Children Outside Marriage in Japan in the 2000s: Focusing on Father Presence and Diverse Socioeconomic Circumstances

Abstract

Unlike recent Western societies, the proportion of nonmarital childbearing is very low in Japan, but it is increasing. Since the Longitudinal Surveys of Babies in the 21st Century, with a large sample size including about 600 babies born to unmarried parents, allow us to evaluate the home environment and circumstances of children outside marriage, I review findings and discussions concerning children outside marriage for mainly the US and Japan, then, using individual data of the surveys above, I describe demographic features of nonmarital babies, their parental characteristics, economic circumstances, mothers’ networks, and fathers’ involvement of childrearing, comparing these with children born in marital relationships. In situations of children born to unmarried parents, it is more likely than their counterparts to be the first birth, to live in urban areas, to have low birth weight babies, to have parents who smoke, to be economically disadvantageous, to have mothers with limited social networks, and to have a small number of playmates. The proportion of zero-year-old babies outside marriage who live with their father is below one in three. The proportion is lower than a half in the US. Although the survey does not include enough information on nonresident fathers, general supports from fathers to nonmarital children seem to be limited. On the other hand, a certain number of children live with their father in a stable relationship and their mothers’ socioeconomic status is very high. Regardless of the marital status of mothers, resident fathers’ involvement with childcare is almost the same. Although, on average, children outside marriage in Japan are disadvantaged, there is a range of variations.