The purpose of this paper is to examine transitions in the history of Japanese home economics. During World War II, the concept of seikatsu kagaku (the study of concrete measures to improve daily life) was propagated by the government and certain scholars as a means of improving the people's harsh wartime life. As a result, home economics became a more practically oriented and popular subject. However, after the war, particularly in the period of rapid economic growth from the 1950s to the 1970s, interest in the subject declined. This paper traces the rise and fall of home economics in Japan, focusing particularly on the relationship between seikatsu kagaku and wartime home economics, and the process by which the status of home economics declined in the postwar period.
