Of all the sub-fields of sociological inquiry in Japan, the study of the family has a long and distinguished history. We know there are numerous excellent empirical and theoretical works, the family having occupied a central position in sociology in Japan.
It is also true, however, that, as a result of the centrality of this field, there have been few attempts as sociological reflection on family sociology, such as “What is family sociology?”, “Where does it stand?” and “Where is it going?”
This short essay attempts to emphasize the importance of critical reflection on family sociology for the future development of this field. There is little doubt that the symposium “Social stratification and family” provides an important opportunity for considering the nature of family sociology.

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This paper reviews recent literature on family and social stratification. The review is organized in four sections. First, strategies of measuring family social stratification positions are summarized. Second, an overview of studies devoted to explaining different lifestyles and parental values by social stratification positions, is presented. Third, brief summaries of research on the relationship between social stratification positions and family variables such as marital status and life stages are presented. Finally, the review concludes by dismissing future issues in the study of family and social stratification studies.

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The family into which an individual is born exerts a significant influence on his/her life opportunity. In status attainment research, such influence is widely discussed in terms of family background and its effect on educational or occupational careers has been analyzed. While many studies reported a gradual decline in the importance of the family, various aspects of family life remained unexamined because of a scarcity of data. One such aspect is sibling conditions.
This paper examines the association of sibling-size and birth order with educational attainment. An interesting question is whether the low fertility that has prevailed in postwar Japan changes the pattern of educational attainment of siblings. Using SSM data collected in 1985, I found there was an inverse correlation between sibling-size and educational attainment as had been the case in the past, the birth-order effect becoming greater in recent cohorts. Even in a small and equality-oriented family, educational resources are inevitably allocated unevenly between offspring. We need to include in our research on stratification perspectives to examine both between-family and within-family variations.

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Theoretical development in class and stratification research has been stagnant. One reason for this is the decline of class-related political issues and a reduction in class differences in various aspects. Another, possibly more important, reason seems to be the expansion of female labor participation. The noticiable emergence of double-income families raises the question of unit of class or stratification : i.e. Is it the family or individuals that constitute the class or stratification?
At first glance, the individualistic solution appears to be more appropriate, but this solution entails new difficulties. It leaves out the many non-working housewives who make up more than one third of married women. The problem is not only one of famale class location. The SSM research data show that the husband' s class identification is also affected by the spouse' s occupation as is the wife' s. This means that the traditional collectivistic conceptualization of class or stratification is also questionable.
To date, the issue of 'family or individuals' has presupposed that the class concept should satisfy the following conditions : i.e. uniqueness of concept, generality, consistency, uniqueness of individual' s class location, stability, and fundamentality. The contemporary family and female working conditions, however, would seem to imply that the traditional conditions of class concept must be abandoned.

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After the mid-80' s, when Japan' s economic power increased due to the Plaza consensus, the number of “international marriages” in Japan increased drastically. And the nationalities of foreign spouses have also changed. However, there is a sexual difference among these changes. More Japanese men have married foreign wives than Japanese women have married foreign husbands. The brides are Philippinos, Thais, Koreans and Chinese. One reason for this is that men move around more than women during the process of economic internationalization, but we should consider other intermediate factors that have influenced change in the Japanese spouse selection pattern; especially related to “nationality”. Migrant entertainer girls and brides found by professional matchmakers for the rural villages are functionally equivalents of young Japanese girls who left from the villages and service industry. Marriages with these women may influence mate selection pattern and thus conjugal relationships among Japanese. Parent-children relationships especially between mother and child living in the father' s country, face linguistic socialization hardships. Both the resource and norm theories can be used to interpret the extra hardships of the partner who lives in the spouse' s country. Family sociologists in Japan need to be more concerned with the legal rights offoreign spouses and partners as well as those of children of “international marriage”.

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As a coordinator of the first session on kokusai kekkon (literally translated as “international marriage”), I will put forward here some of the fundamental issues concerning families on the “boundaries”. Comparing studies on kokusai kekkon with those on intermarriage in western countries, this paper reviews the former studies in the following order.
·What constitutes endogamy and exogamy for kokusai kekkon.
·A brief history of “nationality”, which is the main boundary of kokusai kekkon.Considering the relationship between kokusai kekkon and nationality, “cross-national marriage” can be seen as the most appropriate translation for kokusai kekkon.However, there are many other “boundaries” which form sub-categories of “cross-national marriage” such as “inter-racial marriage” and “intercultural marriage”. The use of these terms is, for the most part, dependent upon the perspective of the individual researher.
·Some problems concerning both intermarriage and sub-categories of kokusai kekkonstudies overlap. For example, many of these studies focus on “foreign wives” only.
This paper clarifies some issues relating to the complex topic of kokusai kekkon, especially from the aspect of “boundaries”. Nevertheless, it is apparent that some research structures of ‘family’ resulting from intermarriage and intramarriage are quite similar. It thus becomes obvious that full-fledged research through cooperation among researchers is sorely needed. Moreover, not only do we need structural-functional research but also research which takes an historical approach in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of kokusai kekkon.

