乳幼児に必須な養育環境についての市民の判断とその理由

抄録

　How can people be persuaded to agree to protect children, regardless of the parent's economic status, from suffering from a relative deprivation of necessities in terms of material goods, social experiences and social participation? The aim of the current study was to determine people's rationales for agreeing or not agreeing with the essential conditions for child-rearing using the “What Children Need List” (WCN-List) developed by Hirai et al. (2015). First, individual interviews with college students (n = 25) indicated the following reasons for agreeing or not agreeing with each item in the WCN-List: benefits to the child, parental circumstances, and the respondent's own experiences. Next, Japanese over the age of 20 (n = 1,030) were asked whether or not they agreed with each item in the WCN-List in an online survey. They were then asked to choose one of the aforementioned rationales for their judgment. Results indicated that the most frequent reason for agreement was “benefits to the child,” while “parental circumstances” were the most frequent for disagreement. The findings are discussed in terms of social policies and parental responsibility in Japan.