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Introducing gender perspective into international migration studies has been considered very important since the end of the 20th century. However, there is not much discussion on how the gender structure of home country causes immigrants' international migration. Classical studies on international migration have revealed that economic and political disparity between home country and host country causes international migration. In this paper, the author clarifies that the disparity of gender structure between two countries may motivate women's international migration. This study focuses on women who moved to the United States from postwar Japan. The proportion of women in the Japanese people who immigrate to the United States far exceeds the national average. The characteristic of Japanese female immigrants is that there are few women who migrated to the US with their families. Many have migrated alone. In this paper, the author will analyze the interview data for the Japanese female immigrants who live in single metropolitan areas in the West Coast of the United States. The author analyzes the data of 15 women who have migrated to the United States alone, collected by the interview research held from 2011 to 2014. Many Japanese informants in the study reported resistance to gender structure in Japanese society. In any case, it is clear that "gender structure" difference between the home country and the host country becomes an important factor which cause women's international migration. As classical studies on immigration shows that economic and political gap between the home country and the host country causes international migration, this paper disclosed that the disparity of gender structure between two countries may motivate women's international migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Western contexts, immigrant women and women of color typically fall at the bottom of earnings and occupational hierarchies. This pattern occurs at every level of the occupational structure--even immigrant women with college degrees working in professional occupations experience this "double jeopardy," earning less than both native-born women and native-born men. However, some scholars have argued that immigrant women in Japan, one of the most gender unequal countries in the world, avoid the trap of double disadvantage. This paper tests this provocative claim with data collected from over 500 foreign and Japanese workers in 12 large firms. I find that indeed, foreign women earn more than Japanese women, but this advantage is slight. I also show that, despite its reputation for xenophobia, ethnic or foreign nativity penalties are small in comparison to the gender pay gap. The premium that foreign women receive for their unique skills counterbalances the modest ethnic penalties, but barely makes a dent in the sizable gender pay gap that all women experience regardless of ethnicity or nativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why are female-dominated paths (which I will call ‘feminine paths’) in education and occupations still chosen by a number of women, especially in a society like Japan? I argue that it is partly because a choice for ‘feminine paths’ is believed to produce advantageous quality (which I call ‘feminine capital’) in the marriage market for women. In this paper, with qualitative analysis on interview comments, I will investigate people’s perception of ‘feminine paths’ in contrast with ‘egalitarian (or male-dominated) paths’, regarding their advantage in the marriage market. The analyses in this paper suggest that ‘feminine paths’ in education and occupations are oftentimes perceived as more advantageous for women’s marital status attainment than ‘egalitarian paths’ because of cultural capital and social capital they entail. However, such ‘advantageous qualities for a marriage’ consists of various and often contradictory elements. Especially, the qualities useful ‘before’ marriage (for a ‘search’ of husband) is different from qualities useful ‘after’ marriage (for a ‘compatibility’ with household responsibilities), and such contradiction suggests why the pursuit of the two courses of status attainment (one through marriage, and the other through occupational attainment) becomes difficult, resulting in a discontinuity in an occupational career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the graying Japanese society, primary caregivers for frail elderly people are predominantly their female family members. This paper discusses expected gender roles in family caregiving in relation to social structures and cultural norms in Japanese society. The paper also intends to highlight the constant negotiations that many Japanese people grapple with at the intersections of gender-biased expectations, social structural forces, and cultural norms. To explain this gender dynamic in family caregiving, this paper incorporates a multilevel conceptual framework that includes interactionism, social structures, and cultures. As for the structural component of gender, limited availability of social services and long-term care programs in Japanese society are introduced. The cultural component in this framework entails traditional familial ideology, called ie in Japanese, and norms of filial piety. Both the social structures and cultural norms contribute to reproducing gender roles that predominantly put burdens on women. On the other hand, the rapid social changes that are taking place in today?s Japanese society (e.g., increasing female labor participation) challenge socially constructed gender roles in family caregiving. In response to such social changes, an