Newsletter of the lnstitute of Social Science, University ...newslet.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ssj33/ssj33.pdfMarriage Newsletter of the lnstitute of Social Science, University of Tokyo SocialISSN

Marriage

Newsletter of the lnstitute of Social Science, University of TokyoISSN 1340-7155

SocialScience 33

December 2005

SSJ-33 05.12.8 9:26 ページ 1

Page 2 Social Science Japan December 2005

Published by:The Information Center for SocialScience Research on JapanInstitute of Social ScienceUniversity of Tokyo

Editorial Committee:Ishida HiroshiHirashima KenjiThomas BlackwoodNakamura Mayumi

DistributionFree airmail subscriptions areavailable to institutions andindividuals. Social Science Japan isalso available on the World WideWeb at:http://newslet.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp

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Cover PhotoKuroda Sayako, the former PrincessNorinomiya, nodding in agreementas her husband Kuroda Yoshikitalks about his ambitions for thefuture at their wedding receptionparty, November 15, 2005(courtesy of the Mainichi Shimbun).

Back Cover Photo The wedding of Daiei movie starSanjo Miki and former film actorShiosaka Ken'ichi, at the MeijiKinenkan, February 3, 1949(courtesy of the Mainichi Shimbun).

Editorial NotesPersonal Names

All personal names are given inthe customary order in thenative language of the personunless otherwise requested.Hence in Japanese names, thefamily name is given first, e.g.Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and inWestern names the familyname is given second, e.g.George Bush.

Copyright © 2005 by the Institute ofSocial Science, University ofTokyo, except where noted. Allrights reserved.

When the former Princess Norinomiya (now, Kuroda Sayako) married KurodaYoshiki last month at the age of 36, an article in The Japan Times pointed out thatshe was "the first woman in the modern history of the world's oldest royal line tomarry in her 30s" (The Japan Times, November 15, 2005, p. 2). She is not alone,however; the average age of marriage in Japan has been rising, and continues torise. In this issue of Social Science Japan, we take a closer look at marriage inJapan. Matsuda Shigeki examines the marriage intentions of Japanese youngpeople, and considers the ramifications for the declining birth rate. Nagai Akikodiscusses the importance that Japanese society continues to place on weddings,while pointing out that Japanese society is not particularly supportive of a richfamily life. Miwa Satoshi applies a longitudinal and cross-national perspective toexamine educational homogamy in Japan, and shows that educationalhomogamy is both declining, and is less common in Japan than in many othercountries. Nakamura Mayumi examines Japanese women's educational andcareer paths, and suggests that, rather than simply being a result of gender-socialization, some Japanese women may choose a "feminine" education or careerout of the "rational" belief that it will help them marry high-status men. In thisissue of SSJ, we also introduce two of Shaken's current institute-wide researchprojects: Nakamura Tamio introduces the Comparative Regionalism Project(CREP), and Genda Yuji introduces the Hopology Project. We end with aResearch Report by Michael Shapiro, a visiting researcher here at the Institute ofSocial Science.

As always, if you are not a current subscriber, but would like to receive SocialScience Japan by airmail, please email us at [email protected], with thewords "SSJ subscription" in the subject box, for a free subscription.

Thomas BlackwoodManaging Editor

Contents

MarriageMatsuda Shigeki Japanese Young People's Marriage Intentions and the Growth in the Trend of Remaining Single …………………………………………………………………p.3

Nagai Akiko Marriage for Social Recognition and Subsequent Married Life……………………p.6

Miwa Satoshi Educational Homogamy in Contemporary Japan ………………………………p.9

Nakamura Mayumi University Education for Marital Status Attainment for Japanese Women………………………………………………………………………………………………p.12

Shaken NewsNakamura Tamio The Comparative Regionalism Project (CREP) at the Institute of Social Science …………………………………………………………………………………p.15

Genda Yuji The Hopology Project at the Institute of Social Science …………………………p.18

Research ReportMichael Shapiro Constructing the Divine Nation: Empire and Providence in the Thought of Ebina Danjo ………………………………………………………………………p.20

SSJ-33 05.12.8 9:26 ページ 2

Matsuda Shigeki

Page 3Social Science Japan December 2005

Matsuda Shigeki is a Senior Research Associate at

the Dai-ichi Life Research Institute Inc. and a Visit-

ing Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo's

Institute of Social Science.

Institute of Social ScienceUniversity of TokyoHongo 7-3-1Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo [email protected]

The Trend of Remaining Single.

Currently, the trend of remaining single in Japan israpidly growing. In this paper, I will discuss themarriage intentions of younger Japanese as thebackground to this trend. The percentage of unmar-ried young people in Japan has been increasingannually, so that, as of the year 2000, 69.3% of Japan-ese males and 54% of Japanese females aged 25 to 29were unmarried; for those aged 30 to 34, 42% ofJapanese males and 26.6% of Japanese females wereunmarried (National Census). Furthermore, asJapan's total fertility rate continues to drop (it wasdown to 1.29 in 2004), the trend of remaining single,which is one of the causes for the drop in fertilityrate, has become a target of social concern.

Single People's Marriage Intentions

In 1991 and 2001, the Post-Adolescence ResearchGroup (Posuto Seinenki Kenkyu Kai), which I partici-pated in under the leadership of Professor Iwakami

Mami of the University of the Sacred Heart, con-ducted surveys among singles in their 20s regardingwork, marriage, and other subjects in Fuchu City,Tokyo, and Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture(Iwakami Mami, 2005). Here I would like to intro-duce the results of the survey conducted in FuchuCity. The investigation was conducted by droppingoff surveys at the residences of a random sample ofsingle male and female respondents, which werethen collected on subsequent days. The surveyswere distributed to 900 people in 1991, with aresponse rate of 37%, and to 1,500 people in 2001,with a response rate of 41.3%.

Regarding marriage intentions, very few respon-dents, male or female, replied "I have no intention tomarry" in either 1991 or 2001 (Table 1). At the sametime, however, the percentage of respondents notgiving a concrete age at which they would like to bemarried by increased over the ten year period, andthe number of people who replied "I have notthought about when I will marry" also increased.While most people intend to get married sooner orlater, the number of people who wish to marry earli-er clearly is decreasing.

Factors Regulating the Intended Age of Marriage

The marriage intentions of individuals are influ-enced by a variety of social-structural factors. Someof the main hypotheses regarding an individual'schoice to remain single focus on factors such asoccupational stability, education, a woman's life

Japanese Young People's Marriage Intentionsand the Growth in the Trend of Remaining Single

Table 1 Desired Age at Marriage

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course perspective, and whether or not the individ-ual resides with his or her parents (Oppenheimer1988; Yashiro 1993; Yamada 1999). For example,when employment is unstable, it is hypothesizedthat the intended age of marriage will rise. More-over, women with higher educational attainmentstend to marry less, and men with less educationtend to have difficulty finding willing marriagepartners. Also, women who wish to continue work-ing may consider the opportunity cost of having toleave their jobs temporarily at marriage or childbirthtoo great, and lose their desire to marry. Finally, sin-gles who live with their parents and receive substan-tial economic assistance from them (so-called "para-site singles") may wish to avoid the drop in livingstandards which would occur if they married.

The results of an analysis of these hypotheses can beseen in Table 2. Regarding occupational stability,among men in both the 20 to 24 year old and the 25to 29 year old age groups, we found that men withstable employment and high salaries do in factexpress an intention to marry earlier. On the otherhand, this correlation is not as clear with women.Also, both male and female college graduates in the20 to 24 age group, and male college graduates inthe 25 to 29 age group, express an intention to marryearlier than non-college graduates. However, amongthe 25 to 29 year olds who consider a woman's "ideallife course" to include continuously working at acareer regardless of marriage or childbirth (womenconsider this ideal for themselves, and men, for theirmarriage partners), the number who express nointent to marry by age 35 is relatively high. Regard-


Table 2

wagewage

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ing the relationship between living with one's par-ents and intended age of marriage, there seems to belittle direct influence. However, it is important toremember that one assumption of the "parasite sin-gle" hypothesis is that they must be economicallydependent on parents, and not simply living in thesame household.

What We Can See from the Marriage Intentions ofSingles

Among the results of the analysis, the degree ofemployment stability attracts the most attention.Under the current economic slump, companies havecurbed their hiring of full-time employees, andinstead have opted to increase their reliance on part-time workers. However, people who are employedonly part-time have difficulty making concrete plansfor family formation. Thus, the so-called "diversifi-cation of the employment system" has causedyounger people to put off marriage longer, and cre-ated class-based differences in family formation.