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This paper focuses on the recent trends of an increasing number of “International marriages” by Japanses and the birth of “international” children (that is, children whose parents have different nationalities). Using vital statistics, migration statistics and foreign resident statistics, we analyzed the basic trends, patterns and backgrounds of both subjects.Important findings are summarized bellow :
1. The basic trend of “international marriages” involving Japanese between 1965 and 1993 shows a certain acceleration in almost all marriage patterns, regardless of the partners'nationality.
2. An interesting synchronization was observed between the number of “international marriages” by Japanese domestically and the number of Japnese who traveled or migrated overseas. It suggests that increasing contact with foreigners abroad are changing the Japanese social norm on intermarriage. On the other hand, the number of foreign residents is also increasing, synchronized with the number of “international marriages” by Japanese domestically. This may well reflect the strict migration controls on foreigners in Japan.
3. The number of “international”births in Japan is disproportionally smaller than the number of “international marriages” involving Japanese. However, thus does not automatically infer low fertility among international couples, for in some foreign residents groups, a very high marriage rate and very high birth rate can be observed simultaneously.

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This paper is a report of a survey conducted in their own native languages on the consciousness and reality of foreign 'brides' from Asia in Japanese rural areas. The subjects of this survey were 154 foreign 'brides' from China/Taiwan, Korea and Philippines who are married to Japanese men and registered residents of Mogami district, Yamagata Prefecture (eight cities and villages).
This survey revealed the following : (1) The gap between the ideal and reality in various aspects of life in Japan is great. (2) A large proportion of them decided to marry after being persuaded by sweet talking “international marriage” agents. (3) large problems exist in communication in Japanese. (4) There are large differences between tradition, culture and value systems of their native countries and Japan. (5) The common family structure was a lineal extended family in which the brides live with their husbands' parents. (6) The ratio of the families in which finances are controlled by the mother-in-law is high, hence the brides feel that they are deprived of their role as wives and mothers. (7) In many cases, wives are forced to assimilate as Japanese within their families. (8) Marriages are perceived as marriages of convenience for the purpose of maintenance and continuation of the 'ie' or the family lineage. (9) they strongly feel that discrimination and prejudice against non Japanese Asians still persist in local Japanese communities. (10) The legal, institutional and spiritual environment is still not adequate for accepting foreign 'brides'.

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A recent characteristic of “international marriages” in Japan is that more Japanese men marry foreign women than vice versa. As this type of marriage increases, so does the number of children with Japanese fathers and foreign mothers. The purpose of this paper is to examine socialization issues of these international children who have Japanese fathers and foreign mothers.
Within the family, parents are faced with the issue of linguistic socialization as to what language they are to use interacting with the child. Most parents studied wanted their children to be bilingual. This is reflected in the fact that approximately 90% of their children are bilingual of some type. Differences in bilingual ability among siblings and issues related to linguistic socialization are discussed.
Outside the family, when the “international child” reaches school age, the issue of what school he or she is to attend arises. The overwhelming majority of the children studied go to Japanese schools, public and private. The choice is based on economic and practical reasons. At school, many “international children” experienceijime (bullying). Differences among siblings with regard to the effects ofijimeand other issues are examined.
One common feature between children' s bilingual ability andijimeexperiences is that the bilingual ability and the emotional impact ofijimevary among siblings. Implications and suggestions for future studies are also discussed.

