3 - Understanding Women's Gender Consciousness in Marital Relationships: Traditional Gender Roles or Rationalism?

Presentation Abstract
In contemporary Japan, the dynamics of gender consciousness within familial structures undergo continual evolution, a trend echoing the broader societal shift towards gender egalitarianism. However, nuances remain: notably, a lingering perception among married women favoring spouses of superior socio-economic standing. The underlying motivations for this, whether they're anchored in traditional gender roles or lean towards maximizing family benefits, are not straightforward. Drawing on paired data from the "Japanese Life Course Panel Surveys", a comprehensive survey initiated in 2004 by the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo, this study scrutinizes these inclinations. This dataset, expanded in 2018 to incorporate spouses, captures a holistic snapshot of familial socio-economic interplays. Our analytical approach, leveraging ANOVA, stratifies couples by their income juxtaposition and the wives' contribution to household tasks, aiming to discern patterns in marital satisfaction. Interestingly, our findings debunk presumptions: higher earnings by husbands paired with increased domestic responsibilities for wives didn't correlate with enhanced marital contentment. This divergence suggests a contemporary shift in marital evaluations. Rather than adhering strictly to antiquated gender role perceptions, modern Japanese married women appear to be adopting a more pragmatic lens, wherein marital evaluations align more closely with individual resources and practical considerations. This research illuminates an intriguing pivot in Japanese socio-cultural paradigms, indicating a potential departure from tradition towards more rationale-based marital perspectives.

Co-Author 1
Satoshi Miwa, University of Tokyo