Women's Housework Time In Japan and the United States

A Phase of Modernity in the Family

Abstract

Housework is a principal concept in the discourse of the modern family. As the scheme of modernization fluctuates today, it should be necessary to clarify the relationship between the housework and the family. In this paper, quantitative analysis of women's housework time in Japan and that in the United States were compared. Thereafter, the principles that govern the families in the countries were extracted.
In the result, two countries have similarity in the level of relevance on the number of children. As the differences, (1) The people who share of housework are mainly husbands in the U.S., but mothers in Japan, (2) The factors of education and income are only relevant in the U.S., (3) The work time is more relevant in Japan.
It suggests that the family of both countries attach importance to children but more in Japan. The separation of domestic and public sphere is found in the United States, while, in Japan, their separation is found only in space but not in idea.