In Japan, the birth control movement started in 1922, when the Japanese Birth Control Study Society (Nihon Sanji Chosetsu Kenkyukai) was founded. As a part of the birth control movement of Taisho era, the birth control clinic played a significant role in educating people about contraception. By 1925, four major clinics were founded in the Tokyo and Osaka areas. Focusing upon these four clinics, this paper discusses the class composition of their clients and the popularity of contraception.

  At the end of the Taisho period (1923-1925), most of the clients attending the clinics belonged to the “new middle class.” They were not only from Japan, but also from the colonies, such as Korea and Manchukuo (modern Korea and north-east China). The majority belonged to the so-called intellectual class, but twenty to thirty per cent were working class. In addition, 76% of clients’spouse－majority of the clients were male in these clinics－ were in the late twenties and thirties, most of who had four to five children. They sought contraception for economic reasons.

  Up until the mid-1920s, the majority of client belonged to the new middle class, especially the intellectual class. Then, in the late 1920s, more people from the working class started to use the clinics, which led to the spread of the birth control movement in the early thirties.

  The aim of this study was to examine family lives in the first half of the Showa period from the point of view of children in that period. To achieve this, children’s compositions appearing in the “Kansyobunsen”(later renamed “Tsuzurikatatokuhon”) magazine between June 1925 and October 1934 were analyzed, focusing on events in family lives. The results obtained in this study may be summarized as follows:

  In the first half of the Showa period, families were large in size and members who lived in the same household often moved out for the following reasons: (1) death or hospitalization due to disease or accident; (2) medical care in distant places; (3) apprenticeship, education, marriage, or military service; (4) placing of a child in the care of a relative or other person; and (5) working away from home. At that time, diseases and injuries in many cases led directly to death. In particular, parents’ disease, death, apprenticeship or the need to stay in a different place separated children from their families. Therefore, many compositions that were related to events in family lives expressed anxiety about bereavement and separation from family members, sorrow when the bereavement and separation was experienced, and joy when reunited with family members. Family lives in the first half of the Showa period were regulated primarily by poor economic conditions, and bereavement and separation from family members often occurred. Therefore, children were exposed to severe realities and their emotions fluctuated between hope and fear. Through family lives children learned that they could not do anything about certain realities their families experienced. Moreover, children learned how to live, how to die, how to sympathize with others, and how to help each other.

  This study examines how fathers’ gender ideology influences their perceptions of their work and in turn, how those perceptions influence how they view as paternal identity their paternal role and value to their children. Recently in Japan, there have appeared many social problems such as economic depression, the widening of earner gaps, the aging population and declining birthrate. As a result, dual-earner households have been increasing, necessitating more involvement by these husbands with their children. However, the amount of fathers’ involvement in child rearing has declined over the past few years. Therefore, using web surveys, specifically targeting two groups of husbands from dual-earner families with preschool-aged children and those with school-aged children, I examine how the fathers’ perceptions of their work affected by gender ideology influence their paternal identity in such a way as is likely to promote paternal involvement with their children. The results of this study are as follows. Within the two groups, the fathers’ perceptions of their paternal identity are positively associated with their work satisfaction and negatively associated with their desire to succeed at work. Their perception of gender differentiation is positively associated with their perception of the importance of their work and their work satisfaction. Moreover, in the group of fathers of pre-schoolers, their perception of paternal identity and value to children is positively associated with involvement with their children, while in the other group, only their paternal role is similarly associated. However, in both groups, their perception of gender differentiation is negatively associated with involvement with their children. As a result, fathers’ satisfaction toward their work enhances their paternal identity in the both groups, whereas their desire to succeed at work reduces it. It is concluded that a positive perception toward paternal identity promotes their child care involvement.

  This study focused on “eating together” in the form of exchange of home visits by women with infants. The purpose of this study is to examine how meals and human relationships, which are components of eating together, affect “functions of eating together” by comparing full-time housewives with working mothers. Among diverse functions of eating together such as interaction, child-care support, exchange of information and so on, “evaluation of dishes by others”, which was emphasized by the women, was examined in this paper.

  A questionnaire survey was conducted using a sample of 725 married women with infants. The survey data from 455 women who enjoyed eating together with friends at home was analyzed using an analytical model based on social exchange and network theories.

  The following results were obtained by comparing full-time housewives with working mothers. 1) For both segments of women, an increased level of “energy input into cooking” was directly associated with an increased level of “evaluation of dishes by others”. This tendency was noted especially among women who enjoyed cooking. 2) With the growth of the youngest child, both “energy input into cooking” and “size of network for eating together” became larger for full-time housewives. These components had a positive affect on the function of eating together. 3) With respect to full-time housewives, “evaluation of dishes by others” was positively affected by both “frequency of eating together” and “size of the eating together network”.

  The above-mentioned results indicate that with or without working, for women who enjoy cooking, eating together is an opportunity for self-presentation through cooking. With the growth of the youngest child, eating together could change role from an opportunity for social relations to an opportunity for self-presentation through cooking for the majority of full-time housewives. For the majority of working mothers, eating together was not an opportunity for self-presentation through cooking.