Following is the English translation of: SAWAGUCHI Keiichi. "Shohyō: Maeda Naoko-cho Chiiki sangyō no seisui to kazoku hendō no shakaigaku: Sangyō jikan, sedai, kazoku senryaku." Kazoku shakaigaku kenkyū 30.2 (2018): 264–265.
*For citations, please use the original publication.
SAWAGUCHI Keiichi. “The Rise and Fall of Regional Industries and the Sociology of Family Change (Kōyō Shobō, 2018) by MAEDA Naoko.”
Translated by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda
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In contemporary Japan, how do distinct family structures manifest themselves in different regions and how are they sustained over multiple generations? Maeda’s book takes up this topic directly and grapples with it through ambitious research. As the author herself notes at the beginning of the book, the topic of regional characteristics of the family is an important one for many Japanese sociologists and they have tackled this issue through interdisciplinary analyses. While acknowledging the importance of this question, however, I suspect that most sociologists would hesitate to become the authoritative voice by offering their own theoretical explanations and empirical research to address the issue.
The first half of Maeda’s book provides those of us who are interested in the regional diversity of the familial forms with an important overview of the pre-existing studies. In it, the author challenges the fact that the field of sociology of the family in Japan has interpreted the effects of modernization and industrialization on the family as absolutely monodirectional and linear. The first three chapters, framed as the “Theory Section,” mobilize the theories and opinions employed in the fields of industrial sociology and regional sociology of Japan as well as household economy studies (a subfield of family history) in Europe and the US, in order to investigate the connections between regional industries and family strategies. Based on these fruits of the pre-existing research, the author argues that the industrial development of Japan has been polyphyletic and that, when it comes to the acquisition of labor force, different regions employed different strategies.
For instance, it is widely acknowledged that the rate of women’s employment by age varies by region. According to the author, that is an effect of the various regional characteristics of industrial structures, such as the speed of industrial progress and how dependent they are on household manufacturing systems. Moreover, based on variables such as the rate of women’s employment by age and the rate of cohabitation of three generations in different prefectures, the author categorizes the entire country into six clusters, and this geographical distribution of the clusters is vividly illustrated on a map of Japan. I was surprised at the intellectually stimulating output that was obtained from this simple analysis.
In this book, the region that Maeda pays attention to consists of central Japan’s inland prefectures, or the “central cluster,” including Gifu prefecture. This central cluster spreads out in the area characterized by a form of industrialization particular to the locale; despite the critical role that women have played in earning money, as well as the comparatively high rate of cohabitation of three generations (which would normally enable the young mothers to work outside the homes while their mothers or mothers-in-law care for their children), the employment rate of women in their early 30’s is lower than the national average.
Gifu city, the subject of this book’s empirical research, underwent development in the 1960’s by producing women and children’s clothing. What sustained this industry was the labor provided by local women in the form of naishoku (home work) and married couples’ small businesses. The author’s strong interest is in understanding the relationship between housewifization in urban areas and the advance of home work by married women in Gifu city. In garment making, which requires a high degree of skill, experienced workers were sought after, and skilled workers were able to receive high wages. As a result, in Gifu city, families employed the strategy of maintaining the three generation households, wherein the mothers-in-law continued to engage in sewing work at home, while the wives/mothers of the young children would take on the housework. Thus, families in Gifu city standardized this unique division of labor between the generations.
In depicting this family strategy involving regionally specific industrial structure and labor, Maeda outlines three research questions for the purposes of conducting empirical research on women of child rearing years in modern day Gifu city: 1) What is the relationship between the employment rate of women of child rearing years and multi-generational cohabitation? 2) How does the expansion or contraction of industry influence the life course of the two generations of women living together? 3) What is the relationship between individual strategies and familial strategies regarding inter-generational division of labor? In order to address these questions, the author draws on sample surveys that used random sampling, interviews with mothers of young children who are living with their parents or in-laws, as well as data collected from newsletters at local job centers geared toward those who are seeking employment through naishoku.
