Family Changes in Japan, South Korea, China, and Taiwan: Toward the East Asian Social Survey 2016

Abstract

The East Asian Social Survey (EASS) Project has been carried out since 2003 by four teams, each of which followed the idea of the U.S. General Social Survey (started in 1972) in each society: the Japanese General Social Survey (JGSS), the Korean General Social Survey (KGSS), the Taiwan Social Change Survey (TSCS), and the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS). The EASS project establishes common questions (forming a module) based on issues and concerns unique to East Asian societies, incorporates the module into a national survey conducted by each team, gathers internationally integrated data, and conducts cross-national analyses. The theme for the first EASS (EASS 2006) was Family. After ten years, four teams reestablished the family module as Family Module 2016 and attempted to clarify changes in families. The present paper reviews the process of economic development and trends in macrostatistics on families in four societies, reexamines the EASS 2006 Family Module, and extracts the issues to be examined in EASS 2016.