TY - JOUR
T1 - Marriage intentions, desires, and pathways to later and less marriage in Japan
AU - Raymo, James M.
AU - Uchikoshi, Fumiya
AU - Yoda, Shohei
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank participants at the conference on Family Changes and Inequality in East Asia at the University of Pennsylvania and the Jensen Speaker Series at Duke University for their valuable comments and suggestions. We also thank Siying Fu for data assistance on an early draft of this paper. Permission to use the data on National Fertility Surveys was obtained through the research project of the National Fertility Surveys, the Department of Population Dynamics Research, the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research on the basis of the Statistics Act, Article 32(2020/6/10). The data for this secondary analysis, Japanese Life Course Panel Survey of the Youth (JLPS-Y) and the Middle-aged (JLPS-M) Wave 1-9, 2007-2015 (Japanese Life Course Panel Surveys project, Institute of Social Science, The University of Tokyo), were provided by the Social Science Japan Data Archive, Center for Social Research and Data Archives, Institute of Social Science, The University of Tokyo.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021. James M. Raymo, Fumiya Uchikoshi & Shohei Yoda. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - BACKGROUND Understanding the trend toward later and less marriage is particularly important in lowfertility societies where alternatives to marriage are limited and childbearing outside of marriage remains rare. OBJECTIVE Our goal in this paper is to advance our understanding of the wide variety of explanations offered for later and less marriage in Japan by focusing explicitly on marriage intentions and desires. METHODS Using two sources of nationally representative data, we describe the prevalence of positive, negative, and passive marriage intentions and desires among men and women who have never been married. We also examine socioeconomic differences in intentions, patterns of marriage desires across young adulthood, and relationships between marriage desires and outcomes. By linking three pathways to later and less marriage (rejection of marriage, failure to realize marriage desires, and unplanned drifting into singlehood) to specific theoretical frameworks, we generate indirect insights into explanations for later and less marriage. CONCLUSIONS Although the large majority of unmarried men and women want to marry, less than half of respondents married across nine waves of the Japanese Life Course Panel Survey. Among those who remained unmarried, roughly two-thirds can be classified as ‘drifting’ into singlehood, about 30% as ‘failing to realize marriage desires,’ and no more than 5% as ‘rejecting marriage.’
AB - BACKGROUND Understanding the trend toward later and less marriage is particularly important in lowfertility societies where alternatives to marriage are limited and childbearing outside of marriage remains rare. OBJECTIVE Our goal in this paper is to advance our understanding of the wide variety of explanations offered for later and less marriage in Japan by focusing explicitly on marriage intentions and desires. METHODS Using two sources of nationally representative data, we describe the prevalence of positive, negative, and passive marriage intentions and desires among men and women who have never been married. We also examine socioeconomic differences in intentions, patterns of marriage desires across young adulthood, and relationships between marriage desires and outcomes. By linking three pathways to later and less marriage (rejection of marriage, failure to realize marriage desires, and unplanned drifting into singlehood) to specific theoretical frameworks, we generate indirect insights into explanations for later and less marriage. CONCLUSIONS Although the large majority of unmarried men and women want to marry, less than half of respondents married across nine waves of the Japanese Life Course Panel Survey. Among those who remained unmarried, roughly two-thirds can be classified as ‘drifting’ into singlehood, about 30% as ‘failing to realize marriage desires,’ and no more than 5% as ‘rejecting marriage.’
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U2 - 10.4054/DEMRES.2021.44.3
DO - 10.4054/DEMRES.2021.44.3
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85100032705
SN - 1435-9871
VL - 41
SP - 67
EP - 98
JO - Demographic Research
JF - Demographic Research
ER -