Moreover, it is important to remember that while thedesired age of marriage for males is strongly influ-enced by occupational stability, this tendency is notseen as clearly among women. Under the popularbelief in the traditional division of family labor,which places men in the workplace and women inthe household, men are expected to be the "bread-winners." Even today many Japanese men andwomen expect this to be true, and for these people,especially, it becomes difficult to find suitable mar-riage partners in a situation where males' employ-

ment environment has deteriorated. On the otherhand, however, it was also discovered that womenwho wish to work without interruption also intendto marry at a later age. This is because, even today, itis difficult in Japan for women to be married andstill have a successful career.

Thus, our data suggest that the increasing trend ofremaining single in Japan is due to the postpone-ment of marriage both by those who still believe inthe traditional gender norms as well as those whono longer believe in those norms.

References:

Iwagami Mami. 2005. ”Shoshika – Koreika Shakai niokeru Seijin Oyako Kankei no Raifuk osutekiKenkyu – 20dai – 50dai Chosa: 1991–2001 nen.“A Research Report written for the Japan Soci-ety for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aidfor Scientific Research.

Oppenheimer, Valerie K. 1988. ”A Theory of Mar-riage Timing.“ American Journal of Sociology, 94:563-91.

Yamada Masahiro. 1999. Parasaito Shinguru no Jidai(The Age of the Parasite Single). Tokyo:Chikuma Shinsho.

Yashiro Naohiro. 1993. Kekkon no Keizaigaku – Kekkonto ha Jinsei ni okeru Saidai no Toshi (The Eco-nomics of Marriage: Marriage is the GreatestInvestment in Life). Tokyo: Futami Shobo.


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Nagai Akiko is an Associate Professor at the Uni-

versity of Tokyo's Institute of Social Science and

a Visiting Research Scholar at the Institute for

Research on Household Economics


In Japan, the way people approach marriage haschanged greatly over the past 60 years. In the past,arranged marriages were the most common way ofmeeting marriage partners, but in the 1960s mar-riages for love surpassed arranged marriages, andcurrently arranged marriages compose only about10% of all marriages. This also means that theinvolvement of parents and other relatives in choos-ing marriage partners has declined. However, thetraditional emphasis on respecting legal marriage, aswell as the exhibition of the deep relationshipbetween parents and children that one sees at wed-dings, and the continued use of go-betweens remainstrong.

One might go so far as to say that married life afterthe wedding ceremony is a process of graduallyincreasing the distance between husbands whowork long hours and the other family members.While legal marriage and the wedding ceremonycontinue to be emphasized and warrant social recog-nition, Japanese society simply gives men no time

for forming a family.

Marriage for Social Recognition

While the proportion of contemporary young peoplethat have experienced unmarried cohabitation witha member of the opposite sex is steadily increasing,the percentage of people who have cohabited priorto marriage remains low in Japan when compared toother countries. According to the National Instituteof Population and Social Security Research's 2002survey of birth trends, approximately 10 percent ofJapanese men and women in their late twenties hadexperienced cohabitation.

The well-known term "dekichatta-kon" (or "shotgunmarriage," used to describe cases where a pregnancyoccurs before marriage) is nuanced to suggest shameimplicit in the act of causing a pregnancy by havingsexual relations before being legally wedded. Withthe principle of legitimate birth remaining strong inJapanese society, the percentage of children born outof wedlock in Japan in 2003 was low at 1.9 percent;however, conversely, the proportion of first childrenborn under "dekichatta-kon" circumstances is rising.With shotgun marriages on the increase, the nega-tive image associated with the term "dekichatta-kon"has somewhat diminished, but legal marriagenonetheless remains fundamental to social recogni-tion for both couples and children.

In terms of social recognition for couples, in addi-tion to legal marriage, the wedding ceremony itselfis important. The wedding ceremony includes themarriage rites, the reception banquet and the recep-tion party. Marriage rites have, of course, been per-formed by a variety of people from long ago, and itis still common for the ceremony in which a couplepledges marriage to take the shape of a religious cer-emony based on, for example, Shintoism, Buddhismor Christianity. After World War Two, it becamecommon to hold a separate reception banquet or areception party after a marriage ceremony. Today,the prevailing trend is for a reception banquet to beheld after a marriage ceremony and for a reception


Marriage for Social Recognition and SubsequentMarried Life

Nagai Akiko

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party to be held after the reception banquet (Kuma-gai, 2005). Relatives and a few close friends areinvited to the marriage ceremony, and these arejoined by employers and professional colleagues atthe reception banquet. Reception parties tend to beinformal affairs held chiefly for the bride andgroom's respective friends. Put another way, where-as the reception banquet has a public aspect andinvolves many people from the workplace, thereception party is held for one's private acquain-tances.

While wedding ceremonies have changed with thetimes, the major role played in the marriage ceremo-ny and the reception banquet by the go-between hashardly changed at all. The go-between escorts thebridal couple, introduces them to the guests and alsosupports the newly wedded couple in their marriedlife afterwards. In the era when agriculture, forestry,fishing, and other family-run businesses were pre-dominant, the go-between was a relative; however,today the go-between is often a company superior,usually from the husband's workplace. While wed-ding ceremonies not involving a go-between aregradually increasing, approximately 90 percent ofpeople who were married in the first half of the1990s employed a go-between (Kumagai, 2005).

While the cost of a wedding varies among couples,the deep involvement of parents in wedding cere-monies tends to bring the overall costs rather high.According to the Institute for Research on House-hold Economics' "JPSC: Panel Survey on Con-sumers," from data on approximately 2,800 youngwomen, the total cost of a wedding, includingengagement commemorative gifts, the marriage cer-emony, reception banquet and party, payment of thego-between, the honeymoon trip, furniture andappliances for the new residence, clothing andaccessories, and other costs involved with movinginto the new home, was in the region of 6,000,000yen before 1994. Further, both sets of parents of thebridal couple put up more money for these variouscosts than the couple themselves contributed fromtheir respective savings. Data from the same surveyfor young women in the years from 1995 to 2004shows that the average cost of a wedding droppedto 5,200,000 yen, and the amount of money con-tributed by the parents was roughly equivalent tothat contributed by the couple.

Married Life

With the wedding and the honeymoon trip over,most couples have an extremely satisfactory life ashusband and wife during the honeymoon period oftheir marriage. However, experiencing the reality ofmarried life gradually takes the shine off theirdreams. Changes in the wife's degree of satisfactionwith the marriage in relation to the number of yearsof marriage that have elapsed since the weddingshow that satisfaction with the marital relationshipstarts decreasing during the first six years of mar-riage (Table 1). While this kind of trend in the earlystages of marriage is evident in other countries dueto the honeymoon effect, the specific factors affect-ing the degree of satisfaction with the marital rela-tionship thereafter may be different in Japan com-pared to other countries.

The amount of time the husband spends at work ona weekday is one of the factors that lowers a wife'sdegree of satisfaction with a marital relationship upuntil the sixth year of marriage, with a long timespent at work by the husband lowering the wife'ssatisfaction with the marriage (Nagai, 2000). How-ever, from the seventh to the eleventh year of mar-riage the amount of time a husband spends doinghousework and with the kids on days off appears asa factor in marital satisfaction, with a short timespent by the husband on such activities lowering thewife's degree of satisfaction in the marital relation-ship. After the twelfth year there are no major fac-tors other than socioeconomic variables.

For example, in Tokyo the majority of husbandsreturn home after 8 p.m., so that the whole family isonly able to dine together about twice a week. Inother words, on weekdays the family dines without


Table 1 Degree of Marital Satisfaction (Fixed EffectModel)

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the husband/father, who comes home after the fam-ily has finished dining (Institute for Research onHousehold Economics, 2000). While this kind ofwork-oriented lifestyle on behalf of the husbandmay cause the wife some dissatisfaction in the earlystages of marriage, after several years the wife tendsto give up hope of the husband participating in fam-ily life during the week, and instead hopes that hewill help with the housework and look after the chil-dren on his days off. When yet more time haspassed, the wife even gives up on the husband'sbehavior on the weekends. In Japanese society, notime for family-building is allotted to men.

Having a partner in Japanese society usually meansbeing legally married and having held a weddingceremony. Despite the fact that marriage is anextremely "high threshold" affair, society does notallow the time for relationship and family building.The proportion of Japanese young people with part-ners is low compared to other countries. For youngJapanese today, perhaps the costs and rewards ofhaving a partner do not present a balanced equation.

