Comparison of attitudes toward childrearing among female college students in Japan, the United States, and Indonesia

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this study was to compare attitudes toward childrearing among female college students in Japan, the United States, and Indonesia.

Methods

Survey questionnaires were distributed to samples of students in these three countries between December 2015, and April 2016. The questionnaires included the following: eleven questions on childrearing (a four-point Likert scale), their desirable educational policy, and their demographic characteristics. A Mann-Whitney U test, chi-squared test and Spearman correlation analysis were used to analyze the data.

Results

A total of 474 female students (185 Japanese, 101 Americans, and 188 Indonesians) completed the questionnaires. Most of the participants responded that they wanted to have children in the future. In addition, respondents from all countries expressed their belief in gender equality in education. Some differences were also found. While more than 99.0% of both American students and Indonesian students believed that children should receive the highest level of education possible, 66.1% of Japanese students respond in the same way (p<0.01). Oppositely, 30.6% of Japanese students answered, “Somewhat Disagree”, and 3.3% of them answered “Disagree”. In addition, a larger percentage of Japanese students viewed that “the childbearing was a woman's job” at 31.4% in contrast to 28.0% of American students and 20.7% among Indonesian students. The difference between Japanese students and Indonesian students was especially large and statistically significant (p<0.05). Large portions of the Japanese students (67.6%) and Indonesian students (75.0%) believed that the roles of the father and mother in childrearing were different while significantly smaller portion (25.0%) of American students held the same view (p<0.01). Regarding child custody, 54.1% of Japanese students and 72.2% of Indonesian students agreed to the statement “child custody should be given to mothers if children are young in the event of a divorce” where a significant difference was observed in a much smaller portion (19.0%) of American students agreeing to this statement (p<0.01).

Conclusion

While Japanese students believed in gender equality regarding children's education and career paths, they believed in appropriateness of gender specific tasks in parenting which was reflected in their agreement to the statement, “young children should be raised by the mothers.” In addition, for the Japanese college students, high cost of education appears to be a potential significant barrier to parenting.