[in Japanese]

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The purpose of the present article is to consider the problem of contemporary Japanese family in Japan from comparative behavioral perspective. The degree of participation of the elderly in child-rearing declines due to the increase of nucleus families. Its effect as well as that induced by the increase of white-collars upon child growth is reviewed. The issue of whether family is indispensable for human living is also discussed.

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Recent reproductive technologies, such as surrogate motherhood and sperm bank, will have a grave impact on our ideas of life, human being, and family. Our desire to have a child has been segmented into a set of particular sub-desires, and the norms of modern family are shaken by these segmented desires. Such segmented desires are, for example, (1) “we want a child whatever method we may use, ” (2) “we want a child of the same blood, ” (3) “I want to give birth myself, ” (4) “we want such-and-such a child, but we don't want such-and-such a child, ” and (5) “we want a child with the same genome as someone.” Some of these desires are well known to modern family, but others are completely new. Egg donation, womb rental, and human cloning might transform the norms of modern family into new ones.

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[in Japanese]

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In this article there are three tasks included : 1) To illustrate the contemporary phase of interrelationship among humans, medicine and family, via the concept of 'medicalization'. 2) To overview the brief history of family sociology and medical sociology on a comparative basis, and then to search the meaning of their literature via modern-postmodern debate. 3) To critically examine the basic concepts of 'individualization' and 'clinical', strategically of critical importance to both fields

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[in Japanese]

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I will discuss in this article the problem of family talking as subject of debate changes in family or people. I'll access the family problem by adopting the method of clinical sociology.Clinical sociology has seven fundamental points, as I shall later see in detail. I shall give a sketch of the family image as a client or client system in the field of clinical sociology. Then, I'll come to conclusion in the light of these assumptions : 1) the change of family relations, 2) the reaction against over-control, 3) the imbalance of a compromise between 'independent existence' and 'bound existence', 4) over-adapting family : the awareness and responsibility as agent of socialization. I throw out the suggestion that : 1) we look at again the importance of communication among family members, 2) on living a life, we prefer not only to take a task for oneself but to bring up, 3) we could have the consideration of the view of equality between adults and children, 4) we could learn how to take the family function as a resistance, for example privacy and humanity.

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How has the South Korean family changed during the past century, and what changes will take place in the furture? This study will analyze changes in the current South Korean family focusing on its functions and structures. The data used are taken from annual surveys conducted by the national statistics office, and a ' nationwide survey on families conducted in 2001. Analysis of the results reveals that in terms of structure, the trend towards the nuclear family is basically the same as in advanced nations, however there is an imbalance in the sex ratio among children. In terms of function, deep-rooted support can still be found for the traditional South Korean values of monogamy, preference for boys, opposition to cohabitation of children and roles differentiation within marriage. However, a great differences in traditional family values were evident such as changes in consciousness regarding a marriage partner of children, a pattern of receiving and giving support to parents, the range of family consciousness, divorce and remarriage. This study also found that married children are living close to their parents, and same sex silblings are maintaining close relations.

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that determine whether the married women with an infant will continue full-time employment or not. Though most of existing studies on the career choices of married women focused on the different tendencies among districts, each found different explanation variables (hypothesis). We use every explanation variables (hypothesis) to decide which really has influence on their career choices. The explanation variables (hypothesis) are the rate of cohabitation of three generations, the sufficiency in capacity of nurseries, and separation of home from work explanation. According to the rate of commuters'outflow, we classified the metropolitan areas into three groups : the central, the suburbia, and the other areas. Among married women in the metropolitan areas, just one out of ten continue full-time employment as a whole. Binomial logistic regression analysis yields that living with parent (s) is the only effective way for the married women to coincide full-time employment and childbearing. In other words, social support for child-care centers and their personal strategy have no effect on increasing continuous full-time employment of married women.

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The purpose of this analysis is to examine the primary factors of household division of labor in Japan. This study used 1, 200 couples' data sub-sampled from the 1995 survey of time use and leisure activities conducted by Statistic Bureau. By multivariable analysis, we got the following findings. First : husbands' and wives' hours spent on domestic labor are determined by their own working hours, especially these of wives'. Second : they are also determined by their partner's working hours. But husbands' hours only increased when wives' hours spent on labor activities are longer than theirs. Third : they aren't determined by their partner's domestic working hours : husbands' and wives' domestic working hours aren't in a relation of a trade-off. As concerns differences of primary factors of household labor between spouses, these findings indicated that husbands do the labor if wives couldn't do it.

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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The present study analyzes the effect of children on satisfaction in couple-relationship in Sweden, using the 1996 “Survey on Work and Economy in Swedish Family” data. The results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses show that the effect of children on relationship satisfaction is partially explained by the division of housework and assessment of household economy. However, the findings also show that people with children are less satisfied with their relationship compared to those without children even when other factors are being controlled for. Both women and men with youngest children aged 2 to 5 are found to have a lower level of relationship satisfaction, compared to those without children. Assessment of household economy and the division of housework have the strongest effects on relationship satisfaction for men and women respectively. Findings from studies in the United States are replicated in Sweden despite the latter's comprehensive state support for raising children.

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This study examines relationships between maternal employment and early adolescent's independence. This research examines the effects of not only current maternal work condition but also occupational career that is based on life-course perspective. In addition to this, this analysis will control mother's parenting behaviors to assess the net effect of maternal employment. The analysis uses combined data from 451 married women and their children. This findings indicate that current maternal work condition isn't related to children's independence, but maternal occupational career is significantly related to children's independence. The results also suggested that independence of children whose mother has been working continuously is highest among all of occupational careers. This suggested that life-course perspective in the studies of maternal employment is important and that continuous maternal employment doesn't have deleterious effect on children, but even positive effect on them. Furthermore, it is pointed that the research in this area should move beyond the question of whether maternal employment has positive or negative effect. exploring the condition that makes us manage the interface between maternal employment and child rearing.

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[in Japanese]

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