There are a number of interesting findings in chapters 4 through 6 of the book, which fall under the heading of “Empirical Section.” In the 4th chapter, based on a sampling survey of women in Gifu city, the author analyzes whether or not couples live with parents, and if so, whether on the husband’s or the wife’s side, as well as the determining factors involved in employment. Whether the couple lives with the husband or the wife’s parents depends on the amount of resources the couple has, including the husband’s line of work and level of education. For instance, the author remarks on a particular form of division of labor unique to Gifu city: if a woman’s husband is employed in the manufacturing or security industries, the couple is more likely to live with his parents and the wife focuses on child rearing.
In Chapter 5, the author uses data drawn from domestic workers’ newsletters as well as interviews to show how, because naishoku was well-suited to the structure of the modern family, it proved indispensable to supplying local industries with labor power. For married women, the advantage of naishoku was that they could do it while also prioritizing housework and school events. The author shows how, within the busy life of the family involved in the sewing industry, labor between husband and wife as well as between the generations was divided in a flexible way. Chapter 6 describes the division of labor between the mother-in-law and the wife: while the mother-in-law works, the wife focuses on raising the children, and when the children become old enough, then the wife takes up employment once again. The findings show how these conditions establish a complementary work relationship between the two women. For the families involved in the sewing industry in Gifu city, this kind of work strategy was to their economic advantage: since both generations shared the belief that the mother should raise the children while they are young, they were able to establish this work relationship.
One of the excellent aspects of this book is that it carefully demonstrates how familial strategies changed with the times. Using Hareven’s concept of industrial time and family time, the author explains how industrialization arose in this region, as well as how patterns of women’s work and family strategies changed over time. Following the rise and fall of the apparel industry (industrial time), women’s in-home labor through naishoku and self-employment came to an end within one generation.
Women of child rearing age who participated in the interview complained about high expectations and low pay in their part-time workplaces. At the same time, they had a positive evaluation of the work done by women of their parents’ generation, whose income was higher and had more flexible working conditions that could adapt to the needs of the family.
From interviews with the mothers of young children, it became obvious that they were looking to improve their careers and re-enter the workforce while being conscious of the timing (Family Time) of their mother-in-law’s retreat from employment. Whether or not the women are able to smoothly establish a complimentary work relationship when their mothers-in-law retire depends on the timing of their own marriage (individual time). Making this adjustment becomes more difficult as more and more women delay their first marriage.
The author regrets that the interviews are limited to women who are focused on childrearing and live with their husband’s parents, and that there has not yet been a study on the older generation engaged in domestic paid work (i.e., naishoku or home business). I look forward to the fruits of the author’s next research project. That being said, the empirical section of this book successfully utilizes both qualitative and quantitative data to clearly depict the family strategies. Reading this section of the book recalled for me the importance of the contextual paradigm that Andrew Abbott emphasized in his book, Department and Discipline: Chicago Sociology at One Hundred. In order to understand family strategies and their position in time and space, it is absolutely necessary to reconstruct the specific context by combining a variety of materials and data through consistent, careful work. One of the reasons that most researchers have hesitated to make headway on this topic is because a thick monograph, such as Maeda’s book under review, which requires much time and energy, is still the most suitable form for providing a detailed description and a fully convincing interpretation of the phenomena. I hope that this monograph will provide a new stimulation to other sociologists of the family and researchers working in related fields, inspiring them to conduct similarly excellent research on other regions as well.
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Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda, PhD.
Writer, teacher and translator. Dr. Kuroda received her PhD in Japanese from UC Berkeley in 2018, after which she became a postdoctoral fellow at the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies at Harvard University (2018-2019). Born in Tokyo, raised in Texas, she currently lives in Boston.
黒田ホフマン理沙 (文学博士)
ライター・教育者・翻訳者。２０１８年、カリフォルニア大学バークレー校にて日本文学博士号を取得し、その後一年間、ハーバード大学ライシャワー日本研究所で、ポストドクトラルフェローを務める。 東京生まれのテキサス育ちで、現在はボストンに在住。