ReferencesKumagai Sonoko. 2005. "Kekkon no shakaiteki shonin"

("The Changing Pattern of the Use of "Go-betweens" at Wedding Ceremonies"), pp. 9-18in Kumagai Sonoko and Okubo Takaji, eds.,

NFRJ-S01 hokokusho Ko-ho-to hikaku ni yorusengo nihon no kazoku hendo no kenkyu (NFRJ-S01 Report: Research on Family Changing in Post-war Japan by Cohort Comparison).

Nagai Akiko. 2000. "Kekkon nensu no keika to fufukankei manzokudo no henka" ("Changes in theDegree of Satisfaction with the Marital Rela-tionship as Successive Years of MarriageElapse"), pp. 197-213 in Institute for Researchon Household Economics, ed., Gendai josei nokurashi to hatarakikata - shohi seikatsu ni kansurupaneru chosa (Lifestyle and Work for Contempo-rary Women: a Panel Survey on ConsumerLifestyles [7th Year Edition]). Tokyo: PrintingBureau, Ministry of Finance.

–––– 2005. "Kekkon seikatsu no keika ni yoru tsuma nofufu kankei manzokudo no henka" ("Changes inWives' Degree of Satisfaction with the MaritalRelationship as Successive Years of MarriedLife Elapse"), pp. 76-81 in Kikan Kakei KeizaiKenkyu (Quarterly Household EconomicsResearch), Vol. 66.

Institute for Research on Household Economics.2000. Shin, gendai kaku kazoku no fukei (A Por-trait of the New, Contemporary Nuclear Fami-ly). Tokyo: Printing Bureau, Ministry ofFinance.


SSJ-33 05.12.8 9:26 ページ 8


Miwa Satoshi is a Research Associate in the Insti-

tute of Social Science, the University of Tokyo


What is Educational Homogamy?

Status homogamy is one of many themes that havetraditionally been researched to gauge the opennessor exclusiveness of social stratification systems. Insocieties in which most men and women marry peo-ple of similar class standing, this is taken as indicat-ing a tendency toward mutual reinforcement of thestatus group from within, and such societies can beinterpreted as having clear boundaries betweengroups or, in other words, as being closed societies.

Among the various kinds of status homogamy, onethat has hitherto been extensively researched is thatof marriage between partners with similar educa-tional credentials (hereafter referred to as "educa-tional homogamy"). There are a number of possiblereasons for this. First, theoretically speaking, in con-temporary society educational credentials are close-ly linked to other status and values. That is to say,since (for example), a person's employment andfuture income tend to be decided on the basis oftheir educational qualifications, and differences inknowledge and cultural preference based on differ-

ences in educational background do actually exist,educational background is taken to be a key variablefor indicating an individual's status. In addition, thefact that educational background is a more signifi-cant factor in homogamy than other indicators ofsocial status, such as origin or occupation, can beempirically observed (Kalmijn, 1998).

Predictions and Methods

Intuitively, it might be expected that educationalhomogamy is extremely prevalent in Japanese soci-ety. This is because for women the value of highereducation is frequently emphasized not in terms ofinvestment in human capital but, rather, as workingto one's advantage in the marriage market. More-over, the fact that education is widely publicized asbeing highly prized by society lends further weightto the function of education as an indicator of status,and may in turn conceivably serve to create spheresof social interaction based on educational back-ground.

Broadly speaking, two methods can be employed inorder to ascertain the characteristics of educationalhomogamy in Japan today. The first is trend analy-sis; that is, by longitudinal comparison with datafrom previous decades. This method can shed lighton how the prevalence of educational homogamy inJapan has varied between the past and the present.The other method is comparative analysis; that is, bycross-sectional comparison with other countries. Bythis method it is possible to determine whether, inrelative terms, the level of educational homogamy inJapan is striking, or unremarkable.

This paper briefly reviews existing research findingsand attempts a statistical analysis based on micro-level survey datasets1. For both the trend analysisand the comparative analysis, odds ratios are usedin order to gauge the extent of educationalhomogamy. The educational credentials of a hus-band and a wife are respectively converted into adichotomous variable showing whether or not theyreceived higher education, and odds ratios are calcu-

Educational Homogamy in Contemporary Japan

Miwa Satoshi

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lated based on two-by-two cross-tabs compiled fromthese variables.

Longitudinal Perspective

Regarding trends in educational homogamy, com-peting hypotheses related to industrialization havebeen proposed (Smits, 2003). First, the status attain-ment hypothesis predicts the further strengtheningof educational homogamy as industrialization pro-gresses. Second, the general openness hypothesiscontends that associations between all variables ofstatus, including educational background, willweaken, predicting that the tendency toward educa-tional homogamy will weaken with industrializa-tion. A third hypothesis postulates an inverted U-shape curve, with educational homogamy increas-ing in the initial stages of industrialization andfalling off in the latter stages. Finally, the saturationhypothesis maintains that while educationalhomogamy will gradually become less frequent,when a society attains a high level of openness thistrend of reduced frequency comes to an end andeducational homogamy remains at a fixed levelthereafter.

Shida et al. (2000), analyzing trends in educationalhomogamy in Japan, assert that the extent of educa-tional homogamy in Japan has not changed in thepostwar period. These results would appear to sup-port the saturation hypothesis; however, since thesample used in their analysis was comparativelysmall and questions remain concerning their analyti-cal methods, their results are not necessarily reliable.

The results of a re-examination of trends in educa-tional homogamy using a simple statistic are shownin Figure 1. While the percentage of in-marriage wasapproximately 90 percent in the 1950s, in theyoungest marriage cohort this has fallen to about 70percent. Odds ratios also show that the level of edu-cational homogamy has declined. In particular, amarked reduction can be seen between the 1960s

and the 1980s. Contrary to the prior research, there-fore, it can be concluded that the frequency of edu-cational homogamy has decreased over time.

Comparative Perspective

Cross-national comparative research on educationalhomogamy is an area that has been activelyaddressed, particularly since the 1990s. Suchresearch has been of two types: the first has involveddetailed scrutiny of similarities and differences inpatterns of educational homogamy in a relativelysmall number of countries (e.g. Halpin and Chan,2003), while the other has used data from a largenumber of countries for macro level modelinginvolving explanatory variables (e.g. Smits, 2003).

From the findings of the latter kind of research,Japan, along with South Korea and some othercountries, has been described as a society with oneof the highest levels of educational homogamy(Smits et al., 1998). However, this result is based ondata obtained in the 1970s and needs to be updatedin order to determine Japan's current internationalstanding as regards educational homogamy. There-fore, I have attempted a comparative analysis usingdata from the 1990s. Further, in order to avoid bias,only couples in their first five years of marriage atthe time of the survey have been included in theanalysis (Mare, 1991).


1 I analyzed the following Japanese datasets: the 1965, 1985 and 1995 Social Stratification and Social Mobility Surveys, and the 2000-2003 Japanese

General Social Surveys. I am grateful to the 2005 SSM Research Committee for permission to use the SSM datasets. The data for this secondary

analysis, the Japanese General Social Survey datasets (depositor: Institute of Regional Studies, Osaka University of Commerce and Institute of Social

Science, The University of Tokyo [ISS]), was provided by the Social Science Japan Data Archive, Information Center for Social Science Research on

Japan, ISS. I also obtained the U.S. datasets (General Social Survey) from the ICPSR through the Information Center for Social Science Research on

Japan, and Korean datasets (Korea Labor and Income Panel Study) from the Korea Labor Institute. The statistics for Ireland and U.K. were calculated

from Table AI in Halpin and Chan's article (Halpin and Chan, 2003).

Figure 1. Trends in Educational Homogamy in Japan

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Figure 2 shows the results of a comparison of theprevalence of educational homogamy in the UnitedKingdom, Ireland, Japan, South Korea and the Unit-ed States of America. In terms of the percentage ofin-marriage, there is a somewhat noticeable differ-ence between a lower level group, consisting ofJapan and the U.S.A. at approximately 70 percent,and a higher level group, consisting of the U.K., Ire-land, and South Korea at about 80 percent. The oddsratios show that the level of educational homogamyis extremely high in South Korea. While the U.K. issomewhat high, the remaining three countries canbe considered to be at roughly the same level. Since,as seen above, the level of educational homogamy inJapan has dropped during the postwar period, itcannot be said that the level of educationalhomogamy in Japan today is particularly high com-pared to other countries

Reassessment of Educational Homogamy in Japan

In conclusion, the results of the re-examinationdescribed in this paper do not support the findingsof previous research. In other words, a clear declin-ing trend is evident, and it is further clear that Japantoday is not a country with a significantly high levelof educational homogamy among industrial soci-

eties. On the other hand, a particularly high level ofeducational homogamy is evident in South Korea,which, together with Japan, is known as an educa-tion-obsessed society. Have Japan and South Koreanow begun to diverge in this area, despite the factthat both countries previously had a strong tenden-cy toward educational homogamy? This point mayprove to be an important issue for internationalcomparative research on the countries of East Asiathat have been promoting rapid development inrecent years.