increasing number of male family members are taking on family caregiving responsibilities. Experiences of such Japanese male caregivers are one example of negotiations at the intersection of social structures, culture, and gender expectations. Successful negotiations can lead us to a new set of social expectations and structures, by which both men and women can more comfortably abide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will illustrate how and why sexual harassment has been constructed as a social problem in Japan. In 1999, the Equal Employment Opportunity Law (EEOL) amended the employer's responsibility to create a "sexual harassment free" work environment in Japan. Sekuhara (a Japanese coined word for sexual harassment) received tremendous national attention with the Fukuoka case - a landmark case for sexual harassment in 1989. Japanese society understood sekuhara as a social issue by the time the EEOL included the employer responsibility for sexual harassment. The legal amendment, however, came not only with an increasing social awareness, but also with an international pressure to improve women's status. For instance, since the first passage of the EEOL in 1985, Japan has reformed the EEOL as the Convention for Elimination for all the forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) pressured for change. Interestingly during the same time, the national media covered sexual harassment scandals caused by Japanese firms operating in the United States. How have these "influences from outside" shaped Japanese understanding of sexual harassment? I will use sekuhara as a case to investigate how Japanese has shaped their "gender culture." Drawing examples from the cases in the U.S., I intend to illustrate legal and social definitions of sexual harassment, as well as, social responses to the issue in Japan. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do Japanese parents continue to underinvest in their daughters? education? According to the 1994 Ministry of Education Basic School Survey, while 39 percent of 18 year-old men entered 4-year universities, only 21 percent of women of the same age entered universities. This research examines the motives underlying parental educational investments. Interviews conducted by the author with 104 respondents in Tokyo and Okinawa in 2002-03 shed light on the educational investment decision-making process in two generations of Japanese respondents living in two very different regions of Japan. This paper examines differences in parental educational investments in siblings in the same family and compares investments in regions with relatively low and high levels of fertility. Generational and regional variance in the gender-bias of educational investments is explored, exchange-based theories of investment are challenged, and the gender ideology and differing valuation of education underlying such investments, revealed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the gender division of household labor in the United States and Japan to test if economic exchange and gender ideology theories operate equivalently in both contexts. Both nations have undergone similar trends of industrialization, urbanization, and other modernization forces, yet each country retains a unique cultural history with respect to the division of household labor. Previous work argues that the traditional gender division of work is more strongly enforced and encouraged through gender ideology in Japan than in the U.S. Using structural equations modeling, separate dimensions of gender ideology are modeled as latent variables, gender ideology is included explicitly as a mediating rather than an exogenous variable, and formal testing for equivalence of the models between the U.S. and Japan is possible. In Japan, going against the traditional beliefs that women really want a home and children and that a man's job is to earn money has the greatest impact on housework. In the U.S., relative income between the wife and husband is the biggest predictor of the division of household labor, but this factor is not significant in Japan. Women's work in the U.S. affects housework both directly and indirectly through beliefs about whether working hurts a woman's family relationships. The effect of gender ideology and work experience on the division of household labor are independent of each other in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on data gathered from 16 months of participant observation research and in-depth interviews with gender activists in Japan, this paper challenges the dominant structural framework within social movement scholarship, offering an alternative perspective on social movement structures and strategic action. Social movement scholarship has used state-centered approaches to argue that social movement structures and strategies develop in accordance with state structures. This perspective predicts that social movements will develop a strong national orientation in centralized states and a more localized orientation in more decentralized states. The gender justice movement in Japan does not follow this predicted pattern; it features a localized grassroots movement directed towards both national and local politics in a centralized state. The movement has avoided creating a national organization, opting instead for a loosely-connected coalition of local women's organizations. My analysis explains this empirical puzzle by examining the meanings Japanese gender activists ascribe to their activist networks. My data reveal that these activists define "effectiveness" in terms of enacting alternative ways of doing politics, empowering women, and giving voice to the underrepresented. Their shared alternative view of effectiveness guides both their organizing and mobilizing strategies and is reflected in the locally-embedded networks they choose to build. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at historical changes in population, life course, family, and culture of care in Japan. Intergenerational Mutual Care in Japan developed in a context of many factors, including cultural ideals, centralization of the civil state (ritsuyo), and the family unit called the Ie. The ie was a legal and social construct economically defining a household. It created an imperative to carry on the family name by caring for the elderly by providing for an heir. The ie was the product of historical and cultural factors. The establishment of agriculture in Japan led to an increase of population, followed by a new civilization influenced by Confucian principles, which taught respect and caring for the elderly and shaped the development of the ie. By the time of the Tokugawa Period, the traditions of the Ie were codified in service of that regime's struggle against Christianity. However, detailed records of the time show a diversity of population patterns, affected by local customs and worker migration, which also affected the development of society. With the Meiji Restoration, Japan experienced a wave of modernization, which led to the nationalization of the nation and the family. The new regime further entrenched the ie into law, turning the Japanese family into a social unit in service of industry and Japan's imperialism. After World War II, the American occupiers introduced reforms liberating Japanese women from their traditional roles. As women took advantage of new opportunities for their life course, this led to a lessening of the ie's influence on the shape of society that continues to this day. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between specialization and happiness in marriage in the U.S. and Japan. Our findings, based on the General Social Surveys in the U.S. and Japan, indicate both similarities and differences in the determinants of marital happiness in the two countries. In the U.S., the findings are mixed. Women in the U.S. are more likely to embrace the bargaining model where their happiness is determined by their own income. Men in the U.S. are more likely to support the specialization model; they are happier if their wives are not working or, alternatively, if they are financially dependent on their wives. In Japan, we find support for the specialization model, particularly in the case of women; they are happier if they are specialized in the household and they have a higher household income. Our research highlights how marital quality is affected by the institutional context and the normative environment. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The form of institutional linkages between school and employers in the youth labor market has changed over a decade-long economic recession in Japan. The current paper addresses the question of why the institutional linkages between a women's college and large Japanese firms in the secondary labor market have survived despite the long-term tightening of labor demand. From the perspective of network theory, I argue that employers value the information about applicants that is conducive to reducing personnel management costs, and which can only be reliably obtained through the linkages. Employers expect the school to use such information to screen nominees. By using the data from the applicant pool of the school nomination system, the results showed that the school tends to nominate candidates who are living with their parents (cost less for housing fringe benefit), and none of those who lived alone were actually hired. On the other hand, a candidate's academic performance and personality evaluation, which could also be obtained through the more formal recruitment process, was not a significant predictor of being hired. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article cites a study which looks into how women in general, and young women in particular, have come to Japan during the last decade to work as temporary dispatched workers. The study is a result of the research conducted by the author that included the interviews with temporary women workers. Some studies conducted on changes in labor and employment in the context of globalization results in the lack of attention towards these variables at the micro/local level. It seems that the issue of subjectivities requires more attention in studies focused on labor and employment.

An historical sociology of official population statistics in Japan reveals how both knowledge and social structure is produced where national politics and culture meet the technical tools of government administration. I analyze historical forms, enumerator guidelines, and laws registers and censuses to show the how the categories of population enumeration are related to broader political aims of government. While one prominent feature of census enumeration has its scientific objectivity, my study builds on others that focus on the politicization of categories by also examining the laws and procedures in which categories are embedded. My analysis suggests that both real and conceptual boundaries of households are mutually constitutive of changing relationships represented in official discourses of modernization and nation-building, democratization and reconstruction, and the creation of a welfare society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the extent and causes of differences in information communication technologies (ICT) usage in five countries: the U.S., Sweden, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. We