2021 Volume 71 Issue 4 Pages 541-558
This study aimed to describe, from a life structure theoretical perspective, a way in which rural communities are coping with a new challenge to their way of life. This challenge, which lies in the ever-increasing number of people who never marry, is considered to result from the globalization of Japanese society. Interviews were conducted with participants in a marriage promotion program run by a small town in rural Kyushu suffering from depopulation. In doing so, this study aimed to answer the following three questions. First, which kinds of life structures were associated with men who never married? Second, which kinds of changes did participation in the program engender in the ways in which these men had structured their lives? Third, how did these changes transform this rural community?
The results first showed that two barriers to marriage and, simultaneously, reasons to agonize over not being able to get married, were the closed nature of the men’s social networks and their family values. According to these values, these men were expected to live with their aging parents and take over as the family heir. Second, along with expanding the men’ s social networks, participating in the program influenced their views on marriage and family. Finally, through these changes, the marriage promotion program became a hub bringing together the town’s villages to find solutions to this challenge to their way of life. It now functions as a point of contact for building relationships with cities and provides resources to the local community to enable its members to cope with new challenges in their daily lives.