ReferencesHalpin, Brendan and Tak Wing Chan. 2003. "Educa-

tional Homogamy in Ireland and Britain:Trends and Patterns," British Journal of Sociolo-gy 54 (4): 473-495.

Kalmijn, Matthijs. 1998. "Intermarriage andHomogamy: Causes, Patterns, Trends," AnnualReview of Sociology 24: 395-421.

Mare, Robert D. 1991. "Five Decades of EducationalAssortative Mating," American SociologicalReview 56: 15-32.

Shida Kiyoshi, Seiyama Kazuo, and Watanabe Hide-ki. 2000. "Kekkon Shijo no Henyo" ("Changes inthe Marriage Market"), pp.157-176 in Nihon noKaiso Shisutemu 4: Jenda-, Shijo, Kazoku (SocialStratification System in Japan 4: Gender, Market,Family). Tokyo: Tokyo University Press.

Smits, Jeroen. 2003. "Social Closure among the High-er Educated: Trends in EducationalHomogamy in 55 Countries," Social ScienceResearch 32: 251-277.

Smits, Jeroen, Wout Ultee, and Jan Lammers. 1998."Educational Homogamy in 65 Countries: AnExplanation of Differences in Openness UsingCountry-Level Explanatory Variables," Ameri-can Sociological Review 63: 264-285.


Figure 2. Cross-national Comparison of EducationalHomogamy in the 1990s

SSJ-33 05.12.8 9:26 ページ 11


Mayumi Nakamura is a Research Fellow in the

Institute of Social Science, the University of

Tokyo, and a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology at The

University of Chicago


I. Introduction1

Why do many Japanese women choose female-dom-inated educational paths, even though such choicesare often believed to lead women into dead ends intheir careers? In this article, using data on people'sperceptions of what types of education advancewomen's status attainment through marriage, Iargue, first, that female-dominated education is per-ceived to lead to better economic benefits via statusattainment through marriage, and that this may par-tially account for why many Japanese women havemade such a choice; and second, that the perceptionof the usefulness of such an educational choicevaries depending on one's background, specificallywith regard to gender relations at home.

II. Data2

In 1999 and 2000 I conducted interviews with 45 col-lege-educated adults in the Tokyo MetropolitanArea. My sample was collected via a snowball sam-pling, whereby my initial respondents introducedme to other potential respondents, and so on. I pre-sented a list of university characteristics and depart-ment names, and asked the respondents to rate, on afive point scale, how useful each item would be for awoman in marrying a "high-status man."

III. Analysis

A. An exploration of the educational dimensionsthat affect marriage

First, I investigated what educational qualities peopleperceive affect women's marital status attainments, byusing a principal component factor analysis, a tech-nique used to identify some of the underlying dimen-sions (factors) behind numerous variables.

University Education for Marital Status Attainmentfor Japanese Women

Mayumi Nakamura

1 The goal of my research is to show that in Japan's gender-stratified workplace, some women choose to pursue professional careers, and others seekfinancial stability by marrying well. I am not making a moral judgment about this decision, but if the pattern appears to hold, it is worth investigat-ing the ways in which women choose this latter path.

2 The study presented here is a part of a larger project, and the data shown here come from a pretest conducted to create an index used for the mainpart of my project. Due to space constraints, I can present only one part of my results in this article. Although there are limitations in the sample size,composition and sampling measures, I believe the data still merit analysis since they show interesting relationships between the variables. The find-ings here, however, will need to be tested with a larger data set.

Table 1 Results of the Factor Analysis on CollegeCharacteristics and Departments3

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The results show three dimensions (factors) in edu-cation that are perceived to affect women's maritalstatus attainment.

i .) The status-signifying liberal-arts-related dimension

The first dimension is what I call the "status-signify-ing liberal-arts-related dimension," which corre-sponds to the "status-signifying function" of educa-tion posited by Amano (1983).4 It refers to the func-tion of signaling a woman's wealthy familial statusvia educational institution (or academic depart-ment), so as to help her marry a man of desirablebackground; historically, this has often been dis-played by having a (Western) liberal arts education.Most of the college characteristics (e.g., hightuitions, colleges with an affiliation system5) thathave heavy factor weights on this dimension signifyfamilial wealth. The departments that have heavyfactor weights on this status-signifying dimensionare related to liberal-arts fields (e.g., literature), asopposed to practical occupational education (e.g.,law, nursing).6

ii.) The female-dominated semi-professional dimension

The second dimension represents an education thatis related to female-dominated majors and female-dominated semi-professional occupations. Thedepartments that have heavy factor weights on thisdimension have a high concentration of females (i.e.literature, education, and nursing). The differencefrom the "status-signifying dimension" is its relationto female-dominated semi-professional occupations(e.g., education, nursing) in addition to female-dom-inated majors in general (e.g., literature).

iii.) The male-dominated professional dimension

The third dimension represents a dimension of edu-cation that is related to male-dominated professionaloccupations. The departments that have heavy fac-tor weights on this dimension have a high concen-tration of men, and most of these departments arealso directly related to professional occupations thathave a high concentration of men (i.e. law, medi-cine).

Of these three dimensions, the first two (the status-signifying and the female-dominated semi-profes-

sional) are related to female-dominated paths, andthe third (the male-dominated professional) is relat-ed to a male-dominated path.

B. Valuation of these educational dimensions

How are each of these dimensions perceived toaffect women's marital status attainments? Arefemale-dominated educational dimensions per-ceived to advance women's marital status attain-ments? I tested for the direction and significance ofthe correlation between the average rating of eachvariable (college characteristics and departmentnames) and its factor weights. If the correlationbetween the average rating and the factor weightson a particular dimension is statistically significantand positive, that dimension (factor) is perceived toadvance women's marital status attainment. Thus, Iexpected the two female-dominated dimensions tohave a positive correlation, and the male-dominateddimension to have a negative correlation.

i .) The status-signifying liberal-arts-related dimension

Against my prediction, the correlation between theaverage rating of variables and their factor weightson the status-signifying liberal-arts-related dimen-sion was not statistically significant. Thus, it cannotbe concluded that the status-signifying dimension isperceived to advance women's marital status attain-ment.

ii.) The female-dominated semi-professional dimension

The correlation between the average rating of vari-ables and their factor weights on the female-domi-nated semi-professional dimension is both positiveand significant, which means the female-dominatedsemi-professional dimension is perceived toadvance women's marital status attainment. Thisfinding supports my hypothesis.

3 The college characteristics included in the list is rather poorly balanced (most of them are characteristics related to the status-signifying dimension).Therefore, in order to include a wider variety of educational paths, I included academic departments in the analysis. I selected the college character-istics and department names from my original table.

4 Amano, Ikuo. 1983. "Kyoiku no cho-hyoji-kino ni tsuite," Kyoiku Shakaigaku Kenkyu 38: 44-49.5 The affiliation system refers to a system in which universities have an affiliation with schools at a lower level (i.e. elementary schools, junior high

schools, and high schools). Students who attend affiliation schools are often considered to be wealthy, since they can afford to pay expensive tuitionall the way through the educational system.

6 "Home economics" also has a heavy factor weight on this dimension, since it performs a similar function as the liberal arts (as a marriage preparationpath), and is not related to practical occupational education.

Table 2 Correlations between Average Rating andFactor Weights on Each Dimension

SSJ-33 05.12.8 9:26 ページ 13

iii.) The male-dominated professional dimension

The correlation between the average rating of vari-ables and their factor weights on the male-dominat-ed professional dimension is negative and signifi-cant, which means that people perceive that attain-ment of this 'male-dominated educational dimen-sion' works negatively for women's status attain-ment through marriage. Thus, my hypothesis is sup-ported here, as well.