focus on cross-countries differences in ICT access, use and skills with regards to gender, age, education and income and how any such differences have evolved over time. Our results indicate that there is digital inequality in all five countries, but the gaps in ICT usage tend to be more prevalent in the three Asian nations than in the U.S. and Sweden. Digital inequality has narrowed over time along some dimensions but not all. Our findings generally suggest that gaps in ICT usage along demographic and socioeconomic dimensions reflect the extent of pre-existing inequality in other areas of the economy and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article aims to examine work decisions among women widowed as young mothers in Okinawa, Japan in a context of economic hardship and nebulous gender boundaries in the immediate post-World War II period. It isolates the effect of women's work experience on attitudes in a socio-historical context of changing gender boundaries and also avoids the murky reverse causality inherent in the relationship between work and attitudes. These widows not just only had to work but work as the household head in order to support their families.

By performing a content analysis of 246 Japanese comic strips published on Mother's Day (MD) and Father's Day (FD) from 1950 to 2004, I replicated the research of LaRossa, Jaret, Gadgil, and Wynn (2001) who examined gender disparities in American comic strips published on the same holidays from 1945 to 1999. By comparing and contrasting the findings between Japan and the United States, I present how gender disparities were produced and altered over time in Japan. In addition, I demonstrate the role of comic strips in cross-cultural research. Each comic strip was examined with the following questions in mind: 1) How often were females and males portrayed? 2) How often were fathers and mothers portrayed as being outside? 3) How often were fathers and mothers portrayed reading? 4) How often were fathers and mothers portrayed sleeping? 5) How often were fathers and mothers portrayed wearing an apron? 6) How often were fathers and mothers portrayed performing household chores? A combination of the different measures was used to calculate a gender disparity score for each half decade. Ultimately my study, placed alongside the work of LaRossa et al., reinforces the value of comparatively examining comic strips in cross-cultural research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For years work sociologists have discussed a phenomenon known as the gender paradox in job satisfaction: women do not fare as well as men in the workplace, yet they report levels of satisfaction that are comparable to and often exceed those of men. I hypothesize that this paradox exists because men and women hold different work values and experience different job rewards in the workplace. This study analyzes the gender paradox in job satisfaction through an international analysis, using data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) for Japan, the United States at two time points, and Sweden. I find that there is a gender gap in job satisfaction for all three countries. When controlling for work values and job rewards the effect of gender on job satisfaction becomes non-significant for Swedish and Japanese workers, although Swedish mothers are significantly more satisfied than Swedish fathers. However, the gender gap in job satisfaction in the United States persists even after controlling for work values and job rewards. The results suggest that for the United States, work values and job rewards alone do not account for all variability in job satisfaction between the genders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the case of the gender equal employment opportunity policy in Japan, I intend to examine the relationship between legal reforms and attitudinal changes. Even as the low fertility rate is an urgent issue in Japan today, the state has implemented policies designed to increase women?s employment ? policies which may well fuel further fertility decline. Women?s participation in the formal labor market is becoming extremely important in Japan today. Does Japan resolve the issue of traditional gender roles which interacts with recent social challenges ? employed mothers, fertility decline, shortage of labor force, and immigration? When and how do attitudes toward women?s employment transform to international norms? There is a contradiction between legal reforms and gender role expectations in contemporary Japan. Diffusion of international legal norms explains why such a contradiction, or decoupling, is present; it is internationally normative that modern nation-states have a gender equal employment opportunity law. My research focuses on how the relationship between legal reforms and attitudinal changes shifted over time. I intend to delve into the process of legal reforms and social norm transformation in Japan since the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether there are differences in men?s and women?s use of computers and the Internet in the U.S. and Japan and how any such gender gaps have changed over time. We focus on these two countries because information technology is widely used in both but there are substantial differences in institutions and social organizations. We use microdata from several surveys during 1997-2001 to examine differences and trends in computer and Internet usage in the two countries. Our results indicate that there were significant gender differences in computer and Internet usage in both countries during the mid 1990s. By 2001, these gender differences had disappeared or