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In this paper we discuss the relationships between the social attitudes of students aged 13 to 18 and their parents, important agents in their socialization. We use Japanese family data from the 1990' s and American family data from the 1970's to compare basic features of the two societies.
Using data from the triad of mother, father and child, we focus on three social attitudes : authoritarian-conservatism, idea-conformity and self-confidence. We hypothesize that the factor structures of parents' and children' s attitudes are similar. With the LISREL program we use linear structual equation modeling to test our hypothesis and to measure the correlations among different family members' attitudes.
We find different patterns of correlation among family triads in the U.S. and Japan.First, for authoritarian-conservatism the correlation among family members is positive in both countries, although all of the correlations are higher in the U.S. than Japan. Second, the only significant correlation in Japan for idea comformity is between parents, whereas in the U.S. the only significant correlation is between mother and child. Third, for self-confidence all of the correlations among the family triad are significant and positive in the U.S.sample; however, although all are positive in Japan, only the correlation between father and mother is significant.
All in all, though American data supports standard sociological theories of family, for example, Parson' s theory of functions of family, Japanese data does not. This is because in the U.S. society parents' social attitudes are transmitted to their children effectively. In addition, weak correlation in Japan between mothers and children does not support the importance of “mother-child identification” in Japanese sociological family theory.

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The purpose of this paper was to clarify the structure of parental support behavior, and its influence on the amount of child-parent dialogue and school performance.
In order to achieve this purpose, 71 items of parental support behavior were collected and categorized into positive, negative and non-support behaviors on the basis of Antonucci's support framework. The sample size was 176 female university students. The questionnaire given to them was constructed with these items.
The findings can be summarized as follows.
1. For positive support behavior, seven different dimensions were identified. These dimensions were 1) praise, 2) respect of the child' s self-determination, 3) encouragement, 4) devotion, 5) acceptance, 6) cooperation and 7) recognition. For negative support behavior, six different dimensions were identified. These dimensions were 1) over-involvment, 2) over-expectation, 3) prohibition, 4) suppresion, 5) non-interference and 6) over-protection.For non-support behavior, the dimension of ignorance was identified.
2. There was positive correlation between positive parental support behavior and child-parent dialogue, and negative corretation between negative parental support behavior and child-parent dialigue. For the child's school performance, the same trend was also found.

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Because of increased longevity, the parent-child relations may last 50 or more years. As a result, mid-life parent-child relations include long years when the child is an independent adult and the parent is a vigorous middle-aged adult or a healthy independent elder. This study aimed to clarify this mid-life parent-child relationship assuming equality.
First, applying “shared experience” variables as some significant independent variables, I propose a theoretical model to analyze mid-life parent-child relations. With data collected from 384 paris of adult daughters and mothers whether “shared experience” variables have a direct effect on the emotional dimensions of parent-child relations was tested.
Secondly, as a unique feature of the study, I investigated parent-child relations from both partners' perspectives.
The major findings in this article are as follows : (1) “shared experience” variables affected the dimensions of “Value Consensus” and “Affective Closeness” in mother-daughter relations; (2) this theoretical model using “shared experience” variables was more valid in analyzing mid-life mother-daughter relations from the mothers' perspective than the daughters'.
Lastly, by comparing both perspectives, I discuss subjective perceptions of parent-child relations.

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This paper measures longitudinal changes in women's participation in employment. Excluding women employed in family enterprises, we focus on the modern sexual division of labor, the division between occupational and domestic labor.
In the 1948-94 figures of women's employment status based on the Japan Labor Force Survey, we observe an increasing number of part-time workers and a stable number of full-time workers.
Further details are given with personal histories of Japanese women collected through a 1985 nationwide survey. [1] Of those who worked full-time before marriage, only 20% remain working full-time at the childrearing stage (CRS). [2] Of those who were not employed at CRS, 20% enter full-time employment at post-CRS. [3] The numerical values of 20% are consistent among all cohorts. [4] More women enter part-time employment at post-CRS.
The findings imply a partial shift in the postwar sexual division of labor : Japanese women have poured into short-term or part-time employment, while there has been no change in their participation in long-term and full-time employment. This means a separate movement in the barrier against employment of women. To explain that movement, we should reject the accepted theory that the barrier is monolithic.

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Recently, it seems that female lifestyles are diversifying, but this diversification does not always bring about greater choices. Housework is still deemed to be women's work. In Japan few studies have examined the factors of housework time. This study uses data from a Time Budget Survey in Matsuyama city to analyze differences in time spent on housework by married women. Married women's housework time is generally controlled by four factors; their employment status, family type, the degree of cooperation obtained and the number of children. In terms of housework, married women's lifestyles can be classified into six types according to the housework hours and related factors. According to the results, all types of women are kept busy by housework and/or paid employ. Particuarly, women with people who cooperate with housework have less leisure time than any other groups.This suggests that married women are strongly influenced by gender role ideology.

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