C. The relationship between individual backgroundand perception

Does background affect perception regarding whatkind of education is useful for women's marital sta-tus attainment? To test for this hypothesis, I usedmultivariate regression analysis, with factor scoreson each dimension as dependent variables and withbackground variables as independent variables, toexamine the relationship between patterns of evalu-ation of each dimension and respondents' back-grounds. In particular, I hypothesized that genderrelations at home (represented by mother's occupa-tional status and education) will affect the percep-tion of status-signifying education and male-domi-nated education (with those from traditional fami-lies, with full-time homemaker mothers with lesseducation rating the former as higher while thosefrom egalitarian families with full-time workingmothers with more education rating the latter morehighly).

As was expected, those from traditional familiestended to rate the usefulness of the status-signifyingdimension more highly. The respondents whosemothers are full-time homemakers with fewer yearsof education are likely to evaluate this dimensionmore highly than those whose mothers work full-time and have more education. Regarding the male-dominated dimension however, neither the mother'seducation nor her occupational status was signifi-cantly related to the respondent's evaluation.7

IV. Conclusion

Overall, my findings support my hypothesis, andsuggest that female-dominated education is per-ceived to lead to more benefits through marital sta-tus attainment for women than does male-dominat-ed education. Moreover, as expected, the evaluationof the usefulness of a certain type of education forwomen's marital status attainment did vary depend-ing on one's background.8 These findings suggestthe possibility that (at least some) Japanese womenmay chose female-dominated educational paths outof a rational calculation of the economic returns(rather than by simply being swayed by gender-rolesocialization). Their rationality, however, seems toentail limitations. Even when women try to be ratio-nal decision makers, and invest in a type of educa-tion that they believe will lead to maximum eco-nomic returns through marriage, the perception ofwhat type of education leads to maximum benefitsthrough marriage is bounded by their backgroundand socialization.


Table 3 Correlation between background and per-ception

7 Further, in addition to these findings, I also found that women are likely to evaluate the two female-dominated dimensions more highly than men,that highly educated people tend to rate the "male-dominated dimension" more highly, and that father's education and occupational status affect theevaluation of the male-dominated dimension. Women were likely to rate the two female-dominated dimensions more highly than men, probablybecause they are the ones who make their own strategies for marital status attainment, and therefore are more aware of their impact. Highly educat-ed people tend to evaluate the male-dominated dimension more highly, probably because they have more liberal attitudes. This may be also attrib-uted to differences in what the respondents had on their minds when they were interviewed. Findings from my other research suggests that the neg-ative impact of the male-dominated paths on women's marital status attainment can be offset if they are highly selective paths (Nakamura, Mayumi,2006, Feminine Capital: Educational and Occupational Investment for Gender Specific Status Attainment and Its Consequences, Doctoral Dissertation to besubmitted to the University of Chicago). When asked about male-dominated majors, respondents who had attended selective colleges themselveslikely had male-dominated majors at those colleges (which have a less negative impact on women's marriages) on their minds, and therefore ratedthem higher. Regarding the effect of father's education and status, the direction of influence is contradictory and hard to interpret (while educationaffects the evaluation of this dimension negatively, status does so positively).

8 Although one of the female-dominated dimensions (the status-signifying dimension) was not significantly positively related with marital statusattainment, this does not necessarily suggest that it is not perceived as useful for women's status attainment through marriage at all. Rather, appreci-ation of this type of education is limited to a certain type of people (i.e. those from traditional families).

SSJ-33 05.12.8 9:26 ページ 14


Nakamura Tamio is the Director of CREP and an

Associate Professor in the Institute of Social Sci-

ence, the University of Tokyo.


CREP (the Comparative Regionalism Project) is aninnovative, interdisciplinary project which aims tocompare and analyze regionalism in Asia, Europe,and the Americas. This is the first scholarly, system-atic attempt to analyze regionalism in Asia from acomparative perspective. Researchers in Law, Politi-cal Science, and Economics will conduct research ona set of common topics, using discipline-specificmethodologies, to identify and assess how theregionalisms in the three areas are similar, as well ashow they differ.

Background

"Regionalism" as distinguished from "regionalisa-tion" means a deliberate attempt to create a largerregional unit beyond national boundaries in order topromote economic prosperity and political stabilityin the regional areas concerned.

Such regionalism is gaining popularity as a form ofgovernance in major geographical regions of thepresent world. European countries have developed

the European Union (EU) over 50 years. North andSouth American countries are preparing for theestablishment of the Free Trade Area of the Americ-as (FTAA). Successful conclusion of the agreementwould merge NAFTA and Mercosur regimes intoone larger arrangement. In East Asia, particularlyASEAN countries, China, Korea and Japan havebeen negotiating bilateral and/or regionally multi-lateral free trade agreements (FTAs) and economicpartnership agreements (EPAs) since the late 1990s.

When Japan concluded EPAs that included FTAswith Singapore and Mexico in the early 2000s, Isensed a fundamental change in Japanese economicdiplomacy towards neighboring East Asian states.Until the mid-90s, Japan showed little interest inbilateral agreements such as EPAs/FTAs; rather,Japan showed a strong policy commitment to theWTO legal framework based on multilateralism. Iwanted to know why the fundamental policy prefer-ence for multilateralism changed to bilateralism inthe early 2000s. Some scholars have argued that theinability of the existing framework, i.e. the WTO andAPEC, to appropriately respond to the 1997 Asianfinancial crisis caused Japan's policy shift. Indeed,multilateralism, as represented in such organiza-tions as the WTO, has some drawbacks. Its membersare world-wide and large in number, resulting inslow decision-making. Furthermore, while theWTO's policy instruments are mostly legal mea-sures, APEC's instruments are completely non-legal,broad political understandings. Since legal instru-ments necessitate lengthy negotiations, and non-legal instruments are followed by non-compliance,joint responses to new economic issues tend to beslow or ineffective in either forum.

However, such problems do not fully explain whyJapan changed its diplomacy after 1997. Clearly theWTO framework is not designed to respond to suchproblems as the Asian financial crisis. Similarly,APEC is not a venue to agree on specific govern-mental actions to respond to such crises either. I sus-pect that there was a change of opinion within theJapanese government regarding diplomatic strate-

The Comparative Regionalism Project (CREP) atthe Institute of Social Science

Nakamura Tamio

Shaken News

SSJ-33 05.12.8 9:26 ページ 15

gies toward East Asia. I imagine that the Japanesegovernment wanted to develop new political rela-tions by strengthening bilateral economic partner-ships with neighboring Asian states. The Japanesegovernment, however, has not disclosed any specificobjectives behind this economic partnership diplo-macy. While the present government has mentionedthe importance of building an East Asian "communi-ty," it is important to note that the "community" theyrefer to begins with a small "c," not a large one. Fur-thermore, at the same time, the Japanese govern-ment stresses the importance of maintaining theclose economic and political ties it has with the U.S.as well.

The growth of regionalism poses a different set ofbasic questions in the social sciences. What do theseattempts to regionalism have in common, and whatare the differences among them? Why have theseregional arrangements emerged? Who is promotingthe idea of regionalism? Will these regional arrange-ments result in three regional "blocs," which mightundermine the WTO and other current internationalregimes for global governance? What is the impactof each regional arrangement upon the nation-statesin the region? Do these regional arrangements rein-force and/or produce closer political solidarityamong the peoples of the region?

Thus, my original question of "why" grew into a big-ger question of "whether" and "what sort of" region-al cooperation is possible in East Asia. Answeringthese questions will require interdisciplinary socialscientific study, as well as international collaborationwith Asian scholars. Moreover, if we can compareour economic, political and legal situation in EastAsia with the experiences of the European Union(EU), NAFTA and Mercosur, we may be able toidentify some suitable institutional frameworks ofcooperation for the states and peoples of East Asia.

Goals

One of the immediate contributions CREP can makeis, through its analysis of East Asian regionalism inclearer social scientific terms, and the publication ofits results in English, we can augment the knowl-edge of East Asia in particular, and regionalism ingeneral. The comparative method is useful in thisrespect. By applying existing analytical frameworks,concepts, and terminology developed in studies on

Europe and the Americas, we can analyze andexplain East Asia as much as possible with a com-mon discourse. Having said this, we may find someEast Asian peculiarities which are not easilyexplained with the established terms. In these cases,we will have to develop new analytical frameworksand/or concepts to explain such peculiarities; this isthe second anticipated outcome of CREP.

Third, we hope to be able to provide policy recom-mendations concerning future regionalisms, espe-cially in East Asia. We will need to focus on non-state actors such as local governments, business sec-tors, and various NGOs, which have not been pri-mary actors in the conventional treaty-makingprocesses. Because the dynamics of regionalizationprocesses include not only state actors but also non-state actors (especially in the case of contemporaryEast Asia), expected policy recommendations willneed to be more inclusive and multi-dimensionalthan previous policy recommendations.

