, but also intra family differences based on the sexual division of labor in the family.

This paper traces Family Support Policies after World War II, and examines how these policies were gendered and privatized. Especially since the 1990s, various Child-care Support Policies have been introduced in Japan not just to support family childcare, but to raise the birth rate, and these policies sometimes functioned to reinforce a Gender Regime.

The latter part of the paper focuses on voices of parents, based on an extensive empirical investigation which was conducted in Tokyo from 2000 to 2006. The study describes the isolation of mothers with children in a gendered division of labor situation, the emotional capital in mother-child interactions, and the dilemmas of working mothers who have to divide their time between paid work and time spent with their children. It also explores the difficulties faced by fathers who want to, but cannot, care for their children, because of long working hours and business-centered social values. This paper also explains the economic difficulties faced by single mothers due to the lack of social security and wage disadvantages in the labor market in Japan.

Based on these theoretical and empirical considerations, this paper concludes that the symbolic realization of inter/intra family differences are generated by a gender code which operates with an invisible gender hierarchy.