How does socio-economic status and associated change affect the transition to marriage in the Japan of recent times? This article investigates the relationships between employment history and transition to marriage, with a special focus on the effects of occupation, firm size, employment status, and their associated changes. Using discrete-time event history analysis from recent retrospective life history data in Japan (Japanese General Social Survey 2009 Life Course Study), we found three new empirical results. First, the negative effect of non-regular employment on transition to marriage appears only when respondents keep on working in non-regular employment, both for men and women. Second, working in a professional occupation promotes transition only for women. Third, working at a large firm increases transition only for men. These results suggest that a stable employment history indicates future stability, and reduces uncertainty in the future of those leading married lives. We conclude that a dynamic perspective using employment history enables us to reveal processes toward marriage at a time of labor market flexibilization.

While women's participation in the labor force has expanded in Japan, employment insecurity and work-family conflict have delayed marriage for women and reduced the number of marriages. We utilize the Japanese Life Course Panel Surveys to examine whether women's intentions to continue working and job insecurity affect their planned age of marriage. Results demonstrated that women who expect to continue working plan a later marriage. Concerning employment insecurity, women in nonregular jobs plan a later marriage. Women with relatively secure jobs, such as those who are professionals or work in large corporations, plan an earlier marriage. These findings suggest that employment is one of the important factors for women for the expected timing of their marriage.

The East Asian Social Survey (EASS) Project has been carried out since 2003 by four teams, each of which followed the idea of the U.S. General Social Survey (started in 1972) in each society: the Japanese General Social Survey (JGSS), the Korean General Social Survey (KGSS), the Taiwan Social Change Survey (TSCS), and the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS). The EASS project establishes common questions (forming a module) based on issues and concerns unique to East Asian societies, incorporates the module into a national survey conducted by each team, gathers internationally integrated data, and conducts cross-national analyses. The theme for the first EASS (EASS 2006) was Family. After ten years, four teams reestablished the family module as Family Module 2016 and attempted to clarify changes in families. The present paper reviews the process of economic development and trends in macrostatistics on families in four societies, reexamines the EASS 2006 Family Module, and extracts the issues to be examined in EASS 2016.

During the last 30 years, China has experienced quick industrialization, urbanization and economic development. At the same time, Chinese society becomes more and more open to outside world, especially toward the Western society (and its value). Social and economic change, combined with the government's Single-child Policy, pushed Chinese families and women in the families to change as well. On one hand, family size gets smaller and family structures are more diversified. On the other hand, although more aged people choose to live alone instead of with children, the tradition that depends on family for elderly support remains. Children are still the main caregivers for the elderly. In addition, daughters start to take more responsibility in fulfilling parents' expectations such as educational attainment and eldercare. In sum, this article will focus on how macro social change affects family life as well as women inside the family, and discusses the interaction between family life and women's role.

This research examined changes in family structures, formation and values as well as in gender roles in Korea, using various national statistics. In summary, Korean families have changed rapidly and are expected to continue to change. For example, the number of households and one person households will likely to continue to grow. While the number of marriages has been decreasing, the number of divorces has been increasing, especially for older couples divorcing after 20 years of marriage. Marriages hold no appeal to singles and the needs for marriages have decreased. Preference to have a son among married women has also decreased. In Korea, gender role inequality remains not only in the time spent on the household work, but also in wages.

The study of intergenerational transmission of gender role attitudes (GRA) connects those about parenting mechanism of children's value, socialization, challenges of feminism and gender studies to patriarchy. Previous studies of the transmission of GRA between generations focused on the effects of socialization and symbolic interaction on the formation of GRA of children. Attitudes may change with children's own life-course events, such as entering labor market or starting family formation. The current paper studies if socialization at home remains significant predictor of children's GRA and if their life experiences play an important role in their early adulthood. Findings of analyzing panel data from the Taiwan Youth Project show that children are more egalitarian than their parents, female are more so than male, and children in adulthood are more so than in their youth. Parents have strong effects on shaping children's GRA, especially between mother and daughter. The results seem to support the exposure perspective. However, marriage makes adult children more conservative, especially for married men. The results seem to indicate more the acceptance of the reality by married couple than the backlash of egalitarian attitudes. The self-interested perspective is better to explain the changes of GRA in early adulthood of respondents.

Using data from the first ever national representative sample survey on attitudes toward sexual minorities, the author undertook multiple regression analyses with a Homo/Biphobia scale and a Family/Gender Conservatism scale as dependent variables. Explanatory variables included one's gender identity, age, cohabitation experience, marital status, level of education, current work status, type of work, city size (three categories), geographic region, political view, having religious belief, importance of faith, and being acquainted with sexual minorities. The results indicate that being male, older, having no cohabitation experience, having a conservative political view, and not being acquainted with sexual minorities significantly raise the scores of both the Homo/Biphobia scale and the Family/Gender Conservatism scale. Marital status, city size and having religious belief were not significantly related to either scale. The results pertaining to the level of education, current work status, type of work, importance of religious faith and geographic region were mixed. For the Homo/Biphobia scale, the relative size of the effect was largest for age, followed by one's being acquainted with sexual minorities, and one's gender identity.