Therefore, the goals of our project are (a) to identifysimilarities and differences among the three majorregional arrangements in legal, economic and politi-cal terms, (b) to clarify their impact upon local,national, regional and global governance, and (c) inrelation to East Asia, we would like to discuss possi-ble courses of action in the near future, by buildingsome models of regional arrangements that fit theregional needs.

Features and Merits

Our project has three distinctive features and merits.First, we take up comparative analyses of the threemajor attempts at regionalism. There are few studiesso far that compare all three; many studies comparetwo of the three, particularly Europe and America,or Europe and Asia. This is mainly because the EastAsian regional arrangement is still in the making.Our project is the first international joint researchproject to include East Asian as well as Americanand European regionalisms.

Second, in terms of methodology, we carry outcross-disciplinary research in the "trinity" of eco-nomics, politics and law. We aim to be synthetic aswell as analytical. Thus we set out an analyticalframework commonly applicable to those threeregionalisms. The framework will consist of the


SSJ-33 05.12.8 9:26 ページ 16


same set of questions in economics, political scienceand law, so that our comparison can identify bothcommon and distinctive features among those threeregionalisms. In this regard, most prior research onregionalism applies only one or two social sciencedisciplines, such as economics and political science.It is our firm belief that we need both discipline-specific analyses and discipline-transcending syn-theses in identifying the features of and in assessingthe impact of regionalism on each and every level ofgovernance from local to global.

Third, we will study not only "vertical interactions"at the local, national, regional and global level ofactors emerging in those three regions, but also the"horizontal interactions" between those regions. Thisis because we take particular caution in conceptual-izing "one" East Asian regionalism. Although manybilateral agreements have been concluded and arebeing negotiated between East Asian countries, it isuncertain as to whether those agreements will con-solidate into a single regional regime such as the EUand the FTAA.

Points of Research

Since regionalism is based on some deliberateattempts to form regional units of economy and/orpolicy, it tends to formalize the unit using legalinstruments. Thus, our legal analysis will first com-pare the institutional structures and the role of legalmeasures in those regional arrangements, and thenanalyze their relationship with larger (or global)legal arrangements (e.g., WTO, NATO), beforeassessing their legal impact on the national legalorders in the regions. We will also address somemethodological difficulties in analyzing the non-legal arrangements which are prevalent in EastAsian regionalism (e.g., ASEAN, APEC).

Similarly, our economic analysis of the mobility ofgoods, services, capital and persons (labor), beforeand after the emergence of those formal regionalarrangements, will reveal similarities and differ-ences in their economic impact on the local, national,

regional and global economy. We will also comparethe impact of each regional arrangement on changesin the market frameworks and the ways firms andbusinesses operate on the local, national, regional orglobal scale.

Finally, our political analysis compares the contextof forming and developing those regional arrange-ments, paying attention to the behaviors and theguiding ideas of such actors as governments, politi-cal parties, business associations, labor unions andother civic organizations. In assessing the (real orpossible) impact of each regional arrangement onpolitics in various levels including local, national,regional and global, we examine if and to whatextent formalizing regionalism has changed (or ischanging) the interests and perceptions held by eachregion's political actors.

Research Schedule April 2005 – March 2006 (Year One): Stocktaking andResearch• Monthly stocktaking and research workshops will

be held at ISS.• Fund-raising activities (possible sponsors may

include the Japan Foundation, the Japan SciencePromotion Society, the Murata Foundation andthe Heiwa Nakajima Foundation)

• Hold the First International Joint Workshop.

April 2006 – March 2007 (Year Two): Research andAnalysis• A substantive research and theorizing discussion

will be conducted based on the research frame-work agreed upon in Year One.

• An International Joint Workshop will be held toexchange the preliminary research results of theparticipants.

April 2007 – March 2008 (Year Three): Theory andApplication + Publication• An International Symposium will be held in

Tokyo to make public our research results.• Our research results will be published in books

both in English and in Japanese.

SSJ-33 05.12.8 9:26 ページ 17

Genda Yuji is the Director of the Hopology Pro-

ject and an Associate Professor of Labor Econom-

ics at the Institute of Social Science, the Universi-

ty of Tokyo.


Since 1964, the Institute of Social Science (ISS) hascarried out numerous institute-wide research pro-jects involving the majority of the faculty andresearchers in residence. In 2005, we started twonew institute-wide research projects: the Compara-tive Regionalism Project (CREP)1 and a project onthe study of hope, or "Hopology."

In the Hopology Project, we intend to study "hope"from a social scientific perspective, and to examinethe relationship between hope and society. A funda-mental assumption of the conventional social sci-ences, such as economics, in the analysis of socialaction is that individuals possess hope and will actin order to realize their hopes. However, in contem-porary society, it is no longer the case that the exis-tence of hope can be taken for granted.

Recent increases in unemployment among Japaneseyouth are not only a result of economic stagnation,but are also due to the fact that Japanese young peo-ple cannot identify for themselves any particular

aspirations, on the basis of which they can then for-mulate their future goals. International comparison,moreover, shows that more Japanese people are pes-simistic about the future than people in other coun-tries, and that many Japanese have no hope at all.However, it has been claimed that this phenomenon,the loss of hope, is not unique to Japan, but isspreading among all developed nations. If this isindeed the case, then what social circumstancesmight explain it?

First, however, recognizing that the word "hope"holds numerous meanings, we need to determinewhat kind of hope is lacking in contemporary soci-ety, and what kind of impact this has not only onindividuals, but on society as a whole.

In the past, the concept of hope was commonlyregarded as something that belonged to the realm ofindividual psychology or emotions. In our Hopolo-gy Project, however, we wish to emphasize how thehopes held by an individual are influenced by thesocial environment. Furthermore, we believe thateach individual's formation of hope has the possibil-ity to influence the direction of society as a whole,and we wish to investigate how this might happen.Hopology sees hope not only as a part of an individ-ual's personality or emotions, but also as a productof society and, moreover, as a fuel to power society.For this reason, we will conduct our research using avariety of social scientific analytical tools, includingthe objective analysis of social survey data, and theinvestigation of historical archived materials, inaddition to opening a "Hope Salon," where we willhold discussions about hope with a variety of peo-ple based on the findings from our preliminary sur-vey.

Although the concept of hope contains a variety ofmeanings, we believe that it is possible to categorizethese meanings according to a number of differentperspectives. For example, the concept of hopeincludes both hopes that are easily realizable andhopes that are not likely to be realized. Further,some hopes are accompanied by effective actionaimed at realization thereof, while some hopes arenot accompanied by any concrete action and ulti-


The Hopology Project at the Institute of SocialScience

Genda Yuji

Shaken News

1 See the previous article in this issue of SSJ for Professor Nakamura Tamio's introduction to CREP - ed.

SSJ-33 05.12.8 9:26 ページ 18

mately prove to be no more than mere fantasies.Moreover, while some hopes simply provide anindividual with an internal sense of fulfillment,sometimes society itself is affected, to a greater orlesser degree, when an individual holds an aspira-tion and acts towards realizing it. While the Hopolo-gy Project recognizes hope as a tangible outlook forthe present or the future, we also emphasize thateven if an aspiration is difficult to realize, it is whenan individual cherishes the aspiration and engagesin the trial-and-error process of working towardsrealizing it, that hope has the potential to affect soci-ety in some way.

In May of 2005, the Hopology project conducted asurvey of adults in their 20's through 40's over theinternet, from which we received around 900responses. One of the questions on our question-naire asked the respondents about what they hadwanted to be when they grew up when they wereelementary and middle school students, andwhether or not they subsequently realized theirdreams. According to our survey, 71% of the respon-dents had some kind of specific occupational goalwhen they were in 6th grade, and 63% of them hadconcrete goals when they were in their third year ofmiddle school. However, while a majority of youngteenagers had concrete ideas about their occupation-al goals, in most cases, they did not achieve theirgoals. Only 15% of the respondents actually endedup working at the occupations they had aimed forwhen they were in middle school, and only 8% ofthe respondents were working at the jobs that theyhad expressed interest in when they were in sixthgrade.

As it is evidently very difficult for children to realizetheir goals for the future, it might be considered awaste of time and energy, or perhaps meaningless,to even have goals in the first place. However, itshould be noted that the mere possession of a goalin itself had a big influence on future career choices.In the questionnaire mentioned above, we alsoasked whether the respondents had ever experi-enced working at a rewarding job. Among therespondents who had had a concrete career goal inelementary school, 86% said they had subsequentlyexperienced working at a rewarding job, while only77% of those who had not had a concrete career goalin elementary school replied that they had experi-enced working at a rewarding job. These results sug-gest that having aspirations regarding one's futureoccupation may improve one's chances of finding anappropriate job in the future.

The more difficult it is to realize a dream, the more

likely it is that hope will end in disappointment.However, through experiencing disappointment, itis possible that one will recognize one's own capa-bilities, and reconsidering one's position in societymay result in an enhanced sense of satisfaction with-in society. The more we seek after hope, the more itevades us. However, it is when hope changes to dis-appointment that individuals can first come to anappropriate understanding of their relationship withsociety, providing them with a foundation for subse-quent action. Chinese novelist Lu Xùn once said, "asdespair is a falsity, so too is hope." Hope, we expectto show through our research, holds social meaningprecisely because hope and despair are, paradoxical-ly, two sides of the same coin.

The Hopology Project also plans to conduct somelarge-scale surveys in the future. We intend to show,from a variety of angles, how hope is not simplyabout future goals, but also that hope is important inits function as a catalyst which activates the processof working towards desirable results for individualsand society.

In this year's survey, we conducted a detailed exami-nation of the relationship between "work and hope,"and in 2006 we are planning to investigate the rela-tionship between "family and hope." Furthermore,the Hopology Project does not plan merely to con-duct surveys; we also stress the importance of dia-logue in revealing information, and are conductinginterviews and recording oral histories in additionto our surveys. As a part of this, in 2006, we plan tohold a detailed dialogue with the residents ofKamaishi City, Iwate Prefecture, regarding changesin hope in that region.

In July, 2005, the Hopology project held a sympo-sium which was attended by 271 guests, and we arealready attracting a great deal of social interest. Aswe continue our research, we intend to periodicallypresent our findings to the public, and, continuingour dialogue with society, to regularly update andclarify the direction of our research. Currently, weare also planning to conduct comparative interna-tional research on the "social distribution of hope,"with the cooperation of, among others, Cornell Uni-versity professor of anthropology MiyazakiHirokazu, and faculty at the University of Sydney.

Through these measures, the Hopology projecthopes to construct a universal lingua franca abouthope, and offer hints, based on empirical facts, forindividuals to think about hope, and to act. Finally,we will continue our analysis, aiming at producingdesirable social policies, keeping hope in mind.


SSJ-33 05.12.8 9:26 ページ 19


Research Report

Michael Shapiro is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at

the University of California-Berkeley and a Visit-

ing Researcher at the Institute of Social Science,

the University of Tokyo


In a remote corner of Japan's modern historiogra-phy, there is a small but intriguing debate concern-ing the role of Japanese Protestant missionary activi-ty in colonial Korea. During the years 1911-21, EbinaDanjo's Kumiai Church led, in close cooperationwith the Korean Government-general, a proselytiza-tion campaign to convert Koreans to a form ofChristianity based on loyalty to Japan. What didKumiai Christians hope to accomplish in Korea?How did they view their relationship with the colo-nial state? How did they resolve their own minoritystatus as Japanese Christians with their role asagents of cultural assimilation in colonial Korea?

Scholars have often looked to Ebina Danjo's ownwritings in order to answer these questions. Severalstudies interpret Ebina's opinions supportingJapan's colonization of Korea as a reflection ofJapanese Christianity's broader inability to differen-tiate itself from the overwhelming trend towardscultural particularism that characterized Japan'smodernization. For these authors, the contradictionsthat beset Japanese Christianity's outsider status inprewar Japan are only brought into greater relief bytheir projection onto the context of colonial Korea. 1

This conclusion may be worth reexamining. Recentefforts in colonial studies have turned away fromdebates that treat empire as a by-product of Westernmodernization and have increasingly seen imperial-ism as a constituent of modernity itself. More andmore, scholars have addressed themselves to theclaim, aptly summed up in the words of FrederickCooper and Ann Laura Stoler, that "Europe wasmade by its imperial projects, as much as colonialencounters were shaped by conflicts occurring with-in Europe itself" (Cooper and Stoler, 1997, p. 3). Itmay thus be worthwhile, in addressing the Japanesecase, to consider whether certain aspects of Ebina'sthought may have been formed through, rather thanprojected upon, Japan's colonial encounter withKorea.

The Russo-Japanese War and Shinkoku Kensetsu

Like so many other Japanese Christians, EbinaDanjo first formed concrete opinions about Koreaduring the Russo-Japanese War. In an article entitled"The Bible's Position on War" (Seisho no Sensoshugi),he justified Japan's participation in this war throughthe metaphor of a Christian mission to "construct adivine nation" (shinkoku kensetsu) (Ebina, 1904, p. 8).

Constructing the Divine Nation: Empire andProvidence in the Thought of Ebina Danjo

Michael Shapiro

Research Report

1 Although I lack the space necessary here to properly discuss the historiography on this subject, a fairly representative sample can be found in MatsuoTakayoshi, "Nihon Kirisuto Kyokai no Chosen Dendo" in Minponshugi to Teikokushugi (Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo, 1998) 233-65, and Iinuma Jiro and Han SeokHi, Nihon Teikokushugika no Chosen Dendo (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisuto Kyokai Dendokyoku, 1985) Ch.2. For a more recent appraisal of Ebina Danjo's impe-rialist thought, see Kim Mun Kil, Kindai Nihon Kirisutokyo to Chosen: Ebina Danjo no Shiso to Kodo (Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 1998).

SSJ-33 05.12.8 9:26 ページ 20

Here "construction" referred to a commitment toactualizing Christian principles in this world basedupon a national ethic of self-reliance. Yet how couldsuch a worldly event be imbued with such religiousmeaning for Ebina? In this essay, I argue thatshinkoku kensetsu, despite its dogged insistence onself-reliance, ultimately derived its religious contentfrom an idea of divine providence that located thesource of Japan's salvation outside rather than with-in the nation. Although this conception is hinted atin Ebina's writings during the Russo-Japanese War,in my view, it is formulated completely only later inhis opinions concerning Japan's colonization ofKorea.

There are three components that make up Ebina'sconcept of shinkoku kensetsu (at least as he defines itin this article).2

1 ) Christianity not only tolerates war, but requiresit. War is absolutely fundamental to Christianity andits spirit of sacrifice.

[Let us consider] not only the soldier whodoes not hesitate to offer his life to the nation,but also his bereaved family who, in sending amost beloved family member to the battle-field, gives him to the nation. What a beautifuldisplay they make together of the spirit of sac-rifice! Ah, this truly is the spirit of the martyrs,a display of spirituality so difficult to realizeother than in wartime. Without [first] passingthrough [war], the nation cannot summon thegreat spirit (dai genki) of its people...Humanitycomes at a high price and can only be boughtwith the blood and tears of those who sacri-fice. Those who detest the misery of war and[thus] advocate pacifism still do not compre-hend the spirit of Christ (ibid, p. 11).

War is not merely a matter of practical necessity; itmakes up the very basis of a nation's spiritual life.For Ebina, war serves as an absolute precondition offaith; for without it the spirit of sacrifice, so essentialto Christianity, remains virtually inaccessible to apeople.

2 ) Shinkoku kensetsu also implies a move away fromcultural particularism towards universal truth.

Ebina takes great interest in the fact that the Israelitewars of the Old Testament were fought not merely

out of self-defense but also out of aggression. "TheIsraelites fought out of self-defense, but not only outof self-defense...Clearly adopting the character of aninvasion, they defeated their enemies wherever theywent..., finally establishing a Jewish kingdom" (ibid,p. 7). This clearly fit well with Ebina's own theory ofwar as a precondition of nationhood.

These early wars, however, never went beyond thenarrow assertion of Jewish identity and so, inEbina's view, had to be distinguished from the uni-versal task of constructing a divine nation. Israelwould learn the value of absolute reliance on Godonly after defeat in war reduced it to a nation ofrefugees. This Ebina considered a universal condi-tion: "Peoples who can no longer appeal to com-bat...end up making their appeals to heaven; this iswhat history demonstrates" (ibid, p. 8).

3) Finally, shinkoku kensetsu does not set itself up inopposition to secular institutions such as the familyand the state, but instead seeks to realize itself with-in them. "The divine nation should not exist merelyas an abstract ideal but must be made real withineach individual, within the family, within the nation,[and] within the state" (ibid, p. 9). The New Testa-ment, Ebina argued, did not displace the moreworldly truths of the Old Testament (such as thenecessity of war), but rather built upon them, guid-ing them towards the divine truth of Christianity.This results in an almost symbiotic relationshipbetween secular institutions and Christianity:"Although the divine nation (shinkoku) transcendsthese [institutions], it also at the same time containsthem" (ibid, p. 9). As a consequence, for Ebina,Christianity's spirit of sacrifice must be deriveddirectly from worldly sources.

To sum up, then, shinkoku kensetsu posits war as themeans by which peoples not only assert themselvesas particular, unique entities, but also aspire to theuniversal (and for Ebina, therefore religious) condi-tion of nationhood. What we should note here ishow Ebina, in deriving both the universal and theparticular from the same source, that of war, presup-poses an absolute identity between them. Such anattitude, because it takes universal meaning directlyfrom the worldly circumstances of the particular,must ultimately emphasize self-reliance to the extentthat it affirms so worldly an event as war as thestepping stone towards a national religious transfor-mation. This position, however, must be understood


2 I do not mean to suggest that this is the only way in which Ebina used this term.

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within the context of Christianity's outsider status inprewar Japan. "How is it possible to be Japanese anda Christian at the same time?" was the question thatmost vexed, and often tormented, late Meiji Chris-tians. By identifying war absolutely with sacrifice,Ebina was able to imagine a national rebirth thatwould make it possible to give absolute loyalty bothto the state and to one's individual conscience as aChristian.

However, war poses a necessary threshold in anation's maturity here in another, more contradicto-ry sense as well. A national ethic of self-reliance hadto be founded upon total dedication to God. Yet,according to Ebina's own argument, only defeat inwar could bring nations to this realization. To thisextent, Ebina could not depend entirely on self-reliance to provide the source of Japan's salvation.Let us look next at how Ebina attempted to resolvethis contradiction in his writings on Korea's colo-nization.

Shinkoku Kensetsu and Japan's Colonization ofKorea

On a general level, Ebina believed imperialist expan-sion ought to lead Japan to realize the universalcharacter of its heretofore particularistic beliefs. Inhis own words, Japan was to "slough off its islandnation character" (shimaguni konjo wo dakkyaku shite)(Ebina, 1911, p. 3). This recalls his earlier argumentthat "constructing a divine nation" required movingbeyond the narrow confines of cultural particular-ism, and both arguments were similarly premisedon the substitution of a worldly event for a religiousone. Here, however, Ebina makes his argumentmore explicit through the idea of divine providence."We believe that our nation's establishment wasalready the bounty of providence. When we promotethe relationship between our imperial ancestors andthe universe, then for the first time we will be able tomake our empire a holy [one]" (ibid, p. 2). By argu-ing for the presence of providence already existingwithin Japan's past, Ebina justified his own belief inJapan's eventual conversion to Christianity.

What, then, of Ebina's assertion that the experienceof defeat in war was necessary to bring nations torely on this providence? To prescribe such a fate forJapan would have been to deny its capacity to sur-vive the modern world. Ebina could, however, iden-tify a tragic nation in Korea and even see its colo-nization as a potential source of salvation for Japan."Certainly, I celebrate the amalgamation of Japan

and Korea on behalf of the Japanese. For it is anopportunity for the Japanese people to become agreat nation. Without annexing other countries, acountry cannot display its own spirituality or nur-ture its own capacity for greatness..." (Ebina, 1910, p.70). Colonization, like war earlier, demonstratedJapan's ability to move beyond its narrow culturalboundaries to take on a task of universal signifi-cance. But here Ebina goes further, "Therefore, onthe occasion of this grand achievement, the peopleof the empire must demonstrate their inherent spiri-tuality. Japan's traditional island character must die[so that Japan may] be resurrected into the spirit of anew and rising nation." Ultimately, by substitutingKorea's tragedy for its own, Japan would experiencea rebirth that would eradicate the rift between itsparticularistic past and its more recent assimilationinto the universal history of nation-states. Here, Iwould argue, the definition of shinkoku kensetsu thatEbina first introduced during the Russo-JapaneseWar witnesses a sense of completion. By locating thesource of Japan's salvation outside of itself, shinkokukensetsu could present the possibility of a muchbroader cultural transformation neither reducible tometropole nor colony. Thus Ebina could conclude, "Icelebrate not only for the Japanese and Korean peo-ples, I celebrate the progress of the divine nation"(ibid, p. 69).

I have argued above that Ebina's conception ofshinkoku kensetsu ought to be interpreted as oneformed and brought to completion through, ratherthan projected upon, Japan's colonization of Korea.This suggests that, in the future, interpreting themeaning of Kumiai Church missionary efforts inKorea will require more attention to how their reli-gious beliefs were shaped through their involve-ment in empire.

References:

Cooper, Frederick and Stoler, Ann Laura. 1997."Between Metropole and Colony: Rethinking aResearch Agenda." In Frederick Cooper andAnn Laura Stoler, eds. Tensions of Empire: Colo-nial Cultures in a Bourgeois World. Berkeley:University of California Press.

Ebina Danjo. "Kyoiku Chokugo to Kirisutokyo" Shinjin,January 1911.

Ebina Danjo. "Nikkan Gappei wo Shukusu," Shinjin,September, 1910.

Ebina Danjo. "Seisho no Sensoshugi," Shinjin, March,1904.


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Globalization and University Reforms: A Transnational andComparative Analysis of the Case of Japan

Jennifer Chan-TiberghienAbe Fellow and Visiting Scholar in the Reischauer Institute of Japanese

Studies, Harvard UniversitySeptember 29, 2005

How to reform century-old higher education systems in order to remain competi-tive in the global knowledge economy has become one of the most pressing policyconcerns across industrialized countries in the past decade. While the impact ofeconomic globalization on national educational restructuring across both industri-alized and industrializing countries has been amply documented by educationalresearchers in the past two decades, most of this research has focused on reformsin the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Few studies have looked at the policy making process in nonAnglo-Saxon countries and, in particular, those with traditionally strong state-controlled educational systems suchas Japan and France. Professor Chan-Tiberghien's research offers a transnational and comparative analysis of uni-versity governance reforms in two "late" non-Anglo Saxon reformers: Japan and France. Given a similar, central-ized higher educational system and common pressures to reform since the late 1980s, how do we explain the diver-gent reform outcomes in university governance between Japan and France? This presentation focused on the caseof Japan and, in particular, the 2004 National Universities Incorporation Law. Professor Chan-Tiberghien analyzedthe influence of international norms on university reform agenda-setting in Japan and the impact of the domesticpolitical process on reform meanings and outcome.

Single Mothers, Welfare-to-Work Policiesand the Restructuring of Japanese Welfare

Aya EzawaAbe Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor,Swarthmore CollegeTuesday, November 8, 2005

In 2002, the Japanese government implemented majorreforms which significantly altered the character of statesupport for single mothers in Japan. Similar to reformsintroduced in the US, Japanese single parent policies have

been restructured with the goal of moving single mothers "from welfare to work." The restructuring of lone parentpolicies and the emphasis on work stands in stark contrast to most contemporary descriptions of Japan's welfaresystem, which stress women's domestic role as mothers and caretakers of the elderly as a key element of Japanesewelfare provision. Is Japan bidding farewell to maternalism and the postwar ideal of the "professional housewife"?In this talk, Professor Ezawa reassessed the gendered character of Japan's welfare regime based on an analysis ofJapanese single parent policies. More specifically, she explored the logic of recent reforms, and how policiessupport single mothers' welfare and the ability to work. Based on life-history interviews with single mothers,Professor Ezawa further highlighted the main problems single mothers face in becoming economicallyindependent through work as envisioned by policy makers. Even though single mothers constitute only a minorityof women, their experience provides a window on the gendered character of Japan's welfare regime, as well aswomen's ability to become economically independent from families, husbands, and the state.

ISS Contemporary Japan Group at the Instituteof Social Science, University of TokyoThe ISS Contemporary Japan Group serves as a forum for researchers on Japan to receive criticalfeedback on their work. Researchers visiting Tokyo are invited to contact one of the persons listedbelow if they would like to make a presentation. Meetings are open to everyone. Please contactProfessor Ishida Hiroshi ([email protected]) or Nakamura Mayumi ([email protected]) for more information.

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Newsletter of the lnstitute of Social Science, University ...newslet.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ssj33/ssj33.pdfMarriage Newsletter of the lnstitute of Social Science, University of Tokyo SocialISSN