Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Why is non-marriage increasing among highly educated women in Japan, one of the least gender-equal industrialized countries? According to the economic independence theorists improving economic standing among women leads to the decline of marriage primarily due to women’s avoidance of unequal gender burdens in household. However, scholars have pointed out this theory’s contradiction in its exclusive emphasis on women’s economic independence in such highly gendered traditional society as Japan. Corresponding to the limited applicability of economic independence theory to Japan, a country with distinct gender inequality, this paper examines how gender barriers in the labor and marriage markets shape employed women’s views of marriage in Japan.
Based on in-depth interviews with 26 never-married Japanese women, the paper addresses how employed women’s views of marriage are shaped by gender inequality in employment structure and the marriage market in Japan. Employing the notion of gender strategies, I analyze four strategies (deflection, repudiation, ambivalence, and compliance) through which employed women negotiate their positions within the discourses of marriage and rationalize their non-married status. I also discuss these women’s non-married status as resistance to the gender inequalities in the current employment structure and marital relationships, which, I argue, possibly translate into the patterns of rising non-marriage in Japan.