家族構成-family struture PDF

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this document is one of the topics for the cultural presentation required for this course. this contains questions and answers to this topic...

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家族構成 (こうせい)

1. What are the legal ages in Japan? a. In Japan you are considered to be an adult when you reach the age of 20 and by that age you are able to drink alcohol and smoke. In addition, to get married in Japan, the minimum age is 18 for men and for women it is 16 but it is required that both receive their parent’s approval if they are under 20. Lastly the legal voting age in Japan used to be 20 but it was lower to 18 in the year 2016 in order to encourage more young people to be involved in politics and voting.

2. What are the marriage, divorce and birth rates? a. As of 2019 it was recorded that marriage rate is 4.8 marriages per 1,000 people and in that year there were 598,965 marriages, which was the first time in seven years that marriages have begun increasing again and the reason seemed to be because of the start of the Reiwa era (れいわ/令和). On the other hand, divorces have increased in the year of 2019, up to 1.69 per 1,000 people, with a total 208,489 divorces in 2019, but in general about 1 in 4 marriages end up in divorce. Lastly the birth rate of Japan has been noted to be around 2.1 children for married couples and 1.42 children per woman (2018).

3. What are the marriage trends in Japan? a. Marriages in Japan commonly occur in Spring and Fall due to the clear

weather and the blooming of cherry blossoms but Japanese people are getting married more later than previous generations (first time marriage was 29.4 years and 31.1 years for men). Christian style weddings are the most popular kinds of wedding in Japan, while Traditional weddings are second and the other 2 kinds of weddings are Buddhist and non-religious ceremonies but they are not as popular. The traditional Japanese wedding is a Shinto-style wedding at a shrine, with the groom and bride both wearing a Japanese kimono and each of them partake in an exchange of cups known as sankon-no-gi(三献の儀＝さんこんのぎ).

4. How is the life of Japanese working Women? a. Even though 67% of women are working in Japan, the highest record being 71.3% between the ages of 15 and 64 in 2018, traditional gender roles haven’t changed much in marriage because working women who are married are still doing most of the household chores and their husbands help little. On the other hand, single working women less likely want to become a housewives and instead focus on their personal priorities since it is it was noted that the percentage of women working after their first child-birth was 9.7% without child care leave, 17.1% using child care leave compared to 70.7% of women working before childbirth. Working mothers tend to work fewer hours in order to take care of their children( or just decide to quit because of the difficulty to balance work childcare) and even though there are day-care centers, many of them are expensive about

$732/ ¥70,000 per month for the first child and many children are in long waitlists due to few centers existing.

5. Why are marriage and birth rates low and divorce rates high? a. One of the reasons why marriages and birth rates have remained low is that many Japanese people have had few opportunities to find the right partners as said by 43.3% of men and 51.2% of women (2018). Also in the instance of men 29 % of them have said that they do not have enough money for marriage since there have been lower wages for men with regular positions and 31 % of women do no want to lose their freedom and would prefer to continue their careers instead of quitting. On the other hand, divorce has increased mainly because of the incompatibility partners have and the second reason is women experiencing domestic violence (8% of divorces).

6. What is the percentage of elders and their lifestyles? a. As of 2019 the 28 % of Japan’s population is 65 years and above and from this population, 70% aged 60-69 and 50% aged 70 and above are working or involved in hobbies, and community activities (2016). The most popular sport among the elders is swimming and many of them are involved in hobbies such as dancing, flower arrangement, calligraphy and doing daily light exercises (walking, stretching) have benefited their health. From the elder population only 1.7% of them are living in nursing

homes and about 6.25 million age 65 and older are living alone and 40% are afraid of living dying alone.

7. Is same-sex marriage allowed in Japan? a. Till this day, Japan does not legally recognize same-sex marriage as stated by Article 24 of the constitution that marriage is based on the mutual consent of both sexes and although there are about 2-dozen cities that issue same-sex partnership certificates they hold no legal recognition. Despite this, a poll showed that 78.4% of people between the ages of 20 and 59 said they approve or somewhat approve same-sex marriage. To add on, same-sex couples are not able to legally adopt in Japan but there has only been one case of this happening in 2017 in Osaka....