were even reversed in the U.S. but remained in Japan. People not currently working have lower levels of IT use and skills in both countries regardless of gender, but working women in Japan have lower levels of IT use and skills than working men, a difference that generally does not occur in the U.S. This suggests that employment status per se does not play a large role in the gender gap in Japan, but type of employment does. The prevalence of nonstandard employment among female workers in Japan accounts for much of the gender gap in IT use and skills in that country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the performance by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell of the country-western song ¡§El Paso¡¨ at the annual conference of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Vietnam on July 27, 2001, to help illustrate that whiteness needs to be studied through the ¡§interlocking axes of power, spatial location, and history,¡¨ and that it is a discursive rather than a biological phenomenon. I suggest that this song ¡§uses a pose of ¡¥innocent yearning¡¦ both to capture people¡¦s imagination and to conceal its complicity with often brutal domination,¡¨ romanticizing an exploitative power relationship between a cowboy, the adventurous patriarchal white national agent who symbolically represents ¡§Americans,¡¨ and an ¡§exotic¡¨ woman, the vulnerable sexual object open for conquest, who symbolically represents Others. Although studies of whiteness in the West generally have made ¡§critical interventions into the discourse of whiteness,¡¨ however, they have not sufficiently addressed its ¡§internationalization.¡¨ I argue that, if whiteness is a discourse, then white bodies are bodies that are discursively white in any particular context, not bodies that are taxonomically white in the Western context. Although Powell is an African American, in his role on the international stage, he literally embodies the cowboy, exercising global white patriarchal American power and helping to fashion the discourse to support it. One discourse of whiteness does not ¡¥trump¡¦ the other, however, even if one is more naturalized. In the body, I examine Powell¡¦s performance, and the power dynamics revealed therein, to examine aspects of the American relation to Vietnam and Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we examined values which mothers implicitly or explicitly convey to their daughters in relation to the increasing impact of education on mothering in Japan. We conducted qualitative analyses on four sets of in-depth interviews with 16 mothers living in Osaka, Japan. From 116 mothers with preschool children initially interviewed, we selected 16 mothers, both high SES and low SES. We visited their house, and conducted four open-ended interviews. Analyzing the 16 mothersf discourses, we identified two ambivalent messages that those mothers posit for their daughters. One is a conventional message: that women should become the primary caretakers of their children. This message has been passed down from mothers to daughters through countless generations, and it is partly responsible for the unchanging motherhood role of women in Japan. The second message is an individualistic message: that their children should pursue their happiness and their own lives, a message which sometimes contradicts the conventional logic of the womanfs role. This individualistic message is a recent, almost radical, concept in middle class Japanese mothering. Such a message reflects a motherfs hope that society will change, and women will have more options open to them. We argued that the educational system positively reinforced the individualistic message conveyed to daughters as it widens the choices available to women. However, examinations of working mothers demonstrate that self-fulfillment is not so easy to pursue considering the social pressure stemming from being the primary caretaker of children in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using longitudinal data with a nationally representative sample, this study examines the determinants of childbirths after age 25 among Japanese married women during the four-year period from 1994 to 1998. Four hypotheses of fertility differentials in industrialized countries were assessed. Results suggest that the determinants of childbearing after age 25 among Japanese married women depend on whether it is first birth, second birth, or third birth. First birth rates are explained by the women's economic opportunities hypothesis, with wives without college education or wives working at a very small or a large company having lower birth rates than those with college education and those who were not employed. Second birth rates are explained by the household economic constraints hypothesis, the leisure and self-fulfillment orientations hypothesis, and the gender inequality hypothesis. Wives whose husbands have only high school education or less have lower birth rates than those whose husbands have college education, and wives who do more housework and childcare and spend fewer hours in leisure activities have higher birth rates than other wives. Region of residence is also related to second birth rates, with couples living in rural areas having higher births rates than those living in metropolitan areas. None of the four hypotheses were supported for third birth rates. Moreover, contrary to the gender inequality hypothesis, the more the husband does housework and childcare, the less likely it is for the couple to have their third child. Couples living with parents are more likely to have their third child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine politeness rules based on gender in Japan and the United States. Seventy-three politeness rules in Japan and the United States were adapted from Ogawa and Gudykunst's (1999) study. The multivariate interaction effect between national culture and gender was significant. Given that the multivariate interaction effect was significant, gender differences in politeness rules were examined within national cultures. Five rules were significantly different by gender in Japan, and six rules were significantly different by gender in the United States. All means were higher for females than for males, and most of the rules appear to be associated with other-oriented attitudes. The results suggest that a rule-oriented approach seems to be a viable method for studying gender and politeness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine perceptions of effective communication in the United States and Japan using thematic analysis. Seven themes were isolated in the United States: (1) understanding, (2) compatibility, (3) displaying positive behavior, (4) smoothness of communication, (5) positive outcomes, (6) positive nonverbal communication, and (7) adapting messages. Nine themes were isolated in Japan: (1) compatibility, (2) appropriateness, (3) relations between communicators, (4) positive outcomes, (5) smoothness of communication, (6) displaying positive behavior, (7) understanding, (8) positive nonverbal communication, and (9) clarity. None of the themes in either culture are relationship or gender specific. The labels for several themes are similar across cultures, but the content of the themes tend to be different. Perceptions of effective communication appear to be outcome-based and individual-focused in the United States, and process-based and relationship-focused in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the field of public relations is growing rapidly in Asia, more females enter the field, believing this new field is less conservative and more open to women. Despite their expectations, female PR professionals in Asia often face a more difficult work environment compared with their male counterparts. This study examines how Asian female PR professionals in Japan, Korea and Singapore perceive their job responsibilities, roles and difficulties at work and their methods of coping. Online questionnaires were sent to female professionals in public relations agencies and in-house public relations departments in these three countries. Findings indicate they tend to deny such difficulties and gender inequalities while acknowledging them and trying to cope with the difficulties. The researchers conclude that their inner-conflict resolutions reflect Festinger?s theory of cognitive dissonance and Wrigley?s theory of negotiated resignation and are strongly related to social norms of collectivism and masculinity reinforced in Asian culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study will examine the portrayal of womanhood in Japanese anime and manga (comics) texts to better understand the Japanese female's concept of womanhood. With the increasing amount of anime imported into the U.S., American viewers are exposed to images and narratives that are ridden with Japanese cultural values that may sometimes conflict with the western gender politic. Within the Japanese societal framework, the public sphere has been dominated by the male's voice, including that of popular culture. However, since the emergence of the shojo (girls) manga industry during the 1960s-1970s, the female manga artists and readers seemed to have created a sphere where they could possibly resist, subvert, and reappropriate the existing patriarchal ideology that constricted them within limited social participatory roles. Depiction of womanhood in manga and anime is important not only because of the breadth of its readership and viewership in Japan, but also because they may function as an Althusserian ideological state apparatus. Manga and anime as media can function as a vehicle in maintaining the Japanese's own sense of womanhood, which may then become important tools into the insight into Japanese gender culture. I have selected the Japanese Fruits Basket television animation series because of its significance as a U.S. imported series that will be aired on Toonami in the near future. Through examining the female portrayals in anime texts, American viewers may develop a better understanding of the emerging cultural borderland of Japanese anime to the U.S. media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While recent advances in theories of masculinities have shown new avenues for gender domination afforded to young men, they have left the role of femininity in these negotiations of gender regimes undertheorized. This article examines the ongoing renegotiation of gender ideals in the arena of dyadic romantic relationships occurring against the backdrop of demographic and socioeconomic changes in contemporary Japan. Drawing on 45 in-depth interviews with young Japanese men and women, as well as ethnographic observations, I show how the co-definition of hybrid masculinities and femininities upholds hegemonic gender relations. My findings suggest that by linking the hybrid categories of "herbivorous men" and "carnivorous women" to economic transformations the participants underplay men's structural power and overemphasize women's empowerment while maintaining the normative value hierarchy inherent to gender hegemony. Further, by showing how these hybrid performances are evaluated by both married and unmarried individuals, I draw analytic focus to relational and interactional aspects of gender and demonstrate their importance for gender change beyond individual identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Konty (2005) introduced the idea of microanomie—when an individual cognitively gives higher priority to self-oriented values than to group-oriented values. Konty measured values with the Schwartz Value Survey (SVS) and found that a high ratio of "self-enhancement" values to "self-transcendent" values was significantly related to deviant behavior. The study also found that the effects of gender on deviance were effectively reduced to zero by including microanomie in the regression model. In this study we replicate Konty's findings using three new samples from the United States, Germany and Japan in an effort to test the generalizability of the concept to other samples. We first test whether or not microanomie predicts deviant behavior at the individual level in a combined cross-cultural sample. Our preliminary results replicate Konty's findings that microanomie is related to deviant behavior at the individual level. A second question of interest is whether or not microanomie varies across cultures and whether or not that variation is related to differences in deviance across the cultures. Again, our preliminary results indicate that it does. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statistics indicate a wide gap in educational attainment between men and women in Japan, particularly in comparison with other industrialized countries. Data supports that in Japan, women who settle on a "pink-collar" career often attain higher economic standing through marriage than those who accept a traditionally male-dominated professional job. There exists a perception that investment in human capital is not a rational choice for women given the persistent gender inequality in the labor market. But the picture of gender-imbalanced educational participation has been changing over the past few decades. The college enrollment rate for women doubled between 1992 and 2004 from 17% to 35%. What are the implications of the increase of college-educated women for labor relations? How do female workers with tertiary education differ from their colleagues with high-school diploma or less? Using a high-quality dataset collected by the Japanese government, the present study finds that women with college education differ markedly from women with lower educational attainment in their employment status and career aspirations. At the same time, the present study also finds that the effects of variables that have been associated with women's lower labor market participation rates are present for college-educated women as well. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies of multiple roles and distress have been conducted on the social contexts that affect role-distress relationships. While the social contexts such as gender, age, and race have been often explored, few studies explored disability as a social context. How does the disability, as a social context, affect the relationship between roles and mental health? How does gender related to the experience of disability in old age? Using the Japanese data from National Survey of Japanese Elderly, this study examines how the association between multiple roles and distress varies between those with disability and those without disability for men and women and thus explores the effect of disability and gender as a social context on the association. The results of GLS analyses show that the number of role holdings is smaller for those with disability. The disabled are less likely to have children, grandchildren, work, friend, and community organization membership. Moreover, a series of regression analyses show that the association between multiple roles and distress is much smaller for those with disability. But the results are not always consistent for men and women. Multiple roles do benefit mental health of women with disability, although the benefit is smaller than the benefit for women without disability. On the other hand, multiple roles have no effect for the men with disability. Similarly, the results for individual roles are not consistent for men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies show that men's advantage over women in education during educational expansion has declined in most industrialized countries and in some cases it has been reversed. This article examines how gender and rural origin affect educational opportunity in China and Japan, based on analyzing national data from 2005 China General Social Survey and 2003, 2005 Japan General Social Survey. The findings show that gender inequality persists in both countries but the patterns are different. Women with rural origin are significantly disadvantaged in attending senior high school and higher education in China, while in Japan women with rural origin do not have significant disadvantage comparing to their urban counterparts. While the chances of attending higher secondary and higher education for Japanese women have increased significantly over cohorts, for Chinese women there's no significant change. The findings suggest that during the expansion of the educational system, the changes in the allocation of educational opportunity vary in different countries, and inequality of educational opportunity is affected not only by the changes in educational system but also by various political institutions. Household Registration System combined with strong traditional son preference and resources constraints in rural areas in China have rendered women with rural origin most disadvantaged in getting educational opportunity. New light is shed on how educational gender inequality is